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[lerasmus]

Good day fine flora and fauna of the fora...

I have a job talk coming up soon at a smallish large research university, but it would be in a teaching-intensive program. I've done quite a few job talks before, but this one struck me as odd, as they told me point blank they don't want me to present on my research nor do they want me to do a teaching presentation (a mock-class happens later in the day). Instead, "tell us about yourself." I know they do want a multimedia phantasmagoria, so that "tell us about yourself" is more like "go ape-sh!t with the powerpoint and make riveting multimedia depictions of yourself." But still, I'm a bit stumped with this one.

I tried to clarify with the SC chair, who was particularly casual about it  - "we just want to get to know you" and seemed to not be able to provide much additional content. It will be a mixed audience - faculty, undergrads, random people from the community (seriously). In contrast, every other part of the interview is quite formalized and coherent. I feel very good about the rest of the day's activities, and normally I do real well with job talks, but normally they're research presentations. I have little idea how to talk about myself. When I hang with my shrink I refer to myself in the 3rd person.

In reading past posts (I went through about 30 posts on job talks), http://forums.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,48478.0.html was the one that dealt with the most similar conundrum.

Do I tell stories about being raised by a pack of Emperor Penguins in the harsh winters of Antarctica? About near-death experiences whilst hang-gliding to my first day of work at my current job? I have some ideas about the job talk (minus the penguins). Actually, I have a draft of it done (with the powerpoint and all). But ideas of things to steer clear from would be so much appreciated.

[alleyoxenfree]

I would explain how and why I chose my area of research, what you love about it, and so on.  In other words, let them get to know the person behind the research, but don't talk about the kitten you had in 3rd grade - unless that was pivotal in your choosing veterinary research.

[systeme_d_]

For an interview, I was once asked to present my own intellectual biography/genealogy.

It was great fun to write.

[watermarkup]

Danger, Will Robinson!

I remember that thread, and that's what your question made me think of. Also, it make me think of the total catastrophe of an on-campus interview I had once where I was told something similar.

I think Alleyoxenfree gives good advice. Talk about your personal approach to your research. Show slides of the libraries where you worked, and the charming towns where they're located, and how some heart-warming childhood experience motivates your interest in trauma theory, or something like that. Good luck.

[scampster]

One interviewee for a interdisciplinary position was asked to do something weird like that. He had some great graphics showing his life trajectory and how it led him to where he is today (from a professional standpoint). What I remember most though is the elementary school picture he placed where he grew up on the map of the US he had. It was kind of endearing. But I was a grad student at the time, so I have no clue if the search committee thought the same as me (I don't believe he was hired, but it was my last year, so I'm not sure).

[mended_drum]

Now I wish I had this interview.  I can see it now:

"M is for the many men I've tasted; E is for the envy I provoked!  N is for the number on my license; and D is for my devastating charm!  E is for my endurance of the snowflakes; D is for the dapper way I dress.  Oh, another D stands for my dazzled colleagues, and R is for my ruthless punctuation.  U is for my understated brilliance, and M is for my maddening use of puns!"

[msparticularity]

I have a slightly different take on this. While I agree that they do want some sense of biography, I would suggest that they want to hear about your passion for teaching (after all, it's a SLAC), and for research as it applies to their setting. Talk to them about how your prior research and teaching experience are informing your next step--your plans for your teaching and research career, for mentoring undergrad researchers, and for being a colleague in a SLAC.

[barred_owl]

Alleyoxenfree and MsP both offer excellent advice.  I would add that, given the presence of random community members in the audience and considering the college's relationship with the community (presuming there is one), you might want to also include a brief segment on how you might extend your knowledge to the community at large.  If you do that, your talk becomes an elaborate explanation of how you plan to balance teaching, research, and service.

I have to admit, I'd love to do an interview like this--beats the heck out of simply answering the question in front of the search committee!

[post_functional]

Now I wish I had this interview.  I can see it now:

"M is for the many men I've tasted; E is for the envy I provoked!  N is for the number on my license; and D is for my devastating charm!  E is for my endurance of the snowflakes; D is for the dapper way I dress.  Oh, another D stands for my dazzled colleagues, and R is for my ruthless punctuation.  U is for my understated brilliance, and M is for my maddening use of puns!"

I would have HOF'd this if it rhymed.

[ls410]

Chime with what others have said.  Personal stories about why you chose field X, your grad school, your research topic/field site, why you love teaching so much, etc.  At the end of the day, they want to know you're collegial but also that you are passionate about teaching and research.

[barcrossliar]

If you do community service that's not too controversial, I'd add that and make connections between your academic life and community involvement.  If you have been, are, or hope to be involved in youth organizations, judging science fairs, helping in your kids' school, habitat for humanity, etc., talk about it.  If you have a hobby that is connected to your field, or has given you insight into teaching and learning, trot it out.  I'd go easy on the personal stuff.   

[lerasmus]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I think the passion part is going to be real important, and I'm going to try to tie in my research and teaching as much as possible and downplay the life-defining role the emperor penguins played in my upbringing and how it led me to invent 2 new words for "snow." I have some good, and hopefully entertaining, stories about the process of doing research. I'm wondering how much to launch into polemics about teaching philosophy or my opinion of the importance of a program such as the one I'm applying to teach in for the solving of world crises of the most gargantuan kind.

I'm also wondering how in the he!! I'm going to be able to pull this off without reading off of a script - I think it would be uncomfortably funny if the presenter was peering down hu's glasses to read a passage about hu'self and stumbling over the details. But I rarely talk about myself. I remember back to grad school when the semester began and on the first day of seminars we had to introduce ourselves and what we did - heartrate jumped to 300bpm, couldn't come up with anything coherent. I'm really good at talking about just about everyone else on the planet.

[lerasmus]

So I had the job talk, I'm not sure how well it went, as almost nobody was there, and everyone was zoned out and catatonic before I even had a chance to lull them to sleep with the droning sounds of my own voice. But I think the rest of the day went quite well (one never knows, but I did pick up on signs of interest). It is a bit odd to try to give a passionate performance of "oneself" with a nearly sleeping audience. My advice if anyone finds this thread later and has a similar situation, bring an alternate version of the talk that includes some sort of meditation/relaxation music to put the poor attendees straight to sleep, then use hypnosis to slip in suggestive mandates "you are feeling sleepy... you are feeling like hiring me... you are feeling sleepy... forget everything you remember about the other candidates"...

[barcrossliar]

Sorry that it didn't go as well as you had hoped, lerasmus.  The other candidates may have had the same experience.

For the future, you may want to make this sort of thing more interactive.  My good friend, who actually has people skills, taught me that the talk starts before the "talk."  You greet people, introduce yourself, find out who they are, and generally recruit them as allies.  Then make sure there's plenty of interaction, even if it's, "then I volunteered to teach basketweaving once at a local elementary school.  Have any of you spent any time around 6-year-olds?  So you know how they are more interested trying things than in listening to directions?  Well, what I learned from that is that in my BW 105 classroom, I should..."  Try to make it more of a conversation than a talk.  We're conditioned to stay engaged in conversations.

Good luck

[lerasmus]

Sorry that it didn't go as well as you had hoped, lerasmus.  The other candidates may have had the same experience.

For the future, you may want to make this sort of thing more interactive.  My good friend, who actually has people skills, taught me that the talk starts before the "talk."  You greet people, introduce yourself, find out who they are, and generally recruit them as allies.  Then make sure there's plenty of interaction, even if it's, "then I volunteered to teach basketweaving once at a local elementary school.  Have any of you spent any time around 6-year-olds?  So you know how they are more interested trying things than in listening to directions?  Well, what I learned from that is that in my BW 105 classroom, I should..."  Try to make it more of a conversation than a talk.  We're conditioned to stay engaged in conversations.

Good luck

Thanks for your comments, barcross... to clarify, I had had about 6 hours of interaction with the majority of the small # of people at the talk prior to the talk which had seemed to go really well and was more how you described- conversational, interactive. I'm hoping it will be perceived that the job talk component really wasn't all that much of a useful indication of anything and that their campus visits programme could have done without it.