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[history_grrrl]

By the time I got to know about this relationship, Jane was already invited for an interview.  BTW, I did not vote for her, others on the committee who (I found out) knew her voted for her.  I considered candidate Jane less qualified than others, and was bothered as to why some other committee members wanted to interview her.  

Well, if others on the committee know Jane, and they obviously know John, then chances are pretty darn good that they know Jane and John are a couple. And if they like John and want him to stick around and enjoy life at the CC, they may have supported Jane for precisely that reason. Not only does it seem implausible that faculty don't know that a full-time colleague's wife is job-hunting in the same field, but that knowledge is the most likely explanation for their actions, in my view.

[charlesr]

Does the exam have any extra credit?

[kedves]

Why would you use the same test for 8 years?  This might not be the first time people who knew each other had an opportunity to share information about the questions.

I'm curious about the test.  How much variation in scores do you see?  How long does it take to complete?  Do community colleges do this in every field, or only in math?  Do the candidates know they'll be taking a test?


It sounds as if you would be going against the majority opinion of the committee, or possibly against their consensus minus your opinion.  What is the upside to making a fuss about this?

[lizzy]

Why would you use the same test for 8 years?  This might not be the first time people who knew each other had an opportunity to share information about the questions.

I'm curious about the test.  How much variation in scores do you see?  How long does it take to complete?  Do community colleges do this in every field, or only in math?  Do the candidates know they'll be taking a test?


It sounds as if you would be going against the majority opinion of the committee, or possibly against their consensus minus your opinion.  What is the upside to making a fuss about this?

This.

And then: What will hiring her hurt? Would her hire harm the department or the students?

I agree that the thing to do at this point is let it go. 

[aprilmay]

Can you give us an example question, or type of questions at least, from this exam? Is it about the subject area? Teaching strategies? I am very curious. Clearly most of us are unfamiliar with this interview style.

If the exam is so important to the interview and prior knowledge about the exam matters, why keep the same strategy for so many years?

Has anyone ever objected to the exam? Not knowing its structure, it's hard for me to judge, but giving faculty candidates a written exam, without warning them ahead of time, seems a bit harsh.

As the exam questions have been the same for 8 years, it is likely that others have gone into the interview knowing about the exam and the questions. You are aware of how this particular applicant may have gained this information from their spouse, but surely the college has interviewed people who knew someone who works there or applied earlier.

Unless the college prohibits faculty from sharing the contents of this exam, this applicant and their faculty spouse haven't done anything wrong. We all ask about upcoming interviews. This person may have an inside track on knowing what the interview will be like, but they also know more about the school and may have a higher interest in living in that area than other applicants. I fail to see how knowing about the exam is such a huge advantage over other applicants. Of course, I don't understand how the exam works, either.

Even if knowing about the exam is an unfair advantage, it doesn't affect other parts of the interview, so it seems unlikely this would sway the whole hiring process (again, hard to say without understanding the exam and its role).

[daniel_von_flanagan]

The written test, although disliked by some of you, elicits surprising revelation about the candidates.  You'd be surprised to find out how little many candidates, including PhDs, know of what they are being hired for.

Then there is something wrong with your hiring pool, and that is the problem you need to fix.  The American university system is notorious for producing a glut of highly trained people, if they are using their degrees to land jobs at Starbucks instead of your department then either you aren't advertising in the right places or you need to make the job more attractive. 

Perhaps you already have a reputation for giving this goofy exam, and nobody wants to apply for that reason.  Many of the faculty at the local community colleges are products of my campus, if any of them had an interview requirement like this only the most desperate of our students would consider applying there.

Or perhaps you have a reputation for being such a dysfunctional department that nobody even knows the names of their colleagues' spouses.

Incidentally, if I had a spouse that didn't know her subject well enough to teach it to my department's standard, there is no way I'd want her teaching for us, no matter how much I love her and covet extra income.  No good can possibly come of it. - DvF

[spork]

At my only cc campus interview, I had to write an essay in 30 minutes, on a computer in an office.  The question was provided by the search committee.  In reality it was an essay exam, I suppose to make sure I knew how to put a noun and a verb in every sentence.  Since the committee could have determined this from my application materials, I found the exercise to be quite silly.

[polly_mer]

I'm confused about two things.  The first is what anyone thinks they will learn from a pop test unless it's dead easy.  For example, I would likely fail a timed test on fluid mechanics if someone handed me one in the next ten minutes.  However, I can also assure you that if I were told a week in advance that I would be given a test on undergraduate fluid mechanics as part of my interview, that I would ace that puppy when it was administered.  Ask me to prep a lecture on any of the standard topics and you will get a nice teaching demonstration.  I am competent to teach fluid mechanics; I use it in my research on a regular basis, but what I haven't done on a regular basis in several years is sit down and solve the kinds of problems that are given as final exam questions in the undergraduate courses that I would be interviewing teach.  Thus, all you learned by giving me a pop test is that I couldn't pass that test that day under those conditions.

The second thing that confuses me is how people in the department wouldn't know Jane is John's wife.  Did he marry in secret over spring break?  Or are you people who don't socialize at all even under normal conditions like departmental gatherings or the occasional dropping in by spouse?  Everyone in my current department has met Blocky and Mr. Mer.  Half the department has been to our house and all of the department has been to several social gatherings at other houses just in the past 10 months that I have been here.  Similar things have held true for every academic department that I have been affiliated with since junior year of college.  Spouses, children, parents, and students tend to collect at gatherings in happy, friendly places for CC through R1.  Is your department that unusual in that respect?

[embitteredhistorian]

Academia is full of morally bankrupt cowards.

[polly_mer]

Academia is full of morally bankrupt cowards.

So why do you keep insisting that you want to hang out with us if we're such terrible people?  Where's the logic in that?

[klyer]

I think we are getting off the mark.  Although all of you have legitimate questions (some answered in my second post, this being the third), few of them are relevant.  What posters need to realize here is that a) the written test, as only one measure amongst many, is intended to rank the interviewees, b) the committee relies on the results of the written test in its deliberations, c) the test questions are not the same as, although 'similar' to, past tests, d) current faculty member John Doe has had access to all past tests for 8 (or more) years, e) it is unthinkable that he would not have shown the past tests to his candidate wife.   

I am really in an ethical bind here.  My primary concern is to not harm anyone, especially people who are innocent.  I don't want to become a pariah, either.  I would hate that.  Having said that, I cannot allow myself to sit passively by as events unravel toward a highly likely conclusion.  You know what it's like?  Last time you saw an egg dropping, what happened?  Well, this is like an egg dropping in rather slo mo.  Yeah, every now and almost never then, the egg falls on a soft bed, couch, or is caught midair, and does not break.  But of course you know what happens to the egg in those billions of other times!  Again, one has to possess a most unworldly mind, bereft of a sense of human nature, to think that John Doe would not have shown the past tests to his candidate wife.  This is undeniably potentially unfair to other candidates.

What to do?

[polly_mer]

Inform the committee of the possible conflict of interest and write a new test in a different style if you are so all-fired sure that the test is the breaking point.

Have you never taught classes and had this problem with tests from previous semesters because of roommates, frats, or siblings?  C'mon.  You're making a mountain out of a molehill.

[totoro]

But my point is, how do you know other candidates didn't also see past tests? If Jane Doe is OK otherwise I don't think there is a big issue.

I think we are getting off the mark.  Although all of you have legitimate questions (some answered in my second post, this being the third), few of them are relevant.  What posters need to realize here is that a) the written test, as only one measure amongst many, is intended to rank the interviewees, b) the committee relies on the results of the written test in its deliberations, c) the test questions are not the same as, although 'similar' to, past tests, d) current faculty member John Doe has had access to all past tests for 8 (or more) years, e) it is unthinkable that he would not have shown the past tests to his candidate wife.   

I am really in an ethical bind here.  My primary concern is to not harm anyone, especially people who are innocent.  I don't want to become a pariah, either.  I would hate that.  Having said that, I cannot allow myself to sit passively by as events unravel toward a highly likely conclusion.  You know what it's like?  Last time you saw an egg dropping, what happened?  Well, this is like an egg dropping in rather slo mo.  Yeah, every now and almost never then, the egg falls on a soft bed, couch, or is caught midair, and does not break.  But of course you know what happens to the egg in those billions of other times!  Again, one has to possess a most unworldly mind, bereft of a sense of human nature, to think that John Doe would not have shown the past tests to his candidate wife.  This is undeniably potentially unfair to other candidates.

What to do?

[kedves]

I cannot allow myself to sit passively by as events unravel toward a highly likely conclusion.  You know what it's like?  Last time you saw an egg dropping, what happened?  Well, this is like an egg dropping in rather slo mo.  Yeah, every now and almost never then, the egg falls on a soft bed, couch, or is caught midair, and does not break.  But of course you know what happens to the egg in those billions of other times! 

A.  What damage is the egg's breaking going to do?  In my world, eggs break and I clean them up.  They don't fall on beds.  The only bed metaphor that occurs to me is the princess and the (moral) pea.  What are you talking about?  What is the danger?  What are you risking the goodwill of colleagues to accomplish? 

OR

B.  Smite the guilty and spare the innocent.  If not you, who?

Take your pick.

[janewales]

I don't even know that it's a certainty john doe would have shown his wife the test. In his position, I would not do so; my SO wouldn't expect it, either. Now, maybe what you mean is that you know JD to be that kind of person, but if you're simply extrapolating from your sense of what anyone/ everyone would do, I think you could be wrong.