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[bcohlan1]

As many of you know, I'm an ABD on the market for the first time. I've now moved on past any hope of a shiny TT job or postdoc and am applying to all the VAPs; some of them have communicated that they intend to do Skype interviews, then campus visits for finalists. This includes a couple of 1-yr positions in far away places (even other continents). I guess my questions are:

1) In your experience, is it normal to do campus visits for a one year non-renewable VAP?

2) If so, why? The cost of flying people across the country (or countries) has got to be a significant portion of the total salary for the position for the year, not to mention the wasted resources in terms of time. You can weed out duds through Skype, and even if someone you might not have hired if you had met them in person slips by, they're only going to be there for nine months.

3) In light of #2, is this a signal that they're only really looking at regional hires?

[oldfullprof]

Some places are so stuck on themselves that they'll want to do this, believe me.  Some want their VAPs to be accountable for research, after all.

Consider this, if you did a skype interview in a mischevious mood, you could be wearing a suit jacket and dress shirt while be naked and diddling yourself below during the interview.  You'd just have to be careful to keep your shoulders from jiggling.  I'd be tempted, the idea of skype is so irritating.   

[prof_gnu]

bcohlan1,

I have been on four such interviews and in none of the cases was I regional.  The interviews were in (almost) all respects identical to the campus interviews for TT positions.  The only real difference I have ever noted is that I usually met with slightly lower level administrators than I do when interviewing for TT positions.

[bcohlan1]

Ok, ignore the "why" question (#2). It's irrelevant and makes me sound whiny.

[corny]

A friend of mine is currently in a VAP for which she had a campus visit (non-regional). It was advertised as a 1-year sabbatical replacement VAP, though it has since been made renewable. I think this may partly depend on whether the school in question has the financial means to do said campus visits. It seems also like, in her case at least, this was not a department that routinely uses non-TT folks, and they wanted to mimic the TT hiring process as closely as possible in order to ensure a quality replacement for their beloved regular guy. But that's mostly speculation on my part.

On the other hand, I didn't have a campus visit for the VAP I'm in, so it's obviously not a universal phenomenon.

[dalekk]

I'd say it's probably between 1/3 and 1/2 do campus visits.  I can understand visits if the VAP is potentially for more than one year, but it seems like overkill for a one-year gig.  I think that's especially true today, b/c there are so many people they can hire with a year or more of post-PhD teaching experience.  I actually got "offered" a campus visit for a one-year VAP just a few weeks ago AT MY OWN EXPENSE.  Unbelievable.  Thankfully, I got offered a t-t job and was able to withdraw.  They were bringing three people to campus at the candidate's own expense for a one-year VAP.

[seniorscholar]

Except for the rare sabbatical replacement (usually we fill it with advanced doctoral students), our NTT positions are renewable, though on one year contracts, and any real loser -- there have been one or two -- is let go at the end of the first year; after 3 years there's something more like a formal review, and there are non-renewals there from time to time, just as there are for TT hires. And (here's the point, at last) we never do campus interviews for any of them; we'd rather spend the money on travel funds for faculty (including NTT faculty), and since we're instructed to treat all applicants the same (though not given a list of required questions), we can't even have campus interviews for people at the doctoral universities within half an hour by public transport

[minimimi]

I've been a one-year VAP at two well-regarded but not super-elite SLACs, the second of which was renewable, and both flew me out. Weirdly, both made offers the day I returned from the interviews, which included meetings with students. I imagine SLACs would want to know how a faculty member interacts with their students, even for only a year. Then again, I'm now at a RU/VH, and our last search for one-year full-time faculty did involve campus interviews. To my knowledge, the candidates didn't interact with students at all.

[unoriginal]

Interesting.  We haven't had raises in years, and have to fight for every replacement faculty position, but if a VAP is approved, yes, they do campus visits.  I know we had at least 3 VAP hires last year, and all of them had campus visits, and the candidates weren't necessarily regional. 

[mleok]

Campus visits for 1 year non-renewable VAPs seem a bit extreme. I received a 3 year research assistant professorship (the mathematics equivalent of a postdoc combining research and reduced teaching) without even a phone interview, much less a campus interview.

[liberta]

I'd say it is not at all uncommon for a department to host campus interviews for temporary positions.  I'd also say that it seems to be more common for the departments to expect candidates to book and pay for the flight up front (and then get reimbursed after the visit -- unless they offer you the position and you decline it).

The first campus interview I ever had was for a one-year VAP position (convention interviews preceded the on-campus visits). They hired the "in-house candidate" (their term).  Looking back, I'd say it was largely a cosmetic search conducted to justify their desire to keep their then-current VAP.  I think the reason they picked me to campus-interview is because we had a great time at the convention interview, joking and laughing, and they liked my personality and they found me attractive and unsuspecting.

The second on-campus interview I had was for a two-year VAP position (and they had three candidates come to campus). 

Since then, I've been on at least two other campus interviews for one-year VAP positions. And there was a research job talk in one, and it was basically assessed as a teaching demo (some search committees are really unclear about what they want).  And in the other, I had to teach my research project for like 20 minutes in a classroom to students who were taking a course of quite different material (I was offered that position, and a certain demographic category had a lot to do with that).

And I went on a campus interview for a two-year non-renewable post-doc as well (the position was ultimately offered to the post-doc who had done it for two years ...so much for the "non-renewable" part).

[abdbcb]

I have had 2 VAPs, both at top ranked SLACs. First one flew me out, indicating that they go through phone interviews and then fly out only their top choice. And in guess if I would have bombed or gotten a better offer they would have gone down the list. Second one did a phone interview (they interviewed some local candidates in person, but no job talk or anything) and then made an offer. I actually prefer to have a campus visit, gives me a chance to get a sense of what i am getting in to.

[thehighking]

This is quite common...generally you just won't meet with as many admins as you would in a t-t job.

[systeme_d_]

Maybe there is a field-dependent dimension to this, as well as an institution-dependent aspect?

I have been around the block in my discipline, and I have never, ever heard of this practice.  Conference interviews for VAPs, sure.  Skype interviews, sure.  On-campus interviews for a one-year, non-renewable position? Never.

[grasshopper]

I had an on-campus interview for a VAP halfway across the country. Without even a phone interview first! I think that the other candidates were more local, though. Or at least within driving distance.