Friday, October 27, 2000

Newest California State U. Campus Seeks Instructors Willing to Apply Online By SCOTT CARLSON The market for expensive résumé paper just got smaller. The newest California State University campus is requiring all of its prospective faculty members to apply online. This is no mere gimmick. Officials at the university, known as C.S.U.-Channel Islands, say it's an organizing tool for the fledgling institution's tiny staff -- and a way to save a bundle of money. Ira S. Shoenwald is one of three academic administrators at the university, which is located in the Ventura County town of Camarillo. Together the three must publicize the open positions and organize and review thousands of vitas from scholars hoping to fill them. "We knew that we were going to get a lot of activity," Mr. Shoenwald says. "So, for efficiency purposes, the only way that we could handle the volume was through an online process." "We will have people from across the state, if not the nation, on our search groups, and they will be able to operate totally online," he says, adding that the search committees will together have more than 200 members. "We wouldn't have to bring them here for multiple meetings, put them up in a hotel, and so on." And Mr. Shoenwald's office won't have to make hundreds of copies of the applications, or spend money mailing them out. The university's Web site has a link to the online-application page, which takes Channel Islands hopefuls through a digital version of a typical scholarly résumé. Applicants can describe relevant experience, list grants and contracts they've won, type up a cover letter, and even save an incomplete application online and call it up later with a user name and password. The Web site can also show an applicant the status of an application and list who has reviewed it. Meanwhile, officials at Channel Islands can also track the application data. The online form includes optional spaces for the applicant to list race, sex, and how the job opening was discovered. Mr. Shoenwald says that in an instant he can analyze the data to determine the most effective use of marketing funds. He can immediately see, for instance, whether a particular pool of candidates needs more women, minority applicants, or chemists. Mr. Shoenwald says that the application's online format has already helped draw a diverse crowd. "It's interesting, we're getting stuff from around the world," he says. "We just got an application from China this morning." The online format will also be cheaper for the university. He says that other similarly sized start-up institutions have spent about $2-million a year on recruiting and hiring; he expects Channel Islands' costs to be about one-fourth of that. The online application required an investment up front, however: The university paid a local software company $50,000 to design the Web-based system. Channel Islands seems to be unique in requiring that applications arrive online. Jonathan Knight, an associate secretary in the academic-freedom-and-tenure office at the American Association of University Professors, says that he has seen individual departments at colleges ask for online applications, "but I've never heard of an entire institution doing it this way." But Channel Islands, with only 23 positions to fill, "is just a pea pod," Mr. Knight says. Only the early stages of the application reviews will take place online. "Some of the initial interviews will be done through conferencing, but the later processes will be quite normal," Mr. Shoenwald says. The Web site went up in the first week of October, and the university placed an ad announcing the jobs and the unusual application process. Since then, the site has drawn about 145,000 hits, resulting in 450 completed applications. More than 1,200 applications are now in progress. Mr. Shoenwald says he expects to have about 20,000 applications by January, when the university will begin reviewing the candidates. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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