August 22, 2008
Finding a Fit at Small Colleges
Like many academics, I am at a small institution that plays host to programs staffed by only a few faculty members. While at a big research university the English department, for example, may have five scholars of Renaissance literature, at small schools like mine the entire English department may comprise five scholars, period.
Graduate school generally conditions candidates to specialize and focus, whereas life at a small institution can force faculty members to generalize and diversify. Some professors thrive on this challenge, becoming wide-ranging, thoughtful instructors in an array of topics. Others do not shed their investment in specialization and thus turn out to be a poor fit at their institution.
From the hiring side, there are two main challenges in finding and hiring colleagues for a small institution. The first is attracting applicants who by temperament and training are inclined to teach in an atmosphere that encourages generalists. The other is to sort those who will not succeed in that atmosphere from those who will.
Such sorting is very difficult. Anyone engaged in hiring at a small institution can tell stories of apparently perfect candidates who flopped miserably in the job, and candidates who elicited skepticism who have become among the strongest faculty on campus.
Candidates can help themselves in this process by seriously assessing their interest in small, teaching-oriented institutions and working hard to convey their understanding of the demands of this kind of position. Despite the challenges in judging candidates in a relatively brief interview, search committees should devise questions and interview activities that elicit information helpful in understanding candidates’ interest and understanding of the work at a small institution.
On both sides, honesty about intentions and concerns can help candidates and search committees improve the odds of making the right decisions.
By David R. Evans | Posted on Friday August 22, 2008 | PermalinkComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: A Personalized CV
Next: Who You Gonna Hitch Your Wagon to?
I agree with the thoughts in this mini-column about the importance of finding a good fit for both the job candidate and the college. I think it is very important that the candidate be thrilled and excited about working in such an environment and know how to communicate those intentions well.
However, many small colleges also tend to mistake more current approaches to teaching a given topic as being too specialized and, therefore, inappropriate. It happened to me and some other people I know at small colleges. For instance, someone who teaches an American history survey with a strong focus on Native American sovereignty, labor movements, or other social minority issues may get perceived as “being of poor fit” at a small college due to “overspecialization” simply because the approaches would be relatively new from the point of view of your typical small college professor who has taught the same course for the past 3 decades. Yes, we can teach as generalists, but being a generalist doesn’t mean that we should turn the clock back when it comes to our teaching approaches.
Small colleges also tend to have a sense of “identity” (i.e. the who fits in and who doesn’t issue). As a result, faculty members who are “different” in certain ways may be considered “a poor fit” simply because they are of a social background that seems to run counter to the image of itself the college wants to project. This happened to me and others I know, too.
— h.c. Aug 23, 12:08 AM #
H.C.‘s points are excellent and I have seen both concerns (new teaching approaches, identity politics) play themselves out in problematic ways in searches.
The point about teaching via new approaches and foci is complex, however. One time at a previous institution we were interviewing for a positiion in c19 British literature (the job included several other things), and to every one of our questions a candidate said “I’d take a post-colonial approach to that.” On further probing, it was quite clear that this candidate was simply not prepared to do anything else.
In a small department, where majors are likely to see a particular professor in several courses, a single lens will quickly bore, irritate, and even sometimes alienate them.
So, the trick is to figure out how to sort out the “new approaches” issue (it’s good to have new approaches) from the “not broadly trained enough for this position” issue, which will cause real problems for the faculty member in the classroom.
— David R. Evans Aug 23, 08:28 AM #
I’ve found that one of the better predictors of success in this regard is where the candidate went to undergrad. By this I mean generally – did they go to a large institution or a SLAC. Those who went to a SLAC tend to “get it” much more readily than those whose only experience is in larger environments. Naturally, this isn’t true across the board but the trend seems unmistakable to me.
— J Aug 23, 11:55 AM #
J, # 3, makes a good point. I would refine it a bit. It’s possible that those who went to large universities but were in small classes fit in well at SLACs. Another factor: those who have had experience teaching at the k-12 level before teaching at a SLAC generally do very well. At least that is my experience and observation, for whatever it’s worth.
— been there Aug 23, 03:12 PM #
I have tenure (in the humanities) at a research I, but would love to find a position at a SLAC. I went to a SLAC, and have always thought that there institutional missions and teaching are a better fit for my priorities. Unfortunately, SLACs rarely search at my level (assoc. to full). Any suggestions on how to make the switch?
— M Aug 23, 07:27 PM #
My undergraduate degree is from a top liberal-arts college, and I started my teaching career at a similar school. I liked being a small-college student but hated teaching at a SLAC and eventually moved to major research universities, so you just never know, as my grandmother Clichette Britchky would have said.
Come on, folks. Isn’t all this tremendously obvious? The one interesting point is the need for search-committee members to move from their look-at-how-smart-I-am speeches to sleight-of-hand questions and activities explicitly designed to uncover misfits, no matter how hard they try to slink and adapt during the interview. Since you’re required by law to hire human beings, they will try, of course.
Note to M: Spend a leave teaching at a likely SLAC, thus showing ability and interest and building a network of people who can hire you outright or at least help in your search. A year in the outland will also either reinforce your interest in small colleges or destroy it.
— S. Britchky Aug 24, 07:28 AM #
All good points made so far…. Like S. Britchky, I also was an undergrad at a SLAC and liked it, but I disliked teaching at a SLAC for the reasons I mentioned in my first post and eventually moved to a large research U. When I took my first SLAC job, though, I had every intention of staying there, but then the aforementioned difficulties cropped up.
I don’t think creating “sleight-of-hand questions and activities” during an interview or seeing job applicants at a SLAC as those who are purposefully imposturing as something they are not—“slink[ing] and adapt[ing] during the interview”—is a productive way of approaching what should be a mutual courtship on the part of both school and job candidate. That kind of mindset generates an adversarial dynamic. I think it is safe to say that everyone who makes it to the campus interview stage at a SLAC really is committed to being there (if the search committee has done its job right in the initial evaluation of applications).
The trick, then, is getting junior faculty—once hired— retained at the SLAC by fostering a more pluralistic institutional culture that is open to both social and intellectual difference.
My opinion is that—too often—when faculty leave SLAC’s, the search committee/process is blamed for not having gotten the right candidate when the right candidate may have been hired all along. There just wasn’t enough emphasis placed on retention.
For a good resource, see this link to the Consortium for Faculty Diversity: http://www.depauw.edu/admin/acadaffairs/cfd/ This is a group of SLAC’s who have gotten together to be proactive about diversity and represention on their faculty. Not only do they offer fellowships for pre- and post-doctoral scholars, they also have an annual conference about diversity issues at SLAC’s that both administrators and fellows attend.
— h.c. Aug 24, 10:48 AM #
S. Britchkley — Thanks for the advice. It seems very smart to me. Unfortunately, this might be difficult to move for a semester or year because of my small children (nothing really desirable in the SLAC way is here) but it’s a very interesting idea to consider. I’ll think on it.
— M Aug 24, 08:05 PM #
Another suggestion for M (post 8): Are you interested in chairing a department at a SLAC? If so, you could likely make the move from a research school, continue to teach (on a part-time basis), and re-experience your undergrad joys.
— Ken Egan Jr. Aug 25, 11:34 AM #
I have participated in a number of history department searches at a SLAC. Almost all of the candidates lack the breath and depth of knowledge required to teach effectively. Alas, the graduate schools seem to be turning out extremely specialized scholars without any knowledge or concept how to teach real life survey, period, or topic courses to undergraduates. Candidates in Gender Studies seem the worst offenders. One such candidate for colonial history had no idea as to the start or end point to a course in American colonial history. Another gender candidate had barely heard of, let alone read, a major, major monograph in his field written by his major professor! In short, yes some of us (and some don’t) take into consideration overly specialized—should I say esoteric—dissertation topics. And yes search committees do acknowledge SLAC backgrounds—not a major factor in and of itself. Also personality traits cannot be hidden in a SLAC. Research universities can indeed hid a—-oles in their obscure research niches. In fairness, it takes a new person several years to become an effective teacher, I believe. The benefits in teaching at a SLAC can be tremendous. One has a wonderful, unparalleled opportunity to teache and to pursue historical approaches one could never do at a Research I institution. Most importantly, this type of institution allows one to further greatly his own education in the liberal arts tradition—to become a more humane and educated person.
I’m ranting and will stop.
— C Aug 25, 09:29 PM #
This is nice so far as it goes, but doesn’t address a seemingly common problem in the way small colleges conduct searches. Where committees should be looking for generalists, as you say, they often instead have implausible laundry-lists of specialty fields that “it would be nice” if the candidate could cover. I recently had an interview with a SLAC in which two-thirds of the interview time was spent belaboring, indeed almost chastising me for, why I didn’t cover all of their dream fields (subjects which no one scholar could likely claim). And a friend specializing in one of the fields I don’t cover confirmed from their interview that they spent much of the time on why they didn’t cover my field. SLACs need to accept that generalist competence is different from possessing all of the twelve different specialties that the committee is shopping for.
— Roger Aug 26, 10:24 AM #
Anyway, to come to the point, shouldn’t it actually be relatively easy to find candidates who will make good generalists and be able to represent their entire discipline to undergrads? As opposed to many of the other questions of culture, personality, and the ever-nebulous “fit” that this article raises, this is a wholly intellectual question about the candidate’s scholarly identity and approach. How hard is it, really, to see this on a CV? You just have to look for people who have already published, written, taught, or done graduate coursework in a variety of fields rather than doing all their work in one narrow specialty.
— Roger Aug 26, 12:01 PM #
One difficulty for a senior faculty member wanting to teach at a SLAC is that many will not grant tenure to those who have it elsewhere. Associate or full professors from the outside have to give up tenure in order to make the switch—and of course few are willing to do this. It’s a questionable policy that effectively restricts these colleges to hiring only new or junior faculty.
— Philip Aug 27, 07:52 PM #
When I was on the job market, I also had Roger’s experience (#11), several times in fact. Another SLAC interview experience that I had more than once was a committee that wanted me to be a clone of the retiring 70-year-old professor, that one who got his PhD in the year that I was born. Of course, the retiring professor is always a very likable person, and I could talk literature with him for hours, but I was never able to act convincingly like someone who wrote my dissertation in the 1960s.
— SB Aug 28, 03:10 AM #
Small colleges vary widely in load, breadth of expertise needed and expectations for scholarship and service. Of course you will find places that are a bad fit, but that doesn’t mean they are all bad. Ask questions and look at the web site before you apply. If you get an interview, talk on the phone before you go, ask more questions while you’re there, and try to meet with students. You may not like it, they might not like you, but there are lots of little colleges out there. If you want to work there (and they can be great places to work), don’t give up, even if you went to Ginormous U. yourself.
— Owen Aug 28, 11:15 AM #
I’d like to re-frame this discussion slightly. Part of the onus of responsibility in sorting out “fit” should fall not to the hiring department and not to the candidate, but to the graduate department. As long as graduate advisors and faculty at Ph.D.-granting institutions groom candidates to become clones of themselves, this will be a perennial problem. The landscape of higher education is highly diverse. Candidates need to know that and need to be educated about the respective habitats of the different kinds of institutions conducting searches. I urge graduate departments to bring together “what we look for” panels from a variety of institutional types as part of their “job-seeking” work with students gearing up to go on the market.
— Jenifer Aug 28, 11:17 AM #
I applied, and was interviewed. at a SLAC where I really wanted to work. I made it very, very clear from the cover letter to the phone interview that I could not and would not teach one of the classes that they wanted taught (the laundry list was extremely broad, crossing several departments). They interviewed me anyway. what a waste of my time as it turns out. I then found out I got rejected because I didn’t decide to change my mind and say that I could teach the one class (there was no way I could have taught it – I knew nothing about it, it played to my weaknesses and I hated the subject, had never taken courses in that field…). Umm so whey did they interview me to begin with? I had been very very clear. Turns out no one could do it and they are trying again this year. According to someone I know who knows someone, they are having the same problem so far this year that they had last year in finding someone who can teach across several departments worth of courses.
As a result my advice to someone who wants to teach at specific SLAC is to look at what would be your department there, track the names across the course schedule and see just how broadly these people are expected to teach. Then if you are not that broad (and it may mean teaching across what would have been departments at a larger place plus some interdisciplinary stuff in the liberal arts core) know that your chances of getting a job there are slim. Or do something to shore up your expertise in areas you come up short before you apply.
SLACs sometimes want what is unrealistic. They also can, as someone leaves, shuffle around who teaches what so that those with seniority can finally teach what they want and what is left for the new person are the leftovers that don’t come together in any way that makes any intellectual, logical or for that matter any sense. It is a disjointed mishmash that is leftover where the odds of finding someone who can fill those shoes very well is slim. IMHO this makes it hard for the college to make a good hire and it makes it hard as the applicant to find an opening where you feel you are a good match.
— anon Aug 28, 12:01 PM #
It’s also the type of school, as well as the size of department.
I’m an ethnic studies person so I always work in 2 departments and I am often perceived as a generalist.
My personality fits large urban R-1, and those are the places I always studied and always go on sabbatical, but that’s not who tends to recruit me for actual employment.
I worked at a SLAC and could not abide the snootiness and shelteredness of everyone, and the cliquish, hothouse atmosphere. But I worked essentially the same job in the same size departments at a public school and it was completely different. There one’s creativity could be invested in actually strengthening academic programs as opposed to participating in the general post prep school tea party.
So it isn’t just about orientation or breadth – note I’d still have rather used my breadth in a couple of PhD programs in an urban R-1, than in a few minor, B.A. and M.A. programs at a very rural less than R-2, but at this second job it was at least still about academics, not about serving a certain social class, and this made all the difference.
— Epahey Aug 28, 01:04 PM #
I too was hired by a small college and was very excited to go. What I think is the most important thing new hirees should remember are the politics involved. Small colleges and departments may be easily threatened by the new kid on the block. It often has nothing to do with new ideas or ways of teaching, but only a turf war. My advise is if you love teaching at a small college, smile alot and when they ask your opinion in a faculty meeting, don’t give one. Just keep smiling and hope you can remain as invisible as possible until tenure. Believe me. It’s a mine field out there and you are usually the last to know who your real enemy is until it is too late.
— alissa Aug 28, 01:38 PM #
Yes, people can be petty, but as one of the senior members of my department, I am delighted when we hire smart new faculty who can enrich our curriculum. Take heart – there are good places to work! Not everyone is a jerk.
— Owen Aug 28, 02:38 PM #
Having applied several times for positions at Ivy-Wannabe-SLAC in Iowa, and not even getting an interview and THEN seeing who was hired (a lacklustre, milquetoast jester with all the appropriate lapel pins and bumper stickers), my perspective is stay in my R-1, Ivy and Big 10 orbit, DESPITE having attended 2 very comparable and selective SLACs and graduate programs at mid-sized and large state universities. (SUNY & Cornell U.). I agree with the provincial and small-minded intellectual tokenism that grows in these insulated SLAC cultures —- sort of like mold in a dark corner of the basement. SLAC no more.
— gre Aug 28, 06:51 PM #