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I heard comments like that in graduate school which is why I left the program. It was a disappointing experience and a waste of my time to be judged on qualities other than my academic record. -----Original Message----- >From: "Kinsel, Amy" <akinsel@SHORELINE.EDU> >Sent: Nov 28, 2007 3:08 AM >To: H-ADJUNCT@H-NET.MSU.EDU >Subject: Re: Fitting in and the hiring process > >From: Amy Kinsel akinsel@shoreline.edu >Subject: Fitting in and the hiring process > >Perhaps my meaning was less obvious than I intended. By "fitting in" I wasn't referring to a candidate's willingness to take on non-teaching or non-research duties and conduct him/herself in a generally collegial manner. There attributes are assets that any job seeker should highlight. > >Frankly, I'm concerned about "fit" being used as an excuse to favor a candidate who possesses similar traits to the current members of a department over a candidate who does not "fit" those traits, whether they are regional, gender, marital, age, or racial traits, to name just a few. > >Has no one on this list heard comments like these in hiring committees: > >"But how would a single woman from New York fit in at our small out-of-the-way college? She's not going to find anyone worth dating here, that's for sure." > >"I worry that it would be hard for him to fit in as the only Asian-American in our close-knit department. Plus, there's no good Asian food here at all." > >"I just don't think an older candidate fits my idea of an assistant professor. I think someone straight out of graduate school would be a better fit." > >"Yes, she's got great credentials, but her brassy style really wouldn't fit here. We want someone who will fit more easily into our established way of doing things." > >Amy J. Kinsel, Ph.D. >Faculty Senate Chair >Professor of History >Shoreline Community College >16101 Greenwood Avenue North >Shoreline, WA 98133-5696 >(206) 546-4679 >akinsel@shoreline.edu > >________________________________ > >From: H-Net Network on Adjunct/part-time faculty issues on behalf of Howard Smead >Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 5:04 PM >To: H-ADJUNCT@H-NET.MSU.EDU >Subject: Fitting in and the hiring process > > > >From: Janet Galley <janet.galley@yahoo.ca> >Subject: Fitting in and the hiring process > >Amy's suggestion that we should all focus on our academic skills during the interview process is - in an ideal world - a good one, but at the same time, I think that if we fail to address the idea that we (the applicants) would fit well into the existing culture of a department that we want to be hired into, we virtually guarantee that we won't get the job offer. > > >It seems that many people are loathe to admit it, but university departments are political places in the same sense that all workplaces are. Perhaps, this is the crux of the problem; we all would like to think that as highly educated individuals, we are above the messiness of politics and in-fighting, but we all know that the opposite is true. Our experiences tell us that academic departments are often politically fragile environments where power and influence are battled over rather than shared. > > >Perhaps it is the nature of our discipline; as historians, few of us work cooperatively in our research and so the field tends to attract people who are more comfortable working as sole contributors rather than as members of a team. Yet, we do have to work together on committees and within the department and the university as a whole. So, would it not better to highlight the fact that as well as being top-notch historians and teachers, we are also good team-players who can positively contribute to the department? Rather than trying to fight the idea of "being a good fit," why not embrace it and turn it into an advantage? When I mentioned to two department chairs that I actually like doing committee work and have extensive experience in that area, both of them told me to highlight that information in my cover letters and during interviews. They both indicated that almost any applicant's willingness to take on this type of work would push their name to the top of their departments' hiring lists. > > >Does this make sense, or am I seeing the world through rose-colored glasses? > >Janet > >Janet McShane Galley, Ph.D. >Sessional Instructor >Department of History >University of Guelph > > > Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca <http://mail.yahoo.ca/>
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