(The first installment in this series is here.) Two questions: How do I prepare for a campus visit, and what information should I get from the school where I'm interviewing? Suppose my spouse/partner is also seeking an academic job. Is it appropriate to raise that issue with the schools interviewing me, and if so, when? What should I be looking for from these schools?
3. How do I prepare for a campus visit, and what information should I get from the school where I'm interviewing?
Law schools and philosophy departments have somewhat different norms on this score. Let's take law first.
Law schools always ask the candidate to give a talk to the faculty. The expectation is that it will be a "talk" rather than reading a paper. The faculty will use the talk to assess both your intellectual skills and your teaching skills. Find out in advance how long the talk should be--15 minutes to 30 minutes are typical, following by 30-45 minutes of questions. But do find out how they do it, and also whether you'll have preparation time in advance.
15-30 minutes is not a lot of time, so pick your topic carefully. Given that you'll have a generalist audience of law professors with different specializations, be careful *not* to presuppose too much specialist knowledge of the subject-matter. This is especially important if you are doing interdisciplinary work, and thus using field-specific concepts or techniques. Also keep in mind that law professors overwhelmingly prefer a talk with a "punch line": i.e., a talk that argues for a specific policy conclusion (this rule doesn't achieve its purpose; this rule ought to be changed; etc.). Philosophers and historians, especially, can easily give good talks that have no punch lines: e.g., the philosopher distinguishes three different kinds of arguments for a certain conclusion, showing what it would take to rebut each one, but taking no ultimate position on their merits; or the historian shows the richly textured historical context in which some important event transpired, but draws no morals for current law or policy. Such talks, though intellectually meritorious, tend to fall flat with law professors. So make sure you have a punch line!
Most of the rest of your day at a law school will be spent in office interviews and meals with faculty. Be prepared to talk about your written work, your plans for future research, your teaching interests, and also how you would teach certain courses (think about: what casebooks you might use, what supplementary materials, what theoretical perspectives you would bring to bear [law and economics? literature? feminist theory? etc.]).
At some point, you'll also likely meet with the Dean of the law school. At this stage--i.e., prior to having a job offer--discussion will be fairly general. You can inquire about some of the matters noted in Part I. And you might ask more generally about institutional plans and ambitions.
On-campus visits for philosophy jobs differ in a couple of relevant respects. First, the paper is normally longer (45 minutes to an hour--but do confirm that in advance!), and it is customary to read the paper. Questions then last up to an hour. In addition, many departments, especially those at institutions with a focus on undergraduate education, will want the candidate to teach a class. Do get clear in advance about the class and its level, and about how much flexibility you have in structuring the particular session.
Common, though not universal, is a meeting with the Dean of the Liberal Arts College (or whatever it is called) in which the Philosophy Department is located. The connection between a Liberal Arts Dean and his/her Philosophy Department is not quite as close as the connection between a Law School Dean and the law school--for one thing, in most (but obviously not all) cases the Liberal Arts Dean won't be a philosopher. So talking with the Liberal Arts Dean is often a good opportunity to get a sense of how the College views its Philosophy Department: what are the plans for Philosophy? will the department be expanding? what is the financial situation of the College? how does Liberal Arts fare against Natural Sciences, professional schools, etc.? All are fair questions, and some Deans will be remarkably forthcoming (others will not).
4. Suppose my spouse/partner is also seeking an academic job. Is it appropriate to raise that issue with the schools interviewing me, and if so, when? What should I be looking for from these schools?
In general, it's advisable not to mention the job issue for the significant other until after you've received an offer, but that is not a hard-and-fast rule, and much may depend on your relative market position (a "hot property" sought after early by many leading schools can raise the issue sooner). But for most candidates, the time to raise the issue is when the Dean or Chair calls with news of the offer. These days, the vast majority of universities have some policies for addressing this situation. At Texas, for example, the Provost has separate funds that will pay one-third the cost of hiring a spouse of a sought-after faculty candidate; the department trying to hire the faculty candidate will have to pay another third; and the department where the spouse would be employed must agree to foot one-third of the bill. Other devices I've heard of include multi-year, but non-tenure-stream, appointments for the spouse, post-docs, and visiting positions. Be prepared to be patient and to do some commuting: it's tough for academic couples to land in the same place, and usually some sacrifice will have to be made by one or the other spouse/partner in terms of the quality or nature of the position accepted. But academic couples are a reality of the academic marketplace, and with the exception of places like Harvard, almost every university these days is prepared to "play ball" in trying to work things out for faculty candidates they want.
UPDATE 8/3/04: Mohan Matthen, former Chair of the Department at the University of British Columbia, offers a useful perspective on this last question:
"I thought I would add a comment to your advice about when in the interview process to mention spousal hiring (which I only just saw). I am inclined to think there is no hard and fast rule about this. Speaking for myself and UBC, things changed a lot as the institution became more aware of the reality of academic couples, which happened during my term as Head. When the University finally decided it would play ball on this issue, it was generally an advantage for me to know BEFORE an offer was made, since that was when I was negotiating with the Dean. Usually, when it came to the point where the Department had voted on an offer, I would go to the Dean to figure out the terms of that offer. Since all money on the margins would come from discretionary budgets -- the Provost's, the Dean's, and mine -- this is when I would be trying to get enough to make the offer attractive. Thus, I would try to have in my possession all the relevant information at this stage. It is always difficult to go back to the Dean with something you didn't know when you were talking to her in detail. For one thing it makes you look as if you didn't do due diligence. A Head's persuasiveness depends a lot on his/her apparent omniscience, so it is not just a question of ego that you want to avoid any appearance of having been caught on the wrong foot. More importantly, if you get the info after you have made an offer, you are in the psychologically disadvantageous position of trying to get something over and above your earlier best effort -- and in the case of a spousal hire, something quite expensive. One final point: what every Head would like, especially with junior offers, is to go to the candidate with an offer and have it quickly accepted. Dickering back and forth is time-consuming and difficult -- each new demand requires an elaborate balancing act with budgets -- and raises questions like: At what point should I cut my losses and go to the next candidate in line before s/he becomes unavailable? This is why I always liked to put my best foot forward in the initial offer.
"The complicating thing is that in Canada at least it is considered improper to ask certain personal questions. One such question is: do you have a spouse? One can beat around the bush hoping that candidates will be forthcoming, but the simplest thing is for the candidate to come clean during a campus visit. My advice: Drop it into a conversation with the Head/Chair that you have an academic spouse, and usually the Head will take it from there."
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