Friday, January 23, 2015

SQUEE! Hub gets an interview!

I reported that Hub interviewed for a position here in town. He also responded to a request sent to his PI from a colleague at another institution looking for someone exactly like Hub, did PI know anyone who would be willing to apply?

Hub got a skype interview at application #2, a university much closer to the grandparents! I will call it the Four Hour Drive U (4HDU). 4HDU is in a medium-small sized city, bigger than our current city. The schools are good, the nature is beautiful and close. It is quite far away from any major urban centers, unfortunately, but the cost of living is good.


I feel ready for a change. I do like my institution, and majorly good things have been happening, for example, a stunning renovation that makes my workplace 400% better. However,  I recall several spring semester "fall-aparts" indicating that I am working and living above my capacity. I would be happy staying here, but I am amenable to change

A preliminary search on the internet showed nothing for me at 4HDU. It is a relatively large state R01 institution, but does not have any posted openings a professor, instructor, or research associate in my area.

We have decided NOT to make it a non-negotiable dual hire. I was not included in the cover letter. The university's website addresses spousal hires by linking to major employers in the area (giving me the impression they don't have a strong policy).

I have read:
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/224-the-professor-is-in-how-to-score-that-elusive-spousal-hire
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Intricacies-of-Spousal/65456/
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/06/04/essay-what-its-be-spousal-hire-faculty-job
http://theprofessorisin.com/2014/01/03/a-successful-spousal-hire-a-guest-post/
http://academic-jungle.blogspot.com/2010/05/spousal-hiring-reason-you-don-have.html

What other resources of suggestions do you have?


The critical thing here is that one of you gets an offer, and you’re going to damage the chances of that happening if you disclose the spouse prematurely. I know that some disagree with this, but I stick to it. While discrimination based on personal circumstances is not supposed to happen in searches, the fact is, it does happen, and there are occasionally search committees that will reject a candidate early in the game to avoid the hassle of dealing with a spouse. - See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/224-the-professor-is-in-how-to-score-that-elusive-spousal-hire#sthash.rSaHi0uj.dpuf

The critical thing here is that one of you gets an offer, and you’re going to damage the chances of that happening if you disclose the spouse prematurely. I know that some disagree with this, but I stick to it. While discrimination based on personal circumstances is not supposed to happen in searches, the fact is, it does happen, and there are occasionally search committees that will reject a candidate early in the game to avoid the hassle of dealing with a spouse. - See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/224-the-professor-is-in-how-to-score-that-elusive-spousal-hire#sthash.rSaHi0uj.dpuf
The critical thing here is that one of you gets an offer, and you’re going to damage the chances of that happening if you disclose the spouse prematurely. I know that some disagree with this, but I stick to it. While discrimination based on personal circumstances is not supposed to happen in searches, the fact is, it does happen, and there are occasionally search committees that will reject a candidate early in the game to avoid the hassle of dealing with a spouse. - See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/224-the-professor-is-in-how-to-score-that-elusive-spousal-hire#sthash.rSaHi0uj.dpuf

Friday, January 16, 2015

Getting crushed by the popular girl, er, prof.

Well, that was a hellish semester.

There was an evening lab, a semester of entirely new labs, construction in the building, taking over a course for an extremely popular professor and getting lambasted in comparison, widespread cheating in my grad level course, and tumbling from one missed deadline to the next.

The worst was the popular colleague. This feels like junior high, all those social comparison anxieties...




 Popular Prof is young, energetic and extremely capable. She implements all the most recent pedagogical techniques. Her courses are full of blooms taxonomy, metacognition, flipping, case studies, portfolios, POGILs, concept mapping, learning styles assessments, etc. It's extremely complicated and I have no idea how she grades all the components of it let alone prepares her 12-page syllabi explaining all the tasks the the students do. Its all well thought out in advance. Her lectures are clear and kind-sounding, and it just all comes across as so understandable. I also don't understand how she covers all the details in these lectures.

Other colleagues think she's the bees knees, and to top it all off, she just got a sizable research grant.

Oh, junior high insecurity, I so thought I was over you!

When I returned from sabbatical, I felt ready to make a change in my traditional methods. I lecture, and use the books' powerpoints, but I also do a lot of think-pair-share and tons of demos in courses. I have frequent low-stakes quizzes and a few activities. I don't know how to use the clickers, am not entirely convinced that the POGILs really work (weak students blow them off and just text during group time). I sought her advice, and she generously gave it to me (she's not a mean girl), and I tried to implement some of her methods, but they felt awkward and wrong for me.

This was a bit comforting at the time:

http://johnstahlwert.com/2014/10/why-you-need-to-keep-being-you-at-work/

But, then the students we shared LAMBASTED, SCOURED, PILLORIED me on course evaluations, worse even than my first year teaching. They specifically cited my "incompetence" in comparison to Popular Prof.  Reading the course evals caused about 20 hours of darkness, and I am still questioning my career choice. However, I am bouncing back from the darkness, and I can recover mostly, as my evals have been good for years in that exact class. Some of the damage has been done, however, as my chair wants to meet with me regarding my "morale". Apparently comments I made here and there were noticed by the chair, so apparently I set off some red flag (see here for our institutional culture).  

I want to change my classroom style to become more student-centric. I want to learn from Popular Prof's successes, but now I am so overloaded that I don't have the capacity to make a change: no time, no energy, no resources, not intelligent enough to learn new software...on the fly...in short time. I will have to dedicate a summer to it. I will probably need to go to a conference or something to get me going, cause I'm not managing to do it by myself. That will be a nightmare of child care. Oh, well. Stop the whinin', PUI Prof. Just get it done, like the adult you are.

Any baby steps you can suggest?

Oh, PS, my sabbatical work final revision was just sent in today. It should be in press soon. :)