Careers I might have enjoyed (and may yet), instead of being full-time faculty:

1. Inventor / Engineer
2. Architect / Urban Planner
3. Astronaut
4. Novelist
5. Stunt man
6. Ship’s captain
7. Actor
8. Intelligence analyst / futurist
9. Cult Leader
10. Blimp Pilot

Let me begin with a caveat. This is emphatically not about our most recent hires, and if you were one of our visitors who was not offered a position, I urge you not to read too much into it. Likewise, I am not a great interviewer, and so my personal experience largely provides examples of what not to do (though, of course, I have managed to be hired a couple of times). Most of this comes from being on at least a half-dozen hiring committees and having a chance to see a lot of interviews and a lot of job talks. With that in mind:

What to expect. The academic interview is pretty standard. Generally it consists of a day, or often two, of meeting with people one-on-one. The pieces include:

* Meeting with the hiring committee
* A “job talk” or academic presentation to faculty and sometimes open to the public
* Meeting with the chair
* Meeting with the dean
* Meeting with someone from HR
* Meeting with individual faculty in the department
* Meeting with faculty from outside the department who have relevant research
* Touring the university / library
* Touring the area / meeting with real estate people
* Meeting with students / grad students
* Lunch / Dinner

Few will have all of these, but most interviews draw from this general set of items. If one of these items is not on the list, and you want it to be, don’t be shy about asking. Also, if there is someone at this university–either in the department or not–who is not on your itinerary and you want to meet, be sure to make the request. They are trying to sell themselves to you, and will likely be flexible (within reason) with requests.

Be a friendlier version of yourself. I know that sounds silly, but at this point, you have already qualified for the job. You aren’t there so much to show that you are capable of doing it, but because the faculty wants to make sure that you are someone they can work with. It is the intangible and interpersonal bit of trying to figure out who on their short-list is the best “fit.” So, you need to consider this to be a bit like a date. On one hand, be yourself. Don’t pretend to be what they expect, because that does a disservice to both parties. Moreover, an academic interview is the wrong place to pretend you know more than you do–you will get caught out and that will be the end. On the other hand, you should try to be especially friendly, and the kind of person people want to hang out with. This seems simple, and it might be for the first interview of the day, but for most academic positions, the interview lasts for a long (12+ hour) day, and often two. It’s difficult to be “on” that whole time, and hiring committees know this. Nonetheless, they want to see that you don’t get on peoples nerves during that time, because they expect to be spending long faculty meetings with whomever they hire.

Research the department.The one sure way not to get the job is to show up knowing nothing about the department and the university. Read the website inside and out. Know what the curriculum is. Read the bios of the faculty, and track down some of the their publications. Check out the student newspaper, and search for mentions of the university in other papers and online. Figure out the structure: what are the departments, schools, etc. Get a rough idea of how the campus is laid out. Talk to the faculty at your own school to get at any gossip.

Don’t be shy about asking what to expect. Departments differ substantially in what they expect of visitors. It’s entirely fair to ask who you will be meeting, who will be coming to your talk and what they expect, and the like. At a minimum, you should have a clear schedule of meetings in-hand before your visit. Request any A/V equipment (no, they won’t assume you will use a projector), and even if they say they will have it for you, bring back-ups in the form of transparencies or hard-copies. Make sure if you are a Mac person that your presentation will work on a PC, or vice-versa, and make sure you don’t need internet access for your presentation. Nothing leaves a bad first impression on a large group more than monkeying with the equipment for 15 or 20 minutes because you can’t get your presentation going. Be ready to present without the overheads, if necessary.

If you will be guest lecturing, be sure to see a copy of the syllabus, and know what they will be doing in the classes before and after your presentation. Ask about the number of students, and the type of presentations (lectures, discussions) they are accustomed to.

It may be awkward to ask about expenses, but be clear about who pays for what and when, and how you are to be reimbursed, if necessary. Generally, the university will ask you to make flight arrangements, and will reimburse you for those, and will take care of local arrangements. However, they may ask you to make most of the arrangements, and save receipts for reimbursement, or they may take care of everything and just let you know when you are flying.

Listen. Listen carefully to what people are saying. Be briefer that you need to be. Try to ask questions that move the conversation along by finding common ground. It is possible to do this to too great an extent, and sound like you are a cross between hollow and a Rogerian therapist (“I hear you saying you want to know what I could teach…”), but generally, it is better at this stage to consider this a test of your ability to engage in both small chat and larger chat without dominating the conversation. This isn’t the time to rehash your vita or name drop: it’s a chance to share in the excitement of your field with your (potential) new colleagues.

Prepare your presentation. I am always shocked when candidates come to the job talk and seem more interested in just plowing through the material than in conveying something to the audience. For schools that don’t have you teach, this is the proxy for your teaching demonstration. If you are boring, disorganized, unprepared, or assume that the audience has the same background you do, you are in trouble. Remember, many of the people in the room do not share your disciplinary background, especially those “outside members” of the hiring committee and the students who might attend. Be sure that you have sections that very clearly indicate the problem you are working on and why it is an important one. Keep this as broad as possible.

Pitch the discussion so that it is complete, and be sure to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about for those in the room with some background in the area, but it should be approachable to those who are new to the subject as well. Ideally, it should speak to the issues covered in the job description. In other words, although it may draw on your dissertation heavily, it should be something that a general audience will be interested in and enjoy, and should demonstrate not just that you are smart and capable, but that you are a good fit for this particular job. Be sure to bring handouts or something for them to see. Some faculty may interrupt the presentation, others may just let you present; be flexible. Know how much time you have to speak, and how much time you have for questions before you arrive, and make sure you stop your presentation a few minutes before the alloted time. It is far, far better to wind up short and leave them wanting more than to have people begin to fidget.

This should absolutely not be the first time you give this presentation. Present it to your advisor, your faculty, your peers–anyone who will listen. Videotape it, audiotape it, shout it on the street and on the subway. By the time you arrive on campus, it should be polished and you should know it by heart.

Dress the part. The standards of dress are going to be very different for a chemistry department and a business school, and for a large state school or a small, liberal arts institution. In any case, remember that this is a job interview. You should look professional from the moment you get off the plane to the moment you get back on it. For men, this means the academic uniform: a conservative blazer and tie, with a nice pair of slacks and polished conservative dress shoes. Dress as you would when making a presentation at a conference. Your aim is to be better dressed than the dean you will be meeting with. On the other hand, be sure this isn’t the first time you’ve worn these clothes, and that you are comfortable enough in them that they don’t feel awkward. Leave aside the funky jewelry and bolo tie–let your presentation do the talking for you.

Make sure you are comfortable, and dress in layers, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the climate. (When I interviewed for Buffalo, I dressed for Buffalo, and was completely unprepared for how warm most of the rooms were.) And both men and women should wear shoes that look good, but that are comfortable at the end of the day. If you can’t circumnavigate your campus twice in your shoes without looking like a horse that needs to be put down, you should rethink your choice.

Academic garb for women is a much more difficult subject, and one I am less versed on, but the same rule applies. Generally, a suit is the way to go. Wear what your own faculty wear on their “nicer” days.

You probably want to bring a briefcase of some sort (not your ratty old backpack), with copies of papers, extra copies of your vita, mints (not gum), something to nibble on, and some water. You may also want to bring a small notebook for jotting down impressions, etc., during the day–which can be especially helpful in crafting thank-you notes later. You don’t need to wear a suit on the plane, but if someone is meeting you at the airport, do your best to look presentable getting off the plane. First impressions are important.

Do your research, come with answers. There are a number of questions that almost always come up, and you shouldn’t come up with a blank stare when they are asked.

* Which of our courses are you qualified to teach?

“All of them,” really means none, and “I don’t know,” really means you don’t care. You should have some in mind, but be flexible. It may be that the course is on the books but not really offered, or it may be that it “belongs” to a particular faculty member.

* What research do you do?

You should already have an elevator pitch for conferences and the like. It should not be limited to your dissertation, but express a larger research agenda. As my advisor used to say, you should be able to explain your research to your Aunt May after she’s had her third martini and have her still be interested in your work. Avoid launching into a monologue here, as we are all prone to do when we talk about our work, and instead leave tantalizing breadcrumbs for your interlocutor to pick up on if she wants to.

* What drew you to our department?

“I’m applying everywhere,” may be true, but it is the wrong answer. In your research above, you already saw things you liked about the school, or you wouldn’t be there. If you honestly can’t find anything you like about the school, you probably shouldn’t be there.

* Where else are you interviewing?

Really none of their business. The only exception to this is if you have a firm offer from someone, and therefore need a counter-offer right away. In that case, you should let them know ahead of time what your time-frame is. Otherwise, use this question as a way of demonstrating your ability to provide politic and evasive answers.

* Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

It’s funny, in the “real world” they ask about your five-year plan. Although it no longer reflects the reality of academia, most places are still looking for a lifelong colleague. In practice, then, you should be asking yourself the same question: do you see yourself as part of this academic community and why? The other part of this question is that they want to know that you are not a one-hit wonder. Of course, you probably want to flesh out some of the ideas in your dissertation, but really, how long are you going to milk it? If you have not yet sought funding for your work, think seriously about where you are going to target. What do you want to be known for as a scholar?

* What does your spouse do?

Note that they are treading on very thin legal ice if they ask this, but in my experience they will often try to weasel it out of you. If your appointment depends on a “trailing spouse,” my advice is to let them know this at the very outset in your application, or wait until the offer. In any case, by the time you are interviewing, this shouldn’t really be a major concern. If you want to volunteer this information, that’s another matter, and family issues (quality of the schools, etc.), may come up as part of the discussion of the area.

Do your research, come with questions. At each interview, you will be asked what questions you have. You should have them, and be ready to ask them.

There are some standards:
* What is it like to teach here?
* What are the students like?
* What is the balance between teaching and research?
* Do faculty tend to do collaborative research together, or work on their own stuff?
* Do faculty get together socially? Do they do things together?
* What is something you think this department does better than most?
* What would you change about the department if you could?
* How well does the department support research equipment, assistants, and conference travel? (Often faculty have better answers to this question than chairs do.)
* Are folks generally in their office during the day, or do more work from home?
* What are some of the qualities that you think are important for a new professor to possess?
* What accomplishments is the department most proud of, as a group?
* What proportion of new hires receive tenure?

I am of the opinion that money shouldn’t be discussed during the interviews, and if at all, should only be discussed with the dean, and only in general terms. With a discussion of money comes the assumption that it is more than zero, which it may very well not be. That does not preclude questions more broadly of support and of promotion, all of which are fair game. (Benefits are generally set, but you should figure out what they are, often via the university’s website.) But I don’t think this is the time to talk about money specifics, and it’s not really very useful to talk in general terms at this point.

You should also ask about teaching load (don’t make it sound like a burden!), advising load, and when people can take sabbaticals (and if they actually do). How are course assignments decided? Do you have the flexibility to teach what you want? Are there certain courses you will be expected to teach? Are these on some sort of rotation? Are you expected to “own” a course indefinitely and will you be stuck teaching it?

What sorts of support are provided for research? What kinds of space or equipment is made available? Are there people who will help you write grants? What is the schedule and what are the expectations for promotion and tenure? What are the service obligations, and are junior faculty shielded from these early on?

Deans are often interested in how things work at your own university, and as a student, you may not know that. They also may not be entirely aware of how the department you are applying to works. However, they can be a good source of knowledge of how those outside the department see it. Ask what the dean thinks the particular strengths and weaknesses of the department are, what she sees as its major challenges, and how it interacts with other units on campus. Ask what she thinks makes for a successful junior professor, as well, and how the institution supports the development of new faculty.

Show your passion. Most professors do this job because they love it. Sure, we all gripe about student apathy, IRB processes, the lack of free time, funding, and everything else, but we are here for a reason that is more than just a paycheck. We want to see that you are doing it for the same reason. Most people that manage to actually finish the Ph.D. are, but they may not show it. Show what gets you up in the morning, and figure out what excites the faculty you are interviewing with. (Note: in some cases, it may have nothing to do with research!)

Dealing with meeting students. Student meetings can be fraught with potential danger. Students can be very harsh in their questions and in their decisions. Hiring committees like to see that faculty can interact well with students, and like that students can be more aggressive in their questioning, and honest in their opinions. Particularly difficult is if you are ABD, and in much the same position as the doctoral students you are talking with. In the back of their minds (and perhaps not that far back) is a comparison between your qualifications and their own. They may be on the job market at the same time, or plan to be, and wonder what you will bring to the program. In practice, if you can provide something they think is lacking in the program, you will have a strong endorsement. Feel free to talk about your own graduate experience at another institution, but be wary of commiserating too much. If you tell them you don’t think you’ll ever finish your dissertation, expect that (and anything else you say) to get back to the hiring committee.

On the other hand, just as students tend to be easier to open up to, they also have less of a vested interest in “selling” the department, and more willing to let you know about the good, the bad, and the ugly. In particular, most students (both grad and undergrad) will eagerly tell you about how they would change things if they were in charge.

The Lunch/Dinner. Some candidates think that this is the time to cut loose. In some ways it is; people feel like they are able to ask more candid questions and get to know the real candidate over a meal, and particularly over a bottle of wine. (As a side note, if you don’t usually drink, now is the wrong time to start. If you do partake, nurse a single glass through the dinner.) It’s fine to relax a bit, but don’t forget that you are still in an interview, and that this might be one of the most important parts. Often you have spent time with these folks before, but without the formal setting, there’s a chance to talk a bit about the city. As with your dissertation defense, one of the best things you can do is get your hosts to engage in a conversation about what’s going on in the department. They may not have a lot of opportunities to talk like this, and this provides you with a bit more insight into the social dynamics of the place.

Should you go, even if you don’t like the school. The second job talk is often easier than the first, and so some people suggest that you should go to a job talk “just for the experience.” I’ve never quite understood this: if you’ve applied somewhere, you have at least some interest in the position. Go with your eyes and ears open. In practice, I went to my first campus visit mostly as a trial run for other upcoming interviews, and ended up taking the job because I liked the people I met there.

Thank you notes. These are not optional. Some applicants send emails, which is fine. A smaller number send hand-written thank you notes that clearly reference something they spoke with each faculty member about. These I find to be much more impressive. Make sure you have a list of people to whom you will send notes, and write them on the way home to send as soon as you get back.

If you get an offer. I won’t make a separate post about negotiating the offer, but do negotiate. The Chronicle of Higher Education lists average salaries for different institutions, and you can talk with your faculty and fellow graduate students to get an idea of the range of offers. Remember that the cost of living in various communities makes salaries far more difficult to compare. Have in mind a bottom-line amount you are willing to accept, but if the offer is over that amount, you still have room to negotiate; deans expect it. Moreover, remember that this is probably the most important determinant of your income for many years to come. Take your time: if they weren’t interested they wouldn’t have offered. Read Getting to Yes.

If the offer is still too low, and they cannot go higher, they may be willing to offer other things to sweeten the pot. Course releases in the first couple of years–particularly for research universities–are not at all unusual. There may also be possibilities for summer money and research support. You may have some specific requests regarding computing or relocating expenses that can also be helpful. Note that if you do negotiate these things, you should make sure that you receive written specific confirmation (e.g., dollar amounts for computers or travel) of the offers before accepting an appointment. Such offers can too easily be forgotten once you have moved across the country. You should also couch them in the right way: these are ways for the department to nurture the development of your research agenda.

Quinna… what?

If, like me, you are from outside the northeastern US, you probably have not heard of Quinnipiac–and if you are from the region, you probably still cannot spell it. If you have heard of Quinnipiac, it is probably due to their Polling Institute, or their athletics (especially hockey and basketball). It is not a comprehensive university, and there is a nice mix of professional studies and liberal arts. The Law School and Business School, while they remain in the third tier, have gained in reputation lately. The School of Communication already has a good reputation for training communication professionals, and like elsewhere on the campus, there is a move to improve quickly.

Entrepreneurial Job-taking

I am joining the faculty at QU as much for what I hope it will become as what it is now. They have taken a pretty aggressive stance in improving the national and global reputation of the university. While every university talks about “excellence,” this one is putting serious financial resources behind it, investing in new faculty and building out an already stunning campus. Everyone seems to have the same experience I have: not knowing much about the school, but being very impressed once they visit. The hope is that impressiveness can be better communicated to the world at large.

There is a great deal of risk involved in such a choice. I talked to some schools here in Manhattan that are better known, but also have a very clear idea of what they are and are not interested in changing that. While there are some schools I would be willing to work with under such conditions (NYU didn’t interview me, but I would have leapt at the opportunity to teach there), I do like the idea of being able to put my own stamp on things at QU.

That said, I had hoped for the same thing at the University at Buffalo. I haven’t yet published my “bridge-burning” blog entries, but it was very frustrating to see the School of Informatics, which started the year I came to Buffalo, stagnate during the time I was there. It was clear to me that it wasn’t moving after two or three years, but for various reasons, I was kind of stuck there until last year. I should have bailed much earlier. I wish them the best, but at this point I am certain that whatever direction it takes, it will be very different from the one I want to go.

The Bad

So, in deciding whether to take the position at QU, I lined up some positive and negatives. They end up pulling toward the positives, but we’ll see what things look like in a year or two.

On the negative side: it isn’t a “Research I” school–it is very much a teaching school. That means an increase in teaching load. Though I’ll be teaching four courses the first year, I expect that to increase a bit over time. In practice, though, last semester was the first in which I got to teach less than two courses at UB, and at times I taught more. In addition to the increased teaching load, there is the reputational issue. Folks have laughed when I’ve mentioned this–as SUNY Buffalo doesn’t exactly have a stellar reputation. Nonetheless, there is a divide among the teaching and research schools, and there are plenty of people in R1 schools who look down on anyone not at an R1.

QU is not particularly diverse. Not only is it very white, it seems to draw from a fairly consistent socio-economic group, and from a limited region. I’ve been told that students are not always passionate about their education, and difficult to engage in discussions. I suspect, though, that everyone says this about their own students.

It’s really far away. I’m going to stay in New York and do the commute, but it’s a couple of hours each way on the train. I’m not sure how this will work–my hope is that the train time will be productive for me, but this was the farthest school I applied to, and I almost turned down their invitation to come when I realized how far away it was.

The Good

On the positive side: it’s a teaching university. I was pretty sick with the way we treated teaching at Buffalo. Not everyone: there were some really solid teachers. But both the attitude toward students and the resources put into teaching were abysmal. Although I won’t be teaching undergrad courses at first, when I do, they will be the size of our graduate courses at Buffalo. So the whole “not an R1 school” is really a double-edged sword. I have always considered my research to be a part of my teaching, and not the other way around, and that seems in line with QU.

Ironically, I will have more flexibility in my research, I think. This was one of the things that attracted me to Buffalo, but they really only valued research that fit a particular frame of reference. I should have detected that before I went, and had I been more disciplined, I think I could have worked against that. But in the end, expectations about the kind of research that was valued, and the absolute necessity that such research be funded, meant that I wasn’t supported in doing the kind of good work I wanted to. This is among the reasons that two other pre-tenure folks left at the same time I did. I won’t say that QU will provide more support for my “unique” approaches to research, but at least they won’t stand in my way. Heck, my new boss is even a fellow blogger.

The resources at Quinnipiac are there, at least in certain areas. While I’ll need to rely on a broader set of personal networks for some things, I get the impression that worrying about how to pay for toner or whether I’ll be able to go to a conference is not as acute. We’ll see how this plays out once I arrive. I still plan on seeking external funding, but that’s a lot easier to do when you aren’t being pulled in six different directions just to keep a program afloat. The school is in even tighter physical space for now, smooshed in with Business while the renovations are starting, but there is at least some light at the end of that tunnel.

In terms of production resources, QU is out of this world. They have their own HDTV studio, for example, and more equipment than you can throw two sticks at. It will be nice to have access to such a broad range of toys and tools.

I do hope to see if there are informal ways I can make ties to folks at Columbia, down the street from my apartment, and at Yale, down the street from Quinnipiac. I’m not a particularly social person, but there are some outstanding folks at both universities that I am hoping to bug for coffee and a chat at some point. I’m also looking forward to shedding some of the administrative responsibilities I took on at UB.

My teaching is also going to be much more in the direction of my own interests. I liked teaching Communication Theory, but despite pleading–after five years–to be let out of teaching the course, I was stuck in it. My courses this year at Quinnipiac couldn’t be closer to my own interests, and given that I will be teaching in the MS in Interactive Communication, I’m hoping that the students will be equally interested in these areas. In the first semester, I am teaching the core seminar in Interactive Communication and a seminar entitled “Communications, Media & Society,” both of which are pretty broadly conceived courses, but I think I’ll be able to have some fun with.

Next Year

Many moons ago, we had one of what would be several “visioning” sessions with overpaid consultants at UB. We drew pictures of what we thought the School of Informatics should be. I drew us as a small province far away from Paris. What that meant was that we had the freedom to be innovative and to be daring. That didn’t really mesh with the way the rest of the faculty saw the program. They thought–and think–it is the best quantitative communication program in the US.

I am going to try to avoid taking on more administrative work than I need to at QU, but I think the best way I can help my new program is to make sure the work that I am doing, the work I am doing in partnership with my students, is too bleeding edge and innovative to ignore. That’s my mission over the next couple of years.

I have mentioned the possibility of teaching collaborations before, but I am really hoping to push this forward. I have a feeling that this will be a little easier, since I will be moving to a school that has more of a media studies, production, and journalism bent. Some of you will be getting nudges to see if you are interested in articulating our classes a bit.

And I don’t know if any of my readers are Hamden or New Haven denizens, but if so, I hope you will clue me in on the secrets of the area over a beer.

The index of more than 300 places sets the national average at 100. Fittingly, Normal, Ill., the home of Illinois State University, is right at the cost-of-living average. Full professors there earn an average salary of $76,700. That may not sound so great. But consider this: The average salary for a full professor at New York University, a whopping $144,000, works out to just $70,000 once the high cost of living in Manhattan is figured in.

Of course, NYU didn’t hire me (bastards!) so, I am doing the stupidest thing ever, and reverse commuting: this year to bucolic Buffalo, where the average home is less than $100K (in NYC, the average apartment went for $1.3 million this year), and soon to equally suburban Connecticut. I’m dumb.

I am pretty happy with what I get paid, especially since it is–formally, at least–part time work. Yes, I could be making much more as another sort of professional, but I suspect that academics who want to be making more money do, through consulting and other forms of moonlighting. In other words, although the salary of a full professor continues to rise more slowly than inflation, I think that we are better off than we think we are, and far better off than we will be in ten years.

Comforting thought of the week.

This last year of commuting has been terrible, I will readily admit. I had stars in my eyes for a while. I would get everyone to use the telephone and email, and for some, IM and video Skype. It would be like I was completely there. After all, we’re academics–telecommuting is nothing new. Sure, I’d need to show up now and then for some things, but most of the heavy lifting could be done through the wire. And when I needed to go, the flight on Jet Blue is only 50 minutes.

I was so wrong. The decision to commute was a poor one. The commute runs to several hours and brain-death and physical exhaustion for several more. Logistics and expense far outstripped my expectations, and my work suffered. This has largely been a lost year for me.

I wanted to give the university enough time to make a leadership transition for the Masters in Informatics program, and to replace me on the faculty. I also wanted to give myself time to do a more complete job search. Had I left last summer rather than this one, I would have left academia for a stint in the “real world” of consulting before coming back. In the end, though, I think that choosing to live in Manhattan and work in Buffalo was a bad decision.

Part of that, of course, is that I have been a “short timer” for way, way too long. Only in the academic world would someone give notice nearly sixteen months before actually separating from the organization. I was already in a marginal position on the faculty, split between two departments with duties that took away from both my teaching and my research. Some of the changes and politics of the School have been particularly wearing for someone who was heavily invested and now quickly divesting in its future. I’m certain this strife is not nearly as grinding as it is in many, many departments, but a lot of the collegiality and excitement that was part of the department when I joined it seems to be sapped away toward the end. To be fair, that may simply be because I was not as much a part of what was happening in terms of research within the department. Part is that I allowed my future to get too quickly entangled in the nuts and bolts of the programs. I should have defended my own time and objectives better.

Two of the faculty who most influenced my decision to come to Buffalo left a couple years ago, and some of the remaining faculty think of my work as not worthwhile, and been openly or quietly dismissive of it. I’m a pretty independent sort of person, but it’s hard to be a part of a community when you are considered to be a kind of adjunct in all but title–a position that has no doubt been especially encouraged by my relative absence over the last year. The direction of the department has changed, and become more focused in an area that is not my interest. In many ways, I applaud that change. I had always argued that a department as small as Buffalo’s (with only a dozen or so tenure-track faculty) had to focus to be able to move toward excellence. It has, and I expect its reputation will grow, thanks to the work of some very talented faculty. What I didn’t expect, but perhaps should have, is that such a focus would leave my interests so far out of frame.

On Friday, there will be a group going away party for the four of us who are leaving. (And those of you who know me in person know how much I love parties!) I can say unequivocally that I am eager to move on. I am ready for new challenges and a chance to work in a program where my efforts can gain a bit more traction; where my work can really be the work of the department. I’m looking forward to leaving aside some of the administrative issues, and focusing more on my teaching (in my own area!) and my research. Perhaps most of all, I’m looking forward to a fresh start.

Perhaps it is merely cognitive dissonance doing its required work, but I now wish I had made this move years earlier. I will always have fond memories of Buffalo, particularly of some of the extraordinarily talented graduate students I have had the pleasure to know, and I am sure that the less fond memories will fade more quickly, as is always the case.

I’ve intentionally left mention of my future plans a bit vague on the blog. I will rectify that in the coming months. I wanted to avoid the temptation of leaving Buffalo mentally before I left in fact. As we move into summer, I hope that I will be able to shake my old habits of thought and action as I move into a new position, and new ways of working.

As a side note, I have been telling people that I plan on riding the 1 train giving lectures and holding out my hat. Folks have had two reactions to this. Either they think it is an excellent idea and well worth executing, or they are horrified. If you have leads on good jobs in Manhattan or surrounds (need not be academic), do let me know. I am planning on doing some consulting as well — whether I find a suitable academic post will indicate the degree to which I will also need or want to consult.

For the sake of the process, and because I would not want to publicize matters the schools prefer to keep quiet, I will report only in generalities. I was going to assign cute pseudonyms but given few schools there are, that would make it way to obvious which was which. I will just give them some numbers. Over the last couple weeks, I sent out four application letters to four different schools:

School 1: Got back to me right away and I talked to the chair of the hiring committee on the phone. They had me in for an informal campus interview pretty quickly (I was their first), and I got to meet a number of their faculty members and chat a bit over lunch. I’m now on hold until they do first interviews with some of their other candidates, and then they will get back to me to see whether I come back for another talk or if I have been voted off the island.

Not a perfect match for what I do in terms of research, but who is, really? More importantly, they need someone with the set of skills I have. The university and the program is a bit funky and a bit arty, both in ways I like. The program (graduate only) is large and has some great folks teaching in it and some interesting graduates. It would provide a nice space between theory and production, and a lot of places fall heavily on one side or the other. The university as a whole is a good place for me, and I could make strong ties with other campus units. It’s not entirely clear whether this is something the chair likes or not, though it was suggested it is a pretty common sort of thing to happen. I’m excited about this school, but it may just be because I met and like the people there, and so I know more about it at this stage.

School 2: Also got back to me right away and I chatted with the hiring committee chair. This one is a “vaporjob”; it has yet to have a funded line backing it. The conversation/interview was interesting, and I think I would make a good fit here. It is a program with a clear emphasis, and although that has not been my emphasis in the past, it is not foreign to me either. Great school, with a well-known faculty. I don’t know enough about the job yet — including whether it exists — to know what is happening here. Waiting for a call back, eventually.

School 3: Had a brief conversation with the chair of the hiring committee the day after I sent in materials, and they are bringing me out for a campus interview, but not until late January. This one is the farthest commute, which would probably mean relocating a bit outside of the city, but it is an interesting and growing program. It is not nearly as well known as the other three schools in this batch, and different in character in many ways, but it is an interesting possibility.

School 4: Nothing yet. Normally, this would be expected, but given how quickly the others got back, I am already thinking this may be a “no.” It is also the position that everyone in the world (at least everyone I have talked to) seems to have applied for, so I am guessing (a) there may be a mountain of CVs to work through and (b) I may not be a particularly big fish among them.

A three-out-of-four initial hit is far better than I had expected. Of course, those of you who know me in person know that my charming, witty, self-effacing blog-self is a stark contrast to my severe, taciturn, mean-spirited in-person-self, so these face-to-face interviews could very well signal the end of my search. I’ll update in a month or two; sooner if there are rapid developments.

Basically, I want to work in a place full of people who remind me of who I want to be: people who are creative, who challenge the status quo, and who care passionately about the world they live in and the work they do. I think it is fair to say that while I respect my colleagues here at UB, I don’t feel like they get excited about the kinds of things I get excited about. I know that there are people out there who do–I’ve been lucky enough to meet many of them, in part through this blog. All I’m looking for now is a place where they congregate, and a home for me to do exciting work. I am looking for fertile soil to land on. So far, I haven’t seen a lot of promising landing spots.

Contrary to what I had hoped, I will have to be circumspect in my blogging of the process. My new blogging rule has become “blog about what you are doing, not what you are going to do.” So what I am doing right now, is trying to figure out what sort of place would be somewhere I could grow and find my contributions appreciated. Oh, that and seeking out some letters of recommendation for a couple of academic postings that look promising. Once I know more for sure, I’ll be sure to share it with you all.

In the meantime, if you have ideas, let me know. Generally, I am looking for something that is in New York or within an hour or two of commute time (or largely telecommutable). If it is something really cool, I might be willing to break that barrier. It need not be an academic posting; I am certainly interested in the possibility of working in a more entrepreneurial atmosphere on either side of the ivory curtain. It needs to be something that represents a shifting challenge, and that engages me in some form of problem solving, because, frankly, boredom is my greatest enemy. And it needs to be with people who are passionate about changing the world, and able to do so. Is that too much to ask?

I remember talking with Lee Rainie in Maastricht 2003 about why Pew Internet and American Life wasn’t asking about blogs. He said that the number of people who read blogs was just too small to be able to drum up a decent sample via telephone. I remember telling him that if you ask what a “blog” is, of course they won’t know. Blog readers think of the sites as diaries, journals, or news sites, or by the name of the host (e.g., “Livejournals”).

Of course, both the term has more currency now and the number of poeple reading and writing blogs has increased exponentially, but it is nice to have some empirical indication that those who read blogs don’t necessarily know that they are doing it.

As an aside, since I am blogging my job search, I actually sent a c.v. off to BuzzMetrics at the beginning of the year when they were looking for a senior research analyst, but never even heard back. I guess I lack that certain buzz.

In an earlier entry, I suggested that I was looking for an academic posting somewhere in New York. That is true, but it is also the case that I am open to other possibilities. I interviewed this afternoon with a company that provides professional consulting services (is that vague enough for you?). I presume that they know about the blog, and may read it. If so, hi guys.

In the most obvious ways, it’s not at all the sort of thing I’ve done in the past. Nonetheless, the organization could draw on a number of my strengths, including visual design and qualitative/quantitative analysis of interaction. Dan, one of the MI students, suggested that I was the real-life version of the Pretender, moving from career to career. Although I play this down a lot in my resume, it’s hard to hide, and despite frequent talk about how we are all going to switch careers seven times in our lives, the gentlemen interviewing me today seemed very concerned about whether I would stick around if they hired me.

I understand this concern; I really do. On the other hand, in many ways I would prefer to work for a company in which everyone is eminently marketable. This seems to be an issue among law firms lately, with recruiters being pretty aggressive about seeking out lateral hires. Would you want to work for a company that hides the identity and abilities of their employees, or tries to compel them to remain as an ethical issue (loyalty) or contractual issue? Or would you rather work for the company who is wide open about the advantages of staying where you are? Google keeps people not because of their outstanding pay, but because they have done the organization right (it seems from the outside) and this is attractive to people on the outside and seems to do a decent job of retaining their own people.

Anyway, given other interviews where it was pretty clear that the company was interested in me (i.e., I had the offer by the end of the interview), it was not as clear by the end of the interview that they liked me in this case. It’s possible I was too forthright about my single, solitary weakness: that I bore easily. Likewise, I am not overly encouraged by their insistence that the work was boring and time consuming. I am still hopeful that there is something here, and that I wrongly perceived the connection, but it may be that this is what it feels like when there is not a love match.