Thursday, January 13, 2011

Now that the interview orgies are behind us, we move on to the campus visit!


Little Proffie wanted some advice about campus visits. I ended up with so much advice based on my years of experience, I figured it merited a post of its own.

- Make sure they think that you do not know how to drive. That way, you get picked up from the airport and carted around during your stay. If asked about this, say it is because of your high level of environmental consciousness and your respect for the willowy owl. If you pull this off, you can get a lot of sympathy from the committee if you also complain about long walking distances on campus.

- When you meet people for the first time, comment on how much they look like or don't look like the photos on the faculty home page. "Hey, you've got different glasses." Remarks comparing them to movie stars might work: "Hey, in person you look a lot more like Bruce Willis than you do online, except for that beard thing you've got going."

- If that isn't your style, try memorizing key phrases from the committee members' online profiles. Then, when you meet one, you can say, "I'm pleased to meet you. You're the guy who wants to 'empower students to explore new ideas'?!" Be sure to make the little quotes in the air motion when you get to the "empower" part.

- Bad-mouth your current colleagues or your grad department. Claim you to have banged every member of your dissertation committee, male and female. Show them you really know how to talk snark when necessary.

- Try to mimic the regional accents of the committee members in your responses to them.

- Tell jokes about whatever ethnicities are not on the committee. If the committee has African Americans, Europeans, Hispanics and Asians, that is a hard call. In the current political climate it is probably best to pick on the Hispanic or go for a Jew joke. A safe bet is a joke about retards, since most people on the committee will probably not think that they, themselves, are retards. Save any homo jokes until the ride back to the airport.

- If the campus tour takes you past the Department of Native American Studies, do a rain dance with all the hoopin' and hollerin' of a 1950s cowboy flick: "haya haya haya woo woo woo woo!" Pop your head through to door and ask how much they want for your scalp or raise your hand and say, "How!" Then thump your chest and say,"Big chief ivy cover school applicant wantum big tenure track wampum. We smokum peace pipe. We talkum interview. Chief teacher squaw say chief good applicant!" Then laugh. They'll understand that it is a joke.

- If you are male and there are females on the committee, try to get some ass. If female, show just enough cleavage so that the men on the committee think they can expect some action in the fall. If wearing a skirt, get up after having just gone to the bathroom, explaining that you have to go back because you forgot your panties. Be stuffing something into your purse when you come back to the table.

- If asked about your support for the Christian mission of the school, laugh. Then say, sarcastically, "Oh yes, I believe in arguments and evidence and I teach my students critical thinking - except when important questions are involved. If we're talking about something relevant, I defer to bronze-age, locust eating conjurers for all my answers. I'm all for the Guy in the Sky! Amen to that!" Offer them a high five. If they don't laugh, follow up with, "What's the problem? Are you guys into Kwanzaa or some dumb-ass shit like that? Are you part of the War Against Christmas?"

- Show that you are curious about their school. Ask how easy it is to get grad students in bed, whether the dean is an asshole (You can be quite direct: "Is the dean an asshole?"), and whose rectum you will have to nasally explore to get tenure (also be direct), and whether the students are all as hopelessly stupid as the ones you are TAing now.

- But also demonstrate that you have done your research and are already somewhat familiar with the school. Show that you really want to teach there. Tell them you heard about how infantile the frat culture is, how lame the football team is, and that the provost is a slut. Show a half-hidden grin and feigned sympathy while telling the department head that you heard about his divorce or how she recently lost a child in a car accident. Wear a shirt in one of the school colors and find an opportunity to hint that your underwear completes the combination.

- Promote bold theories in your discipline. If you're going for that medieval lit position, tell them you have new evidence that English was brought to earth by the same beings that made the crop circles or that your research agenda involves translating the poems engraved on Robin Hood's coffin. If math is your gig, use that old division by zero trick to prove that 1 = 2. Remind them that the rule about not dividing by zero is simply a white, male, colonial assumption. If you're an historian, tell them your next book will prove that the Holocaust really was just text. If you're a physicist, explain on a napkin the basic outline of your idea to mentor a senior project to install a tachyon-powered elevator in the science building.

- The teaching demonstration is key. This is your chance to show what you are like in your true habitat. Talk only to your real audience - the chair of the hiring committee. That is where your eye contact needs to be. That person is your focus. Ignore everyone else. If it is a large hall and you are given a microphone, tap on it loudly saying "TESTING!" over and over. That might be the moment to break the ice with your ethnic jokes.

- Do not be afraid to talk about money. Demand lots of it. If you're on campus, they've already invested in you and will be willing to invest more before they lose you. Drive a hard bargain. Remember, they're shopping for you as much as you are for them. For example, assure them that you'll do some committee work as long as you don't have to do any survey courses at the same time. Insist that you be allowed to teach online on certain religious holidays.