On paper, it's a really nice position. There's a lot of good stuff about the department - we're currently riding high in institutional support, we are attracting good grad students, it's one of the strongest undergraduate majors. The teaching load is light and the service commitment easy to fulfill. We've got new office space and they gave us more funding this year.
However.
There are long-standing departmental feuds that affect every decision being made. There is a climate of negativity and insulting behavior that there is no effort to check. Faculty will actively discourage students from working with other faculty that they don't like. People sabotage publications. We haven't been able to hold on to an assistant professor past the third year because most give up and find a better place - often at lower pay, but with less drama.
I've been fairly honest with people when they ask for the lowdown on these positions. I figure it would actually help the department in the long run - if someone applies knowing this is the situation, they will come in better prepared to deal with it. If they know they can't cope with that situation, why waste their time? But it seems I'm in the minority in this position. Most other people seem to think it's a better idea to only discuss the good.
Q: What's the CM take on this? Is honesty the best policy, or is it better to pretend?
You are absolutely correct: honesty is the best policy. The job market is so bad, it probably won't dissuade people who are serious about finding a position, but it will steel them. And if it does keep people away? Then it sounds like the institution is getting what it deserves.
ReplyDeletePut my vote in the "honesty" column, too.
ReplyDeleteBe honest about it, but encourage them to apply if they are willing to help change the culture. Change can only happen if reasonable faculty are hired who can try to redirect the crazy.
ReplyDeleteBe honest, but also have perspective. There are good things and bad things at your institution and in your department. Well, that's true of every place, except the ones that are all completely, irredeemably horrible. So you do your candidates a service by illustrating for them the particular mix at your place, and it's up to them to compare with the mixes elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAs a candidate, I'd want to know, and I also agree that honesty is ultimately best for the department (which sounds like it might need some outside intervention, but that's hard to arrange when other measures look good).
ReplyDeleteAs someone with fairly thick skin, the only thing on the list that really scares me is "people sabotage publications." I'm not sure exactly how that would be done (and I suspect, for that reason, that you're in a quite different field than I am, which means I may not be seeing some other red flags for what they are), but that sounds scary, especially since I think I'd go into a department like the one you describe hoping to publish enough that I'd either (a) be certain to get tenure, regardless of departmental politics or (b) be in a very good position to get a god job elsewhere (which it sounds like is what is actually happening). Of course, in either case, the departmental culture would still be a problem, and if I succeeded in route (a) I might end up becoming increasingly unhappy when associate-level service obligations resulted in greater exposure to the ongoing conflicts, and end up taking the (b) option in the long run anyway. What the department needs is probably both senior and junior hires who are especially strong in the people/organizational skills area (as well as their research/teaching areas), or some retirements among the chief troublemakers, or both. My guess is that being open about the problems is at least as likely to attract such people as hiding them, so that's another argument for openness. Somebody who finds the situation intriguing and/or challenging, rather than daunting, might be the person you need (on the other hand, they might actually like drama, which would not be good).
I'm with Silverback above.
ReplyDeleteSay exactly what you've written in your post. The positives are a, b, c; negatives are d, e, and f.
ReplyDeleteThere was a Zoology department in a uni here ("Uni of X") in the Great White North that, like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, finally imploded after a decades-long internecine conflict. The Hatfield-McCoy dynamics amongst faculty members were legend. So, whenever a visiting job candidate asks how people in my department get along, I respond "People get along quite well, you've got the odd conflict here or there, but it is nothing like the old Zoology dept at Uni of X!" and the candidate invariably knows what I mean by that statement.
ReplyDeleteBe honest, but, if you don't absolutely trust the person with whom you're communicating, be careful about saying anything that you would not want another faculty member to know you said. Someone might take it as disloyalty to the department and make things difficult.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Philip and Doctor BPD. You didn't mention the security of your current position (and I'm sorry if you have in previous posts and I wasn't paying attention). If you don't have tenure yet (and thus need outside references), be circumspect.
ReplyDeleteHonest means showing all sides you can with as little bias as possible. I wish someone had been honest with me for a couple of positions I applied for as I would not have wasted my time. Even if they had hired me, I would have been looking again the instant the ink dried on the contract given the dynamics I saw at play in the campus interview. One person's intolerable, dysfunctional mess is another's chance to be a peacemaker or a place in which New Proffie can build a bunker and just get the work done. I still find it hard to believe, but there are a few people out there who are able to treat this as just a job, not unlike working at a factory or retail shop where they can just tune out all the crap when they aren't there and concentrate only on the job at hand while they are there.
ReplyDeleteHi, Are you well?
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