Other Interview Questions

Mary Corbin Sies of UMaryland created a list of questions for interviewees.

She is at a big university, so the focus was more on research and less on teaching. But she not only gives the questions, but also her view of the point of the questions. This can help when you are reading personal negatives into everything. (Which happens as the search continues.)

An example:

5. We are a service-based state branch university with an enrollment of three zillion student credit hours per semester, most of them in the basic required courses. Everyone, therefore, teaches the service courses. How would you teach Hist Or Lit or Art 101?

5a. (what they are asking is are you willing/experienced/ mentally stable enough to teach a heavy service course load to students who’ve likely read fewer than 3 books in their entire lives).

5b. (they may also be saying) No one on the faculty (much less the students ) at Mediocre State U has even heard of the figure/subject/method of your research. How do you think you could fit in here? Could you be happy or at least useful in a backwater? (i.e., can she survive in Timbuktu with idiots for colleagues and morons for students?)

It’s an interesting collection.

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