coldhearted scientist وداد

I 

I want to hire and I want to hire somebody good, and mine is not the nation’s most attractive university. In our state 29% of children live below the poverty line and another 24% live in low income families. At the salaries we offer, a family of four on one assistant professor salary would be a low income family. I fear not being able to hire for these reasons, and I am therefore insisting we look seriously at candidates with minor blots on their records – people who may not have multiple attractive offers and may consider us seriously.

II

Today I have read several interesting posts by an academic blogger whose contract has not been renewed. She is wondering how to handle the situation on her job applications – how to explain? – and has gotten a great deal of good advice.

One of the questions is what happens in that uncontrollable situation in which a faculty member at an institution where she is applying knows someone at the institution she is leaving, and can therefore get more information about events there than has been written down.

Perhaps it would be helpful to know what actually happens in these kinds of conversations – at least, when I and my friends make these sorts of telephone calls to each other.

III 

We speak in code because, although we are friends, we do not want to seem at all unprofessional, even among ourselves. After all, we have our images to keep up. But we are not dishonest since, as friends, we want to help each other. That means warning each other about potential problems, but also confirming non-problems as such. After all, we want to help each other, and part of helping is enabling each other to hire.

I tend to lead in like this:

PZ: We are interested in Candidate X, who is leaving your department.
Their areas of expertise are those we need; they have a finished degree, full time experience, and several accomplishments. At our institution, we feel that people who have not realized their potential at a particular job, may do perfectly well in a different situation. Is there a serious reason why we should not pursue this candidate further?

IV

A “serious reason” means something like: are they a sexual harasser or some other form of liability? Are they a terrible colleague in some grossly general way, and not just a “poor fit” in their old department? Did students vote with their feet, so that arms had to be twisted and schedules manipulated to get their courses filled? Are there major lacunae in their knowledge base or in their understanding of the profession? Did they constantly and annoyingly insist on special rights and privileges other faculty do not get?

V

The sorts of answer I will get are:

A. Not at all. I am actually quite sorry that we are losing this person.

B. No serious reason. This person had the problems you know about, and our letters are accurate representations of the situation. I am confident that they can overcome these problems / have done so already / would not have had these problems in the first place had our own department not been so strange.

C. If you really need your courses covered, you might consider offering a one year contract and seeing how things go. This person is at the very least competent and unproblematic.

D. Be very careful.

The most common response, by far, is (B). And people do not really exaggerate or lie very much, or very often.

Axé.