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Blogging our search - the Search begins Job Search
By nowhiring
Posted Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 01:25:47 PM PDT
I've been asked by YMN to blog about our search for a new mathematician. I am excited to do so, but my department is less than thrilled to air its dirty laundry. So please understand my situation. I'll be writing about our search anonymously.

Last week the department met to get things rolling with our search ...

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The early parts of our search were fairly uneventful at our institution. The department met to appoint a four-person committee and to discuss the parameters for the search. There was only minor squabbling on what mathematical specialties we'll be asking for - one of my more ornery colleagues threw his predictable fit arguing for a particular flavor of Algebraist. That would have cut down our applicant pool by an order of magnitude (which would be both a blessing and a curse.)

After that skirmish subsided, we settled on fairly standard criteria: excellent research, a strong teaching record, and a "good fit" for our department. I've never been too sure of what exactly that means. Our resident radical pointed out that we need more diversity among our faculty. This started another predictable argument, with our lone McCain supporter backing the department away from any real affirmative action. Maybe when he retires we can really change things up.

Then we got down to choosing a committee. Officially, the chair of the department heads the committee, but given the mathematical focus (and his lack of knowledge in it) that job will probably fall to me. I was the only obvious choice for the committee, and the two others are people I get along with well. I am hoping that we will be a good team.

There is always a tension in my attitude toward a search, between the opportunity to hire a new colleague and amount of work it takes to go through the process. Right now the exciting possibility of bringing new blood into our (slightly) stagnating department wins and I cannot wait to get started.

When the number of applicants hits the 200 mark, we will see how excited I remain.

Next week: writing the job ad.

< What are my chances of PhD admission? | The hiring process as risk management >
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Blogging our search - the Search begins | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
[new] Hiring process (none / 0) (#1)
by Cotati on Sun Oct 05, 2008 at 02:56:58 PM PDT

Our resident radical pointed out that we need more diversity among our faculty. This started another predictable argument, with our lone McCain supporter backing the department away from any real affirmative action. Maybe when he retires we can really change things up.
Change things up in what way? What sort of affirmative action? And what does someone supporting McCain or any other candidate have to do with hiring for math faculty??! Is someone trying to apply some sort of litmus test? God, I was so hoping that politics would not be injected into math academia. I'm not referring to the ``office politics'' that you find within a department, as you would find in any organization. I'm talking about government politics tainting academic relations within math community. So far in my grad school experience, I have found the math community to fairly free of such crap; people are pretty tolerant. Please tell me that this is not atypical!


[new] politics and academia (none / 0) (#2)
by nowhiring on Thu Oct 16, 2008 at 12:00:21 PM PDT

Mathematics (along with other sciences) has a serious problem attracting and retaining certain groups, including women and people of color. They face more serious hurdles than white men, and many of us want to acknowledge that in the hiring process. We have a bunch of women & minority majors, but they would really benefit from having more role models.

Simply put, all things being equal I would rather hire a woman or a minority candidate. So far, my argument hasn't prevailed. I hope to win that argument in the future.



[new] Diversity (none / 0) (#3)
by rtalbert on Fri Oct 17, 2008 at 06:48:34 AM PDT

For what it's worth, the actual empirical evidence on whether a diverse faculty helps under-represented groups (the "role model" argument) is mixed. The argument is that since women and ethnic minorities are under-represented in mathematics as a whole and in the undergraduate classroom specifically, their participation and achievement will improve if there are more women and ethnic minorities teaching them because they will have role models. But the data suggest that this doesn't matter so much -- the perception that women and ethnic minorities are in the minority among their mathematics peers does affect their performance, but having a more diverse faculty tends not to alleviate that perception in all cases. Here's the study, and it's pretty honest about what role model effects are present and which ones aren't. There could be some positive effect of having female professors but it's somewhat inconclusive.



[new] Departmental Diversity (none / 0) (#4)
by brianbirgen on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 06:45:06 AM PDT

This is certainly a question that our department has struggled with. On one hand, you want to hire a candidate who will add to the department qualities not already present. The new hire should stretch the department somehow and be different from the people already there. On the other hand, you want to hire someone who will be successful in the department and mesh well with the current personalities. We want to hire someone who will be able to get tenure and stay in the department for the thirty or so years.

There is no easy answer to finding the balance between a finding a candidate who is a good "fit" for the department, who is also adds qualities to department not already present. A few years back, we hired a Palestinian faculty member, who I thought was a good hire, but he never managed to connect with the students. He added necessary diversity to the department, but our students couldn't get past his foreign accent.

There's the question: how do you find someone who will be successful in your department while challenging and stretching the status quo?



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