In case it becomes relevant again, for whatever reason, I’m thinking of my vita. Specifically, I’m thinking about how to prepare an academic vita that stands out enough actually to communicate valuable information about a person, but not so much that it suggests that its subject is a showboat. My present vita is getting long; length itself communicates something valuable, but it tends to bury some information. And let’s not talk about page design in the context of academic vitas, as they tend to be ruled by the Times Roman Template-Driven school of layout.
I’m working on a tasteful, elegant, but not garish or pompous, way of displaying on the front page what a promotion committee or grant committee or search committee might expect from me, and organizing the details on subsequent pages. It’s probably a lost cause; academics may well adhere to the “don’t look too different” approach to self-identification. But then, those may not be the committees I want to connect with, anyway. Hmmmm.
Come to think of it, I’ve been struck by how absurdly inefficient academic hiring is. It seems as though there are two types of hires in academia: the star attraction (on one hand), and the cattle call (on the other; no offense to the cattle, among whom I am certainly numbered). There’s really little or no effective energy toward winnowing the field of interested job-seekers by people who know both the institution and the field of candidates. Some good brokers would make a fascinating difference, probably introducing some new problems but also making some wonderful positive connections.
I tease Margaret by suggesting that she would make a great agent for theologians, connecting interesting scholar-teachers with appropriate publishers and academic employers. It’s a cool idea that we won’t see implemented any time soon, more’s the pity.
Posted by AKMA at May 14, 2003 02:02 PM | TrackBackLORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
Arlo Guthrie
Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central, Monday morning rail.
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound Odyssey,
the train pulls out of Kankakee,
rollin' along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' towns that have no name,
freight yards full of old black men,
and the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.
Good morning, America. How are you?
Don't you know me, I'm your native son.
"In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion:
"I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."
RM - driven to tears
Posted by: Rick 'Merica at May 14, 2003 02:34 PMTry out LinkedIn - I already invited you once. Then invite the academics you know too.
It's designed for excatly this kind of thing, though it does seem to be a bit short of theologians at the moment.
Most of my colleagues have never tried Googling a candidate's name; I doubt any of them are "LinkedIn" in either the formal or the figurative sense. What we need are better networks, yes, but I think a different focus on collegiality and scholarly conversation for promotion and advancement would be more helpful.
There's definitely a problem with the (in)efficiency of academic hiring, though. In the past week, I've spoken on a panel offering advice to lots of anxious grad students about "professionalizing" themselves to make themselves more attractive to employers, and I've participated in a department meeting bemoaning the lack of a really stellar candidate pool for our searches this past year. I very nearly developed conceptual whiplash.
(Of course, if you allow the ads to be written by a committee with an average age in the mid-60s, the odds that it will appeal to the desired segment of junior scholars are... lower. I don't meant to be ageist, but very few people are willing to change the categories in which they see their discipline over the course of their careers, and there's an ever-increasing gap between the "average" tenure-track faculty member and the average grad student as a result. Just a thought.)
Posted by: Naomi Chana at May 14, 2003 06:57 PMCheck out this link for a nice way to informally state your formal qualifications online:
http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/wilczek_frank.htm
Posted by: fp at May 14, 2003 08:26 PMHey, if you are putting together a resume, Sharon is getting to be a master at that in her class--so I just asked her and she would be happy to talk with you and share what she knows. :) Give us a chance to get together. She also has much expereience reading resumes, being in the management position and then HR.
Posted by: terry at May 15, 2003 05:50 PM