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A thread with my tips for applying to jobs at PUIs, especially SLACs.
My qualifications: I was part of the discussions when my department had a search 2yrs ago, & got my SLAC job (& other offers) 4yrs ago. So I'm familiar with the recent job market from both sides.
My qualifications: I was part of the discussions when my department had a search 2yrs ago, & got my SLAC job (& other offers) 4yrs ago. So I'm familiar with the recent job market from both sides.
I know the market absolutely sucks this year, but I also know that there are some job adds posted. I don't want anyone who could be great at a SLAC to not make the short list bc they aren't familiar with SLACs & only have advice from people at R1s.
Advice you often see given is that PUIs & esp. SLAC's care more about teaching than research. This varies widely, but is definitely not true for all. I'd say my dept cares equally about research & teaching, & *view our research as an extension of our teaching & mentoring.*
A great application (in biology at a SLAC similar to Kenyon) shows evidence of strong commitment to teaching excellence & the potential to develop an externally funded research program that engages & mentors students.
A key difference in the job materials btwn a SLAC app & an R1 app is the research statement. For a SLAC, it needs to demonstrate that the candidate has carefully considered how their research will benefit students & can be accomplished with only undergrad students.
A research statement that demonstrates ability to get NSF/NIH funding & tackle big, exciting projects might impress an R1 committee, but won't impress at a SLAC if that work can't be done with exclusively undergrad students &/or doesn't provide undergrads research opportunities.
A research program with great student engagement but that seems simplistic, naive, underdeveloped, & unlikely to ever receive external funding won't impress at a SLAC, either. (this varies greatly; at my SLAC funded grants are not required for tenure but we are expected to apply)
The cover letter should be tailored to each job, & for a SLAC the focus should be on student engagement throughout; your research, teaching, outreach, & service should all highlight how students benefit from your efforts.
An excellent teaching statement for R1s vs. SLACs isn't that different. Don't talk about how great you are at active learning in 300-person classes bc SLACs don't have those. But otherwise, great teaching is pretty similar across institution types.
If your teaching experience is as a TA but you did more than grade & assist, be sure to emphasize what you did - developed new labs/materials, gave guest lectures, etc. What it means to be a TA varies & anything that demonstrates you have experience teaching your own class helps.
Don't stress about order of things on your CV. Make sure your CV is well organized & it's easy to find various sections, but teaching vs. research order on the CV won't eliminate you as a candidate.
This should be obvious but perhaps isn't: if the job ad specifically states a preference for someone committed to improving diversity, equity, & inclusion (DEI), you must address this somewhere in your job materials (even if you aren't asked for a separate "diversity statement").
If a department cares about DEI issues, applications where such issues are discussed throughout & the candidate shows they are thinking about DEI best practices, reading DEI literature, etc., are more impressive.
Can you show you're following best practices for mentoring diverse student populations with your research program? Demonstrate that you're thinking about which teaching practices promote equity & inclusion in the classroom & that you're using them.
Finally, I highly recommend @ProfessorIsIn's book. I used it when developing my job documents & it was extremely helpful in making them as strong as possible.
