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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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t want anyone who could be great at a SLAC to not make the short list bc they aren& #39;t familiar with SLACs & only have advice from people at R1s.
Advice you often see given is that PUIs & esp. SLAC& #39;s care more about teaching than research. This varies widely, but is definitely not true for all. I& #39;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& #39;t impress at a SLAC if that work can& #39;t be done with exclusively undergrad students &/or doesn& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t that different. Don& #39;t talk about how great you are at active learning in 300-person classes bc SLACs don& #39;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& #39;t stress about order of things on your CV. Make sure your CV is well organized & it& #39;s easy to find various sections, but teaching vs. research order on the CV won& #39;t eliminate you as a candidate.
This should be obvious but perhaps isn& #39;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& #39;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& #39;re following best practices for mentoring diverse student populations with your research program? Demonstrate that you& #39;re thinking about which teaching practices promote equity & inclusion in the classroom & that you& #39;re using them.
Finally, I highly recommend @ProfessorIsIn& #39;s book. I used it when developing my job documents & it was extremely helpful in making them as strong as possible.
