To frame it another way (in my brain’s vernacular), the interviewing/hiring process is, like academe itself, an inherently rhetorical project: the claimant works to establish a desirable ethos in order to persuade her audience that the ‘brand’ of professional teacher/scholar/administrator (logos) and general human being (pathos?), an ethos that lends itself to the going academic/community/professional climate and is consistent with (or at the very least amenable to) the institutional mission and goals. This makes sense to me, but moving theory into practice is not, as always, quite so straightforward.
When I think of my ideal positions, which all have at least some explicit administrative/policy/leadership component, I realize that though from my perspective my training, experience, and scholarship may support in very specific ways the responsibilities associated with the position(s), those hiring for those positions may not necessarily see the connection between, say, rhetoric and administration. Goodness knows I’ve had plenty of practice trying to explain my decision to minor in Ed Leadership and Policy Analysis, though the marriage of the discrete areas seems perfectly logical to me—but I also have something of a tendency toward the enthymematic argument because by the time I reason out a particular conclusion I am so intimately familiar with the premises that got me there that they seem so readily apparent that I worry I will insult my audience by their mention; of course, I also suspect I am not unique in this regard. At any rate, I imagine negotiating the challenge of professional ‘fit’ is shared by just about every person who ever sought a job.
But then there’s the tricky personal tab of the personnel file, the one that could certainly influence ‘fit’ in ways not readily predicted by assessment of the professional profile and posture. Bradley spent some time considering this aspect of the job market dynamic a while back, with specific regard for marriage and political alignment, and in today’s Chronicle, Na'ema Suleiman (pseudonym) frames the consideration in terms of parenthood, specifically motherhood.
For me, the questions are these:
Just how much relevant ‘pathos’ should a person offer when marketing the ‘professional parcel’? Or, more to the point, what ‘pathos’ is relevant?
Does a Web presence actually offer a reprieve from directly engaging these personal matters? Or, is allowing your Web presence to communicate the sticky details that may or may not impact ‘fit’ too evasive or even devious? Or (again) might it serve as a form of passive resistance to answer the kinds of unfortunate circumstances that would make such disclosures a professional liability?
And, finally, the old question persists: would I want to present a version of myself that is in any way fragmented or incomplete . . . would I want to misrepresent myself or my priorities in any way to land the dream job? Would I want a position that required this of me? And what if my professional priorities and my personal priorities are neither in conflict nor inextricably intertwined, but are, to a relevant degree, mutually exclusive? Then is the question of ‘relevant pathos’ moot?
I’d be interested to hear other folks’ thoughts on this. It is exciting, and a little unsettling, to consider . . . but the real question, for me, when it comes right down to it, is this: will all this deliberation actually help me land a job, and once I do, will it help me do my job well?
2 comments:
You ended your post with a question, and then didn't get any answers, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents, since this is obviously an issue I think about a lot.
(I haven't taught comp in a few years, so if I misuse any of the terms you've used... leave me alone).
It seems to me that, for purposes of the job interview, logos ("the logical reasons why I am the best candidate for the job") is related more to ethos ("I establish my credibility through publications in these journals, presentations at these conferences, having taught these courses in grad school, etc.") than pathos (which you describe as marketing oneself as "a general human being," which I take to mean "I will be a collegial and interesting colleague who will treat my peers with the appropriate level of respect and will meet all of my obligations, 'cause that's how I roll"). Conversely, I think pathos frequently becomes more important once one has the job-- when you're a member of a department, people are less likely to say, "Wow! Did you read Bradley's latest well-placed essay" than "Damn! Bradley thinks he's so great he won't even come to our pot lucks. What a sonuvabitch."
(At this point, I will interrupt my own reply by pointing out that my spell-check does not recognize "collegial," but does recognize "sonuvabitch." Go figure.)
(I will also add that I haven't, to my knowledge, been on the receiving end of either type of gossip, as I a) don't publish in impressive places and b) never pass up a pot luck.)
(Three parenthetical asides in a row look cool)
When a department hires someone, I think that the person will be a decent, likable human being is just kind of assumed (perhaps to the department's later regret), so long as that person has evidence of scholarly or creative productivity (as always, hard work is viewed as evidence of virtue).
Naturally, there are any number of ways for a job candidate to lose that good will that's automatically conferred-- sometimes these ways can be predicted, sometimes they can't (I blew a job interview once when I was asked what my dream course would consist of, and I focused entirely on nonfiction; the two poets interviewing me thought that poetry was too important to be left out of anyone's dream course-- they were downright loony, those two).
Sometimes, as I said, it's within the job-seeker's power to retain and control this goodwill. When Ivan Tribble wrote about how terrible blogging is for an academic career (and Tribble wrote that article years ago-- I wonder if he's changed his mind with the rise of so many thoughtful, intellectual academic blogs?), I think he's talking more about people who either reveal way too much personal information ("I got drunk and slept with my ex-boyfriend last night. Again. Why am I such an idiot?") or reveal their own simple-mindedness or stupidity ("Yeah, well, if George Bush wants to go to war so bad, why doesn't he just... just... why doesn't he just come clean about his own drug use in the 70s, then? Huh? Yeah!"). It's not just about blogging, or even partisan politics-- people demonstrate stupidity and bad judgment in a variety of ways, regardless of political leanings.
Frankly, I think that academics on the job market blog at their own risk. I don't think keeping a blog will really help anyone seeking a job-- at most, it will simply reassure potential employers, "Hey, her blog's smart-- we were right about that one!" And at worst, it will knock you out of the running-- "Do we really want to hire someone who keeps a public blog about doing Jaeger bombs at fetish clubs?" And the problem is, you can't really know if your own blog is "reassuring" or "disqualifying." Sure, you might have some idea-- I think it's quite clear that your blog and my wife's blog both demonstrate keen intellects engaging complicated issues, and that mine frequently has cool videos showing R2-D2 smoking-- but nobody in academia actually thinks, "I'm stupid, and my blog might reveal that. Better take it down during the job hunt, lest I be revealed." On the academic job search, intelligence is in the eye of the beholder, and it's difficult to control just how what's beheld is perceived. If that makes sense.
Thanks for the thoughtful response(s)! I was glad to come home from vacationing in the U.P. to pick up the conversation again.
Your point about "good will that's automatically conferred" is well taken . . . and it actually changes the rhetorical situation quite a bit. The disposition of audience as interlocutor as interviewer is [gasp!] something that I hadn't fully considered [shame on me!], and it certainly shifts the dynamic of the argument significantly. Hmm.
I also applaud your point that "academics on the job market blog at their own risk." I think it is fair to expect candidates to accept responsibility not only for their professional parcel, but also their public Web presence. It is too easy to forget, I think, that open-access blogs open the door to a wide and often anonymous audience---its not just you in your basement having Leinies and chatting with your buddies, nor is it MySpace. Different context/ different rhetorical situation/ different expectations/ different responsibilities.
And the next time I am explaining to my students the difference between 'Argument' and 'argument' I am using your well-articulated example, flung plates and all.
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