PHN Research Agenda

29 January 2011

Interviewing for a Faculty Position

Speed dating would be a cinch compared to the interview process for a faculty position.  The process remains a mystery not only to those outside of academia, but also to most would be faculty members.  Here's how the speed dating for a faculty slot goes....

First there is the blind submission of the personal details. Your CV (the full, long version, NOT a resume) gets sent to the search committee, along with a three page letter espousing your virtues and fit with the position. Letters of recommendation also need to be sent.  Those letters are the stamp of approval from your most prestigious peers.

After the deadline for getting those materials submitted, the search committee might hold a brief teleconference to screen for obvious red flags. Red flags like not knowing the main textbooks in the field, looking for a position that isn't quite the one advertised, or just sounding dumb on the phone.  If you pass that screening, the speed dating is next.

You get flown to the university for wining, dining, grilling, drilling, and a hefty dose of show and tell. The speed dating comes into play as you move through the day, meeting with faculty at the prospective university in groups of one or two for 30-60 minutes. The questions are predictable: what is your research interest, what would you like to teach, how do you feel about this workload, why are you interviewing for this faculty position, and what do you have to offer us that we don't have. Answered. On to the next date.

Somewhere in the middle of all that moving from office to office, time is set aside to give a presentation to the faculty as a whole. The presentation needs to have a wow factor as well as a high rigor factor. Ideally, it ought to also touch on enough of the interests of the faculty to be broadly appealing. I'm not sure I succeeded on these points. But, I enjoyed what I did. That's got to count for something.

One of the the interviewers is, of course, the Dean. Maybe a couple of students will show up for a meeting. Staff from a key project get included. Faculty who are retiring and you would be their replacement have the least interesting questions. Faculty from other departments who are keen to meet you also get some time across the table from me.

At the end comes the dinner. Admittedly, by the time the appetizer comes around, I'm worn out. Even if I really like my dinner guests, it's hard to pay deep attention and act sharp.

Then, like in speed dating, comes the waiting. Will I get chosen and if so, will I choose back? So much in life hinges on first impressions and meeting expectations.

22 January 2011

Living the C-Change

This week was a record for me: 5 flights in 50 hours, with two presentations, consultation, lunches and a little shopping at the Portland airport. The flights took me to Spokane and Vancouver, WA for the KRISP grant.

I flew to Seattle, met up with Betty. From there we flew to Spokane for the night. In the morning, we would do a 3 hour presentation-workshop with the public health nurses at the Spokane Regional Health Department. Betty and I got to the auditorium early. While we awaited our turn, the nursing director was giving staff an update on the state budget and possible scenarios for budget and program cuts. Then some of the nurses added changes (read decreases) to the TANF support for mothers.

Betty and I looked at each other, shook our heads, and sighed. These nurses will be the front line workers who see the consequences of our national economy doldrums.  This reality gives our work urgency, but also an irrelevance. We were there to help the public health nurses learn about using data to improve their programs and to think about populations, not just individual clients. Asking nurses to not get personal satisfaction from interactions with their clients is asking them to change their identity. A huge ask. But, that is all the more necessary given the changes occurring all through the public health system and the national economy.

In the afternoon, we spent a couple of hours with a small group talking about how to evaluate a creative, community-based and community-directed initiative. It was the type of discussion with no single correct answer and certainly no easy answer. In the end, I had flipped their outcome of "decrease child abuse" to the positive of "infants meet developmental milestones."  Why do we (evaluators, practitioners) seem so determined to focus on what we don't want? The group liked the change. It still requires head scratching to figure out how to get "good" data, but it has greater potential to generate enthusiasm and participation from the neighborhood.

The next day we did a 2 hour version of that presentation-workshop for the public health nurses of the Clark and Cowlitz health departments. Not nearly enough time, but far better than none.

During the lunches Betty and I had with the nursing directors, we talked openly and honestly. We talked about the future of health programs for various high risk groups, about the realities of union seniority systems and what that could mean for how programs would be implemented, about the need for more academe-practice collaboration for a wide variety of activities that would be good learning opportunities for nursing students, about the nature of the support from their health administrators, about how local politics of an interpersonal nature affects major health department decisions, and about the way things used to be but never will be again.

As Betty and I said good-bye at SeaTac, we agreed that it had been a good two days. Not perfect, but on balance, good. We both felt committed to doing our parts in moving this segment of the public health system forward, going boldly into a future that has only been outlined. It remains our collective responsibility to give that outline life, texture, success, doing so collaboratively and with a hint of utopian longing.

15 January 2011

Changing Agendas

What's on the calendar determines so much. The reserved time slots, with corresponding locations and who, determine my outlook for that day, and sometimes for that week. Those notes about the future determine whether I am more likely to say "yes" or "no" to a request of any type. They determine how I pace myself in the work to be done around those reserved, committed times.  All of this might sound, well, deterministic, and it is.

It has become a reality that my time is less for me or about me and more and more for and about others. This is not a complaint, just a statement of my experiences. This past week I had blocked out three full days, plus the preceding afternoon, for a conference in Atlanta. I had prepared for the conference by reading the materials posted to the meeting e-room. I had alerted everyone that I would not be accessible during those days, and probably not reading email expect very sporadically.

Then winter happened. It happened with cold and snow in Atlanta, a place where cold and snow generates panic not snow plow trucks. So, two days before departure, I got an email and a followup phone call to say the conference was postponed. What?! Suddenly, I had all that time available for me, for catching up, for playing hooky, for getting more work done, for having blank days. The vast amount of time now unscheduled was a true shock. Reverberating not only across my calendar and mindset, but also into my gut and bones. Like getting sudden good news that goes visceral.

Those three days passed quickly. (Nature abhors a vacuum and I abhor not being busy.)  By Friday afternoon, I realized what a blessing I had received. I could not possibly have gotten done all that I needed for the upcoming week, based on the calendar's portrayal of the future.

10 January 2011

State and University

Increasingly, the "state" and the "university" feel like a nightmare mix of oil and water.  Perhaps because I'm currently working at a university in a state with a $13 BILLION deficit and previous governors in prison, I have gotten cynical. On the other hand, there's the evidence....

The union that represents the civil servant employees of the state has begun to scrutinize every position to determine whether the position is a civil servant job. Sounds good and well. But, because of that huge budget deficit, nearly all employees who have been hired in the past 10 years are funded by grant dollars, not state dollars. The job descriptions are based on the needs of the grant. Faculty who would have been hiring staff to fill these grant funded positions are now being required to rewrite the job description to fit existing civil servant jobs. Okay. But, that means any, ANY, civil servant can apply for the job. That wouldn't be too bad, but these are employees who never get fired, just move from position to position. The attitude of entitlement is antithetical to the attitude of grant investigators who want THE best, not whoever has stayed in the system. Faculty with grants are now having to spend their valuable time crafting and recrafting job descriptions. This is not even remotely why I got a PhD nor why I joined up to be faculty. But, dealing with this type of issue is now part of my reality.

As if that were not enough, the state legislature passed a law that went into effect January 1. The law is meant to address the "pay to play" problem. For those of you not in Illinois, this refers to the bribery system that developed and refers to paying favors to get contracts to do work for the state. The University never-repeat, never-had this problem. Yet, the University must now abide by the law that requires us to report every time we talk to some one about buying something. Yes, just talk and get a quote. If we need lab equipment and get a quote, there will be paperwork. If we call in advance to find out how much a lunch function will cost, that must be reported.  As faculty, we must now comply with this state law. The truly laughable part is that the offices that will be managing all of these reports doesn't know the basic details  for actual implementation nor is the reporting system functional. As all of this was discussed at the all faculty meeting today, there was more than a little agitated head shaking and groaning. Again, I did not get a PhD so that I could justify every interaction needed to make a smart purchase for my grant.

These problems are symptoms. The world in which the University has functioned for centuries seems to no longer value the uniqueness of the University. Higher education and the organizations that provide it are just part of the Illinois state bureaucracy.  I feel like it's time for either a funeral or separation from the state. I wish I had better news for this week's post. I'm only sharing and revealing the realities for which one can not ever be prepared.

01 January 2011

Happy New Year

Everyone ~ may your New Year be filled with health, happiness, peace, and productivity. 

Thanks to all my readers who have given me a reason to keep writing and revealing. If there is something special you'd like me to write about this coming year, please, leave a comment.