Academic | Cristina Lozano

Academic Job Interview Questions: Amazon Review

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Interview season is almost here and I wanted to give you a review of the interview questions I got. I’ve written already a few posts on interviews (the right mindset and what not to do). I’m trying to guess why and I believe it’s the degree of insecurity it generated for me. Job materials (the cover letter and the gazillion of statements you need to get ready) are… writing. Different from writing papers, but still writing, something we have a lot of experience with. Many academics, myself included, started school when we were 3 and we liked it so much that we never left. We beat the game of school, there were no more levels after the Ph.D. Job interviews are not really part of that game. So this new process can fill you with self-doubt.

Out of the 23 jobs I applied for, I got 10 Skype interviews and 6 campus visits. I should have probably documented better the campus visits, but I did a pretty good job taking notes of all the interview questions. Spoiler alert: they are not that different from the lists that you can find online or that your department has shared with you to prepare you. However, I do think it is important to know which ones are likely to show up on a specific interview based on the type of job and the institution. Why? Easy, you need a different mindset for each institution.

Let me start with practical issues. Interviews usually last between 20 and 45 minutes. Most will involve a video call with the search committee. Be ready for multiple platforms (Zoom, Skype, Teams, Hangouts, you name it) and try to have a backup plan in case your computer or internet connection decides to go on strike. For instance, have your iPad or phone handy (with the appropriate app already installed) or be ready to set your hotspot. You don’t want a technical problem to make even more of a train-wreck. One of my interviews was over the telephone. It is kind of awkward because the committee is together in the same room and you are not sure who you are talking to, you miss all the visual cues. But I made it to the campus visit after that interview, so the phone was not a big issue.

Now to the juicy stuff. I list the type of job and institution, followed by the interview questions and my thoughts on them. Some repeat, just remember you’re like a politician campaigning to get the committee excited and voting for you. I should also add that some of these questions were in Spanish. If you’re interviewing for a language position, the interview will probably be in both languages (or more if the job asks for more languages).

Tenure Track - R1 Institution

Why are you interested in this job?
What are your research plans?
What funding would you apply for research?
How would you teach a translation course at the undergraduate and graduate levels?
What pedagogical approach do you have in your classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels?
What [insert your field here] theories would you use depending on level and type [specific field]?
What undergraduate and graduate courses would you teach related to linguistics (beyond the courses we already teach here)?
How do you use technology in your [X field] and [Y field] courses?
How would you connect your research and your teaching to service in our university and our community?

The first question is usually to warm you up, very open, make sure you take advantage of it, and add interesting information. For this one, I would mention how my training and education prepare me for the job and what I like about the job, department, and university. A trick I learned from @jvcasill is adding a line to pick their interest. Something along these lines: “I would also see myself creating a research group on X. If you are interested, I could elaborate on this”. This gives you the possibility to highlight your strengths but also makes sure you don’t ramble and make them bored with the information they are not interested in. Ask your advisor and other professors to tell you what is “attractive” in you as a candidate. That will give you hints about what you need to highlight. But please, whatever you do, don’t ramble. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating. The last thing you want is to make the search committee bored to death.

In this particular interview, you’ll notice there is a balance between teaching and research questions. Also, they are asking about how to bring in money, which gives you a hint that they don’t have a lot of money there. This is field-dependent, some fields rely 100% on grants, but the Humanities… not so much.

If the job involves both graduate and undergraduate, make sure you have an answer for how you would do organize/teach those courses differently.

For the technology question, you don’t need to go crazy. Just explain how you use it or how you plan to use it in the future. Remember that you might not have experience with every single detail they ask for, but you need to show that you can do it if they ask you to, you have a plan. If your field uses special software, make sure you mention them. They might be interested in online teaching. Check their course offerings to see if they already have some. If you feel lost with online teaching, check out this other post.

Lecturer (Non-Tenure Track) - Ivy League

How does a class from Cristina look like?
How is a typical student-centered class?
How would you create an interactive activity related to food? (I had given an example related to food earlier)
Could you tell us about your M.A. thesis? (My M.A. was in teaching, more related to the job than my Ph.D. Research)
How do you use technology in your classes?
Would you say your teaching approach is communicative? What’s the role of technology within the communicative framework?
Do you incorporate literary texts in your classes?
Have you ever used short films in your classes?
Which textbooks have you used?
How do you apply your research to the class? (plus lots of specific follow-up questions)

This interview was entirely in Spanish (the three elite universities I interviewed for were like that). Do you see how different these questions are? Here’s when the mindset shift needs to take place. Before you start this interview, think about someone you know (Paco González) who has a similar position and repeat to yourself three times (magic always happens with the number three, right?): I’m Paco González.

I didn’t do it and unsurprisingly, I didn’t get the job. The literature questions throw me off and I wasn’t ready to discuss textbooks at different levels. Why? I was still thinking like researcher Cristina, not like teacher Cristina, and this job was for teaching Cristina. Also, I emphasized what I do in translation classes, and this institution couldn’t care less about teaching technical (legal, medical) translation. Knowing the department’s culture or approach is crucial to avoid this mistake (I wrote about it here).

A word on textbooks. You can mention the ones you like, bonus points if you find out the one they use (check course hero, sometimes students upload materials). But be very careful with the ones you don’t like. They might ask you to mention some you don’t like. Refrain from saying you don’t like them and just point out how you would do it differently. You never know whether they were a reviewer for those materials you don’t like. I’ve made this mistake before (luckily not during an interview). I said I didn’t like X publisher to a new colleague only to later find out she was friends with everyone working at the publishing company.

Tenure Track - R1 Institution

What is the important contribution of your research?
What are your research plans?
1. Why is [specific phenomenon I research] important?
What courses would you teach in the [specific field] program that would meaningfully complement that program?
What courses would you teach for the [specific program]? What undergraduate and graduate courses would you teach in X program?
How would you teach a teaching methods course?
Could you explain what your vision for an ideal language program is?
What are some of the main challenges in directing an L2 program? How would you resolve them?

This job involved language coordination and it shows from the questions that the administrative portion of the job will be significant. Get ready for those questions too. This is probably harder because there is no “Administration Statement” similar to the research and teaching statements. And we thank the academic gods for not having that statement. Writing a statement forces you to reflect, and since you haven’t done it in the area of administration, this probably means you have devoted less time to defining your vision.

People who know me would tell you that I’m very organized. When I was an assistant coordinator, my coordinator was really happy with me, and… well, I just know I’m good at it. However, I was terrible at answering those questions. Why? Because I assumed that everyone thinks like me. Everyone answers emails quickly, puts things on a spreadsheet, documents the process, prepares materials, etc. Experience has taught me this is not the case, at all. What’s the most blatantly obvious thing for me, is not for many others.

Also, I had this idea that my answer had to be perfect for what they needed in each department. This would involve spending a significant amount of time working there to identify the needs and make plans. Of course, if you are interviewing, you don’t have that information. Don’t get me wrong, you need to get as much information as possible about the job, department, and university, but you won’t be able to know everything. And that is ok. Knowing what I know now after having interviewed a few people, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know specific details about the department. What matters is that you show the way you think and approach problems. Your specific proposal for an administration issue might not fit perfectly with my department, but if it is sound and logical, you will be flexible and know how to revise it once you get to know the culture better. However, you do need to show sensitivity to the university’s general culture. For instance, when it comes to teaching if you tell me that you are very strict and enforce draconian deadlines of assignments no matter what excuse the students give, you are telling me you won’t be a good fit with my department. We have a good proportion of students who work full-time jobs and have family obligations. You need to show sensitivity towards them. However, if you were interviewing for a job at West Point, strict deadlines might be the appropriate rule for their culture. I know this might sound contradictory: you don’t need to know everything about the department, but need to know the department. My point is that if you propose a course on Bilingualism in Mexico and they actually need a course on Bilingualism in Paraguay, if your explanation for the course is exciting, don’t worry about choosing the wrong country. They know you will be able to switch gears.

Tenure Track - R2

Why are you interested in this job?
How do you envision working with a diverse student population?
1. Follow up: how do you deal with the issue of correctness with a very linguistically diverse class?
Tell us about your research
What are your next plans for research?
How would your research results transfer into the X classroom?
What theories have you applied for teaching X courses?
What [specific field of study] courses have you taught?
What are the differences between teaching online and face to face?
How are you involved in the life of your department?
What are your strengths contributing to the departments' life?
Finally, what do you want to tell us about yourself that we haven’t asked you?

These questions show a balance between teaching, research, and service. They also show that the institution has a diverse population and they care about such diversity. There are a couple of questions related to the department, indicating that they expect you to be around and show some initiative. Also, you’ll notice that they had more questions (I haven’t included all the follow-up questions here, but there were a few). By the time we got to the last question, I was exhausted (this was my third interview in one day). Question 12 was a freebie, a very welcoming invitation to shine, but it caught me off-guard. I remember I paused, took a few seconds to think, I even said out loud: “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that question”, but then… I said something surprisingly good, I hadn’t planned it. It could have gone wrong. Have a list of things you want to make sure they know about you and, if they ask you a similar question, you’ll know how to shine.

Lecturer (Non-Tenure Track) - R2

What is your experience with [technical field]?
How would you prepare students emotionally for a difficult situation in [very specific field] process?
How would you structure a minor in [X field]?
What courses would you create for [X,Y, and Z technical fields]? (the three tracks they envision for the minor/major)
What is your administrative experience?

This interview was straight to the point. They want you to create a program, they care that you can handle things administratively but couldn’t care less about your research. Do you remember I gave detailed plans about my research in an interview with a Provost and it backfired? Well, this was it.

It has taken me over a year to look back and see how the interview questions tell you a lot about what the search committee is looking for. I would suggest that you write down the questions for each interview (right after the interview, to make sure you don’t forget), and then, if you get the campus visit, go over with them with your advisor or someone more senior than you. They will probably see what the questions mean, what they are looking for, and you will be better prepared for the campus visit. Good luck out there 💪🏽

Ask for more

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Some of you know that I’ve been thinking about making videos about bilingualism, teaching, academia, and some random rambling. Until I figure out how to edit decent videos, I’ve decided that a blog would be an easier entry point to share some ideas with you. If you know me, you’ve probably received at some point an article or a podcast that made me think of you, or that I knew you would love. I actually heard in a podcast that sharing content with your people is a love language. This definitely resonates with me and I guess it is why I decided to start a blog: to share those ideas with more people.

The academic job market season is here and I’m not telling you anything new if I say that this year is going to be the toughest ever. For those of you in the middle of it, you probably have already read The Professor is In (if you don’t know it, stop reading here and go get that book), have prepared your materials, sent applications, and maybe even got an interview. I am going to press the forward button until you get an offer (I know, in 2020/2021, this is going to be almost impossible, but bear with me because I think this is still important). When I got my job offer I thought I was done, I could finally breath, relax and finish my dissertation. Little did I know how stressful the negotiation process would be (or at least it was for me).

I was lucky to have an advisor with top negotiation skills who helped me navigate the process. I had attended workshops on negotiating academic jobs, but the real problem was my fear of asking for things. These were some of the thoughts going through my head when I had to negotiate: “I don’t know enough”, “I’m asking for too much”, “They’ll think I’m an arrogant”, “They’ll rescind the offer”, “Can someone else do this for me?”. The trugh was that I went through a rigorous selection process and I had all the qualifications they were asking for. Why was it so hard for me to ask for the appropriate conditions to conduct my research and teach efficiently? Answering that question would probably take a few years of therapy. In the meantime, I’m going to share with you how to make negotiations less nerve-wracking.

I received an email from the provost to schedule a phone call on February 13th and accepted the offer on March 4th. During those two weeks, I had trouble sleeping and focusing on wrapping up my dissertation. This is why I’m writing this post, I wouldn’t want you to go through the same struggle. For many Ph.D. students, this is the first time you are actually negotiating an offer and chances are that you have no clue about what to do. On top of that, if you are a woman like me, you might have a hard time asking for things. But I have some good news: you can train to get over this fear and you should start practicing now.

When I noticed negotiation was getting tricky, I did a quick search on negotiation books. One idea that stuck with me was: “If you never hear no, you are not asking enough” Ask For It. However, I now realize that this behavior does not change overnight. You need to practice it and you can start as soon as you are done reading this post. You will soon notice that 1. you will get a lot more things and 2. it is ok to hear no. Where do you start? I’ll give you a couple of examples:

I’ve been buying second hand technology online and I have asked for a discount on every single item. Guess what, I’ve got the discount (or close) on all of them. I used to be afraid of asking for discounts, but after doing it a few times, the fear has completely disappear.
The other day I went to a bar with live music (I drove 1 hour to get there, that’s how much I miss live music in these COVID times). When we finally got a table, it wasn’t a great table, we were far away from the music. I had noticed that a couple sitting at a much better table was about to leave. I asked the waitress whether we could wait a couple minutes and get the nicer table. She said no, but I felt happy for having tried. A couple minutes later, after we were already sitting at our crappy table, she came and told us we could get the nicer table.
Finally, I haven’t tried this one yet, but I found it interesting. Next time you go to a coffee shop/bar, ask whether you can have a 10% discount. Most likely you won’t get it, and you will realized that you’re still alive and nobody cares that you asked for it. Remember, the purpose is getting over the fear of asking for things (and sometimes you actually get the discount).

You should ALWAYS ask for a discount.

Whether you're buying a coffee, or asking your landlord for a discount on rent during #Quarantine.

It's NOT about getting the discount.

It's about getting rejected and realizing everything's OK.

BONUS: Sometimes you get the discount 🤠
— Noah Kagan (@noahkagan) May 20, 2020

As for how my actual negotiation went, I had read and been advised to do everything via email. However, the provost insisted on talking and was not giving me any details about the job other than the salary (no info on start up funds, research funds, nothing, technology). I tried to get some information via email but after a week going back and forth, he requested to talk on the phone again. I was petrified. I sat down with my advisor and we went through a list of everything I should ask for and, most importantly, why I deserve it and how it would benefit the institution. I couldn’t sleep the night before talking to him, I was picturing him getting outraged at me for asking for an expensive eye-tracker (I actually need it to continue my research). Well, none of this happened, he was very cordial, eager for me to accept the offer. He took notes of everything I asked for and got back to me a week later saying yes to everything I had asked for. This probably means that…I could have asked for more. In the meantime, I received another offer, which I also negotiated. This second negotiation was a lot easier emotionally. However, I did not get many of the things I asked for (the department’s chair really tried to get some of my requirements, but not all universities have the same means). The decision between the two offers (both at the assistant professor level) was fairly straight forward once I knew the job conditions.

Finally, I want to emphasize that negotiating reasonable conditions required to efficiently carry out your job is not selfish. It is an act of support for all those that look like you. As I recently heard on this podcast: “you are going to ask for more, because when you teach someone how to value you, you teach them how to value all of us.” And this is crucial for women and minorities in general. We need to keep asking for more in order to normalize it and ensure that we don’t get any less than the average white guy. For some of you this post might be obvious, consider yourselves lucky! But for many of us, reaching the negotiation stage is nerve-wracking. Start practicing now and your future self will thank you.

Don't do this in an interview

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In my last post, I talked about how important it is to start thinking like your interviewer. This time, I’m sharing some of the things I got wrong in my first interviews. I was determined to apply only for jobs in locations where I saw myself living (mainly big cities with an international community). I’m a city person, I had already experienced rural America and I knew it was not for me. Professors had warned me against this strategy because it would significantly reduce my chances of landing a job. They did not convince me, mainly because I knew they just wanted me to get a job, regardless of where. It turns out that the “where” was very important to me. It was actually a conversation with my colleagues who were also in the job market that really pushed me to apply for more positions. Despite the amount of additional work it involved, I’m happy I did. Let me explain why.

Being on the job market is like playing Risk, there’s a great deal of strategy involved. Your goal is landing a job you like. But if you have no previous experience applying for jobs, it’s very likely that you will make mistakes in your first interviews. How do you solve that? Apply to all possible jobs, even the ones that seem less than ideal. If you get the interview, you have an opportunity to practice, to make mistakes in a low-stakes environment.

I know we all like to hear other people’s miseries, so I’m gonna share with you some mistakes I made in my first campus visits and interviews:

Not reading the job add carefully: during the only phone interview I had (the rest were videocalls), they asked me about a very specific theory I had never heard of. The question was: “Do you know X theory? If so, how would you use it in our program?” I had never heard of that theory, so my answer was “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that theory”. They explained the theory to me and I then told them how I would apply it. After the interview, I asked everybody in my department about that theory, nobody had heard about it. Then, I got an offer for the campus visit and re-read the job ad in preparation… the theory was mentioned in the job ad 😬 I eventually got an job offer, which shows that even if you don’t know the answer to one question, you can get the job. Nevertheless, not having researched the theory before the interview was a big mistake.
In my first campus visit, I made two big mistakes:
1. I was not ready to explain why I was interested in a position that required only an M.A. when I had a Ph.D. This was one of the questions the provost asked me, but not the first one. First, he made me talk about my research, he let me develop all my future research plans (set the trap) and then he said: “but…you wouldn’t be able to do all that research here. This is not a research position, don’t you think you would feel frustrated?” He was right, I would have felt very frustrated and I did not get that job. If you are applying for a teaching position requiring only an M.A., be ready to minimize your research agenda and explain why you are not interested in research at the moment.
2. I had not researched the faculty in the department thoroughly. I just focused on the professors in the committee. There was another professor who joined my job talk and lunch. While we were eating, I asked him which department he was in 🤦🏻‍♀️ He was one of the faculty members in the department I was interviewing for. In my defense, he was acting as the chair of a different department and that might be the reason why his name escaped me when doing my research. If you are not sure who someone is, you can ask something more vague to get an idea: “Are you working on any exciting projects at the moment?”
Not understanding the culture: my second campus visit was in a small place in the south of the US. The first question I was asked upon getting in the car of the professor who picked me up at the ariport (I’m not exaggerating) was: “Do you see yourself living here?” I was ready for that question, especially coming from a university so close to NYC, but I was not ready to sustain that mindset. The conversation kept going and I accidentally revealed that I loved going to NYC to dance salsa. Mistake, big mistake. My interview went great, I had ideas for their program, they seemed happy with my research, but they saw I wouldn’t stay there and I was not offered that job. I am not recommending that you lie, you should never do that, but you can choose to display only the hobbies that you could do in that area, showing that you understand what your life there would be like.

Switching gears to the type of questions you should be making, I thought I would share with you advice from a seasoned professor. The chair of my former department, Prof. Marcy Schwartz, commented the following in my last post:

“the candidate needs to show interest in the people interviewing them too! Do your homework, make sure to ask a few well-informed questions (“I saw on the dept website that you offer X, please tell me more about it/how I could help with it”). And during campus visits, when there’s much more time and informal meals, etc., ask those colleagues about themselves, their work, what they’re teaching.”

You might be thinking: Cristina, these mistakes show that you didn’t prepare enough. This is probably true, but consider the following: I had six campus visits all around the US in four weeks, while the only thing I really wanted to do was finish writing my dissertation. There are certain things that will be out of your control, so if you remember just one thing from this post, make it this one: get opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them. Your dream job is not the interview you want to bomb because you had no experience. Be strategic about your interviews and apply for the less ideal jobs. They could become a low-stakes situation to practice. Also, you might be pleasantly surprised by places. I actually liked the university where I got my second offer, even though it was a small place. In the meantime, learn from my mistakes and get ready to ace those interviews.

From interviewee to interviewer

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

About a year ago, I was immersed in interviewland. I read the interview chapter on The Professor is In, I got lists of typical questions in academic interviews, more lists for linguistics-related jobs, I created a document with my answers to all those questions, I attended workshops on how to prepare for the skype interview, I did a mock interview organized by my department, I recorded myself, etc. In retrospect, I probably overprepared but, hey, it worked 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Funnily enough, a few months after I started my current job as an assistant professor, I was asked to participate in a search committee for a visiting lecturer position at my department. And something inside me changed, it was an aha moment. I suddenly understood that I had focused too much on myself while preparing for interviews, and too little on understanding “their problem”.

Let me explain what I mean by “their problem”. When a department opens a new position, it is because “they have a problem” and they need someone to fix “that problem”. The problem could be that they need a person who researches X topic or they need someone to teach Y course, either because none of the faculty members have expertise on that area or simply because they don’t have time to do it. Dr. Karen Kelsky says in her job market workshops: “The interview is not about you, it’s about them”. I didn’t pay that much attention to that sentence, but I now realize it is key. Hopefully this post gives you an advantage.

What the search committee wants to hear is how you are going to fix their problem. In academia, this means showing how you will: teach, research and do service. I will focus on teaching here because my experience as an interviewer has been in that area.

The do’s:

Come up with a sentence summarizing your approach to teaching (it can be taken from your Teaching Philosophy, yes you can copy it), give them an idea of what you include in the syllabus, give an example of how a typical lesson or class looks like, and give examples of how you assess students' learning. That’s it, you don’t need to read books about 200 types of teaching methodologies (which was what I thought I should do when preparing for interviews).
How are you going to connect with their students? Students at an ivy-league institution are very different from students at a community college. You will need to show that you understand the student body and that you are able to connect with them. Check out current offerings at the department, are courses focused on getting a job (Business Spanish) or on developing a well-rounded citizen (Islamic Spain through the Colonial Period)? Make sure you understand the focus of the department.
Please, answer the question you’ve been asked 😃 If they ask you: how does your education and experience prepare you for this job? Talk about your education, talk about your experience and make connections with the position you are interviewing for. This looks painfully obvious, yet none of the people we interviewed gave a good answer: they just enumerated their education (without making connections) or they rambled (more on this in the next section). Make sure you answer the question in a clear and concise manner.

The don’ts:

Don’t tell them your life story. Committee members are busy, be brief, don’t ramble. I am the new assistant professor, not particularly entangled in a sea of commitments yet, I don’t have kids, etc. However, I do have better things to do than listening to somebody’s life in the middle of a work day. My point is, when you ramble, you make them feel as if you are wasting their time, the committee will remember you as the person that rambles and… nobody wants that.
Don’t repeat over and over that you don’t have experience in something. The committee knows that, they have seen your CV. If you got the interview is because they think you can do it, so just show that you have a plan about how to do it. You can acknowledge that you haven’t done it the past, but continue expressing how excited you are about teaching that course and give details about how you plan to teach it. Something along the lines of: “While I haven’t taught X in the past, I would structure the syllabus… A typical class would include… And X type of project would evaluate students' learning”. This answer shows the committee that you are interested in teaching such a course and you have thought about it.
Also, don’t overdo the thank-yous and how honored you are for this marvelous opportunity. This goes back to rambling. Be nice: “thank you, it was a pleasure to get to know you better”. Period, short and sweet.

So how do you get to change your mindset without being in a search committee? I have a couple of ideas. First, imagine there is a search in your current department. Go over one of those lists of questions and try to come up with great answers for those questions. You know your department well, you have been there for at least four of five years. You know what the department needs and who would be a good candidate. Think about what the ideal candidate would say.

Second, team up with other people in your cohort who are also going in the job market. Some of you might be competing for the same position. It could easily get awkward and I was scared of what would happen. Fortunately, I had a good relationship with the rest of my cohort and we worked together. We sent each other positions that could be interesting for someone in particular, we reviewed each other’s materials and we even shared interview questions when two of us got a zoom interview or campus visit for the same position (yes, a colleague from my department and I were selected for the same campus visit). Sharing all this information created a support network, much needed for such a difficult moment. Being in the job market is stressful enough, I cannot imagine adding pressure and competitiveness from your colleagues.

Also, don’t worry if you feel you are repeating yourself. I remember before the interviews, I had the impression I needed to come up with something new, something I hadn’t already said in my job materials (cover letter, teaching/research statement). However, keep it mind that the committee goes over a number of applicants and they do not remember details, so be ready to repeat yourself over and over. As Kelskey’s says, you become a political candidate, ready to campaign wherever you go.

To wrap up, interviews are not that different from having a conversation. What do you like when you talk to someone? Do you like when they go on a tangent and don’t get to the point? Committee members are just regular people who need to fix a problem. If they like the way you propose to fix that problem, they will be excited about you (they found a solution!). You have the credentials for the job (otherwise you would not be in the interview). The interview allows them to check whether the paper matches the person and whether you are going to be a nice colleague.

Is the diversity statement the candy crush for diversity points?

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Academia is the weird world in which sometimes you need to prepare a portfolio of over 100 pages to apply for a job (yes, I counted them, some departments required me to send that many pages, not sure who in their sane mind would read them). One relatively recent addition to those wordy documents is the diversity statement. Similar to how big companies created departments to promote diversity in the workplace, universities now ask their candidates to explain how their teaching, research, and service address diversity in concrete ways. I am not sure about the motivations that lead departments to ask for a diversity statement. Some might be genuinely interested in your thoughts on the topic, and others might just want to comply with HR policies. Either way, you will be a stronger candidate if you show genuine reflection on why this is an important issue and how to approach it in your job.

I’ve heard multiple people saying that the diversity statement is awkward to write and also awkward to read. I guess it’s not surprising that they get uncomfortable about diversity in the classroom or research. I suspect that facing the diversity statement triggers a similar feeling as facing our racist behaviors. So be careful not to fill your document with platitudes that would make comedian Aziz Ansari accuse you of playing a secret progressive candy crush game. He explains (in a very funny way) how white people are starting to do very weird things just to “get diversity points”.

Looking back, I remember being surprised about the relative ease with which I wrote my diversity statement. I have a few ideas about why this was the case. Right around the time I was preparing my documents, diversity was a topic that had been on my mind. I became interested in how traditional teaching methods don’t reach the students that need them the most. Also, we had engaged in some difficult conversations at my department about how the distribution of grants among graduate students was biased against a certain group of students.

Quite simply, crafting a strong diversity statement is a matter of reflecting on the issue of diversity in your work. Notice how I said work and not necessarily life. While coming from a minority background might be advantageous, you need to make the connection about how your background helps to promote diversity in teaching and research. To give you an example of how this might play out, my colleagues and I were excited about a candidate we interviewed last year for our department. This person had a similar background to our students and, on paper, was well prepared for the job. We thought they might connect well with our students. However, during the interview, there was no mention of how their background would improve their teaching and, for that and other reasons, this candidate did not get selected.

Institutions might be interested in diversity for different reasons. Davidson College, a predominantly white small liberal arts college, might be interested in seeing how you can attract more diverse students and how you to campus diverse world-views. California State University Fullerton, a large state university with around 50% of Hispanic students, already has a diverse student body population, and they want to make sure your teaching methods are appropriate for this student body and how you are going to help them succeed.

Many think that you can only mention research if you work on issues such as gender or decolonial theory. I remember I went to a workshop to prepare the diversity statement well before I had to go to the job market. I was looking for a cookbook recipe on how to draft this document, in the words of Aziz Ansari “What do I need to say to not get in trouble?" But my approach was wrong. I was trying to find a quick fix for a problem I had: “the uncomfortable document”. So I’m going to give you a few resources that changed the way I viewed this document and, importantly, made me feel comfortable when writing it. Notice that they are agnostic to your field of research. Actually, you can apply them to any job you do.

How to make your teaching more inclusive: this article should be mandatory reading. It opened my eyes to how teaching in the same way we were taught perpetuates differences among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. It also gives you a set of tools on how to fix it (disclaimer, it is a lot of work).
This video explains in a very graphic way the diversity you will encounter in your classes. I’ve used to convince people about the importance seeing that students have different start points depending on the support they got at home (disclaimer, it might make you cry, I’ve seen it happen repeatedly).
For white folks that teach in the hood: this book explains beautifully why traditional methods don’t work and how the teacher needs to get interested and immersed in the culture of their students to connect with them.
The practice: this book is not about diversity, but about sustaining a creative practice. However, one section captures why diversity matters and might inspire your statement:

“Problems have solutions. That’s what makes them problems. […] It’s the unlikely approaches—the odd combinations that come from diversity—that often win the day. […] Diversity might involve ethnicity or physical abilities. But it’s just as likely to involve idiosyncratic approaches and differences in experience […] Of course, each of us is peculiar in our own way. Peculiar is a choice, an opportunity to bring our own experiences and our own point of view to the work. We’ve been trained for a long time to hide that unique voice or to pretend it’s not there, because the systems around us push us to conform. […] But in a world that’s changing faster than ever, that distinct skill set and point of view are precisely what we need from you. Without your specific contributions, our diversity of approach and experience fades away.”

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable: this ted talk captures why the diversity statement is important, but only if we embrace the awkwardness it provokes on us by accepting that real change will be difficult.

My goal is for you to pause and reflect on why the work and efforts on diversity matter and see they are not “just another document I need to get done.” Let me know about your struggles with the diversity statement or other job documents you are working on!