Following up on yesterday's post about transcripts, people's comments really get to why it's so totally bewildering for us to have to send them with our applications. What exactly are transcripts supposed to show? That I took a lot of classes with random course numbers and super-informative official titles like "Topics in Value Theory"" Or that I, like every other grad student who didn't get disappeared from their program, got As and maybe a B+ or two?
Anon. 7:40 suggests that maybe they're just supposed to verify that people who claim to have their degrees in hand really do, which might make sense. But shouldn't people's letters make that sort of thing clear? And then Anon. 8:34 reports that their department really did seriously look at the GPAs of their job candidates. That astounds me. What possible interest could those grades be when you have CVs, letters, and writing samples to get a sense of who people are?
Now another theory, and one I think might bear out in a lot cases, is that transcripts are required by human resources robots, to borrow Sisyphus's phrase. I have a growing appreciation for the way HR people fuck this process up for pretty much everyone, but I'll leave that for another day.
In the meantime, let me just pass along Inside the Philosophy Factory's suggestion that people send along a note with their unofficial transcripts saying they'll be happy to send official ones if they're needed.
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3 comments:
You raise a new question here... why ask for them at all -- vs. how can I cope with the requirement...
I'll tell you that I looked at them for a few reasons...
1) Because candidates, and their letters, often are vague about how, exactly, they meet the minimum qualifications. Also, because candidate's letters often actually LIE about meeting the qualifications.
2) Because the HR robots want them eventually and there is no reason to even put someone on my top 20 list if they can't meet the HR requirements.
3) Because I want to see why a candidate claims their particular AOCs... usually the AOS is obvious from their dissertation title... but sometimes not.
4) Because we have a small depatment and want candidates with the background to teach all of our courses.... and, the fact of the matter is that they'll be low on the rotation so they'd better be able to teach what I don't want to teach. A CV isn't usually clear about coursework.
I personally look carefully at transcripts for diversity because we had a 1-year person whose only philosophy "credits" were for an Aristotle Reading group he did 6 times (3 credits each) -- the work wasn't graded and there was no intellectual rigor... his hire happened without me...
5) Because establishing a reasonable number of hoops lets me eliminate some of the 500+ candidates who think they can teach philosophy, but aren't good at details and thus will end up dumping all the deailed work on me. I already have enough to do without chasing someone down for the final version of their schedule.
6) Because we can explain to the non-philosophy members of our committee (our college is weird, committees are cross-disciplinary) general words to look for in order to insure diversity of experience. This gives them some more objective means to promote or reject people.
In our defense, at our college we ask for the following: 1) cover letter, 2) CV, 3) copy of transcripts. We don't ask for letters, rather we ask for phone information to contact references on finalists.
Notice, we also don't ask for a teaching philosophy, a writing sample or a pint of blood. That is because we are a philosophy "Factory" with emphasis on the "factory" part, and all we really want to know is if you can teach.
Sorry to hijack the comments, but I wanted y'all to know what I've learned in the past few searches.
ITPF:
Thanks. That's helpful to hear. However (you knew there'd be one of those), you seem to be assuming that coursework is the only way/best way/main way that people learn a field. I'd disagree. I think there are a lot of ways to gain competence in a field. In my case, I learned some subjects in coursework, and others while prepping for my exams, and still others while writing the diss.
Let me give another example. There's one job in JFP this month that states the criteria they'll use to decide whether candidates are qualified to teach a particular AOC: if they have research in the field, and if they have taught it. The one qualification they leave out is if candidates were actually trained in the field. In that case, I think coursework matters (it should also be in the list at least), but it's nice to see that other standards are also acknowledged (though having taught a course by itself may not be much of a qualification).
Oh, lastly: what about folks coming out of school who list courses on their CV? I don't, but would that suffice, or are you worried about candidates lying?
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