When should/how should you intervene on a problematic potential hire of a faculty member?
November 19, 2011 2:42 PM Subscribe
Academic Filter: When should/how should you intervene on a problematic potential hire of a faculty member? (Special snowflake details inside)
My humanities department at a North American institution has a tenure track position open; one of the applicants is the spouse of a faculty member who is deeply valued by the department chair. This spouse does not even come close to meeting the minimal requirements for the position: in fact, she cannot even teach first year of the language the position calls for one to be able to teach graduate level in. She has a PhD in a different field, though it is related tangentially to the one the job is in.
However, the department chair feels she would be ideal for the position and is pushing for her to be hired according to one member of the search committee. At my annual meeting, before we had even drafted the advertisement for the position, she told me this spouse and two others would be on the short list and that she thought she would be ideal for the job. Although we are in a larger department, this hire would be in a relatively small programme within the department which involves 2 languages; there are 4 full time tenured/tenure track people teaching in it, of which I am one and the department chair is another. This hire would be for someone looking after 25% of that programme. Only this person could not take up those responsibilities. She could not even take up the language teaching responsibilities of the other language, because she's not qualified in that either.
I am not on the search committee and, in fact, am on sabbatical, so there is very little I can do beyond contact the members of the committee outside the department chair and sound them out. I have talked to one and she is very much against this hire for the same reasons I am and said she would retire. However, she is one person on the five person committee (that, naturally, includes the department chair).
In my department job offers are decided upon by the search committee in secret and we do not hear who they have selected and offered the job to until after the hire has been approved of by the dean. This means that if this woman makes the shortlist (and she will) I will not know whether she has been offered the job until she accepts it - in other words until it is a done deal.
This might look like the hire will never happen, but I have seen my chair push through other things that seemed equally impossible. She is a huge name at a second tier institution (she was lured from a top 5 university) and thus her status is extremely high.
What should/can I do? I plan to look for another position elsewhere, but I also want to find some way to intervene without killing my career. If needs be and this woman makes the short list I will email the dean and explain why this is an unqualified hire, but I'd rather keep that to a last option. There is also the case that it might possible that with some fancy footwork and handwaving by the chair that the CV might be fiddled with to look marginally acceptable, because she is a related field, and thus the hire might not look as impossible as it really is. But it's madness, especially in this job market where there are so manly excellent and overqualified candidates.
Any and all advice appreciated.
My humanities department at a North American institution has a tenure track position open; one of the applicants is the spouse of a faculty member who is deeply valued by the department chair. This spouse does not even come close to meeting the minimal requirements for the position: in fact, she cannot even teach first year of the language the position calls for one to be able to teach graduate level in. She has a PhD in a different field, though it is related tangentially to the one the job is in.
However, the department chair feels she would be ideal for the position and is pushing for her to be hired according to one member of the search committee. At my annual meeting, before we had even drafted the advertisement for the position, she told me this spouse and two others would be on the short list and that she thought she would be ideal for the job. Although we are in a larger department, this hire would be in a relatively small programme within the department which involves 2 languages; there are 4 full time tenured/tenure track people teaching in it, of which I am one and the department chair is another. This hire would be for someone looking after 25% of that programme. Only this person could not take up those responsibilities. She could not even take up the language teaching responsibilities of the other language, because she's not qualified in that either.
I am not on the search committee and, in fact, am on sabbatical, so there is very little I can do beyond contact the members of the committee outside the department chair and sound them out. I have talked to one and she is very much against this hire for the same reasons I am and said she would retire. However, she is one person on the five person committee (that, naturally, includes the department chair).
In my department job offers are decided upon by the search committee in secret and we do not hear who they have selected and offered the job to until after the hire has been approved of by the dean. This means that if this woman makes the shortlist (and she will) I will not know whether she has been offered the job until she accepts it - in other words until it is a done deal.
This might look like the hire will never happen, but I have seen my chair push through other things that seemed equally impossible. She is a huge name at a second tier institution (she was lured from a top 5 university) and thus her status is extremely high.
What should/can I do? I plan to look for another position elsewhere, but I also want to find some way to intervene without killing my career. If needs be and this woman makes the short list I will email the dean and explain why this is an unqualified hire, but I'd rather keep that to a last option. There is also the case that it might possible that with some fancy footwork and handwaving by the chair that the CV might be fiddled with to look marginally acceptable, because she is a related field, and thus the hire might not look as impossible as it really is. But it's madness, especially in this job market where there are so manly excellent and overqualified candidates.
Any and all advice appreciated.
Is there some reason you think your Dean of Faculty will not keep confidentiality? I think an e-mail is not a great option for this kind of discussion. If you are able - in person or by phone is better (if available, since you are on sabbatical). However, the Dean is likely already aware of the situation, given the two body problem of the other faculty member. I think you should be careful in speaking to anyone else (like the other member of the search committee). Small departments talk, and it is likely that the Department chair already knows of your issues.
posted by quodlibet at 3:08 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by quodlibet at 3:08 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
While as a grad student and even now just keeping ties with my engineering department, I've seen how very very political the nature of this sort of thing is. I understand it makes no sense to hire this woman and that upsets you. But the department head is likely viewing it as a move to retain the other faculty member he values so much. And she has some prestige. It is entirely a political choice.
If you have no better sense of politics and how to play that, stay out of it. You're looking for a job elsewhere anyway, you really don't want to go around pissing off people who can make or break your career while you're (apparently) still low on the totem pole in terms of prestige in academia.
posted by lizbunny at 3:14 PM on November 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you have no better sense of politics and how to play that, stay out of it. You're looking for a job elsewhere anyway, you really don't want to go around pissing off people who can make or break your career while you're (apparently) still low on the totem pole in terms of prestige in academia.
posted by lizbunny at 3:14 PM on November 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
escabeche has it right; I suspect it's been presented to the chair as "if my spouse doesn't get a job, we'll leave for another institution." Your chair is likely not insane, just trying to make the best of a difficult situation.
That doesn't mean you can't express your opinion here. I'd agree that a conversation is highly preferable to email, both in terms of confidentiality and the ability to make your concerns clear.
As for looking for another position elsewhere, you may or may not want to do that anyway, but I'd agree that you'll find this sort of thing quite a bit in academia; decisions that might seem capricious or unfair are often made to lure or keep highly respected faculty.
posted by chbrooks at 3:24 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
That doesn't mean you can't express your opinion here. I'd agree that a conversation is highly preferable to email, both in terms of confidentiality and the ability to make your concerns clear.
As for looking for another position elsewhere, you may or may not want to do that anyway, but I'd agree that you'll find this sort of thing quite a bit in academia; decisions that might seem capricious or unfair are often made to lure or keep highly respected faculty.
posted by chbrooks at 3:24 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
"If needs be and this woman makes the short list I will email the dean and explain why this is an unqualified hire, but I'd rather keep that to a last option."
Whatever else you do, I would seriously encourage you not to consider this an option. Having these kinds of feelings in writing can only kick you in the ass. If you have the kind of relationship where it is possible and since you're on sabbatical, give your dean a call, ask about their kids, kvetch about the problems in your program, and then mention your concerns. If you don't have that kind of relationship, ask the other faculty member you know to talk around while you talk to the other members of your program.
If you don't have the kind of relationship where you could do these kinds of things with anyone, maybe brushing up your CV is a good idea anyway.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:26 PM on November 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
Whatever else you do, I would seriously encourage you not to consider this an option. Having these kinds of feelings in writing can only kick you in the ass. If you have the kind of relationship where it is possible and since you're on sabbatical, give your dean a call, ask about their kids, kvetch about the problems in your program, and then mention your concerns. If you don't have that kind of relationship, ask the other faculty member you know to talk around while you talk to the other members of your program.
If you don't have the kind of relationship where you could do these kinds of things with anyone, maybe brushing up your CV is a good idea anyway.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:26 PM on November 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this is why spousal hiring can make for ugly politics. If I were you I'd assume I didn't know everything that had been discussed about this behind closed doors, and I'd pretty much assume the chair was at least halfway faking her enthusiasm about the spousal hire as a way of trying to retain the "leading" spouse. Your program may be taking one for the team here, suffering for the (perceived) good of the larger department; but if the chair is as big a name and as politically savvy as you say, she may already be planning to use playing ball on this hire as ammunition to ask the administration for another hire in the field a year or two down the road. That's how the savvy players I know would be handling this.
There's likely very little that you can do to change what will happen with the hire, given that you're not directly involved in the decision. Talk to the search committee members about it off the record, by all means; but don't do more than that, and don't put it in writing unless you really are willing to start looking for another job over this.
One small ethical thing you should do: make sure that someone has the kindness to warn the other interviewees/finalists for the job (again, not in writing!), early in the hiring process, that they're competing against a spousal hire. It's particularly ugly but all too common for departments to string candidates along without notifying them about this, as if they really could hope to get the job.
posted by RogerB at 3:51 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
There's likely very little that you can do to change what will happen with the hire, given that you're not directly involved in the decision. Talk to the search committee members about it off the record, by all means; but don't do more than that, and don't put it in writing unless you really are willing to start looking for another job over this.
One small ethical thing you should do: make sure that someone has the kindness to warn the other interviewees/finalists for the job (again, not in writing!), early in the hiring process, that they're competing against a spousal hire. It's particularly ugly but all too common for departments to string candidates along without notifying them about this, as if they really could hope to get the job.
posted by RogerB at 3:51 PM on November 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh, man, good luck. I had the misfortune to be taught by a spousal hire who had a degree in (XYZ) lit but was teaching (ABC) literature by virtue of being a spouse and a native speaker. It was a horrible experience, and now that I'm an actual trained language teacher myself, I know exactly why. What an appalling practice (though not surprising, since higher ed in general is disgustingly full of people who don't believe that knowledge of pedagogy in general, let alone subject-specific pedagogy, is required to teach).
posted by wintersweet at 4:39 PM on November 19, 2011
posted by wintersweet at 4:39 PM on November 19, 2011
I don't think that making a complaint to the dean after this person is hired is a good strategy at all. At that point, it is unlikely that the dean would be able to change the situation, short of the new faculty member having committed some sort of fraud. And you run the risk of your objection seeming personal, which isn't going to help you make a case against the personal biases of your department colleagues.
However, if you feel that in general, the selection process insufficiently guards against personal conflicts of interest, or that the programmatic needs of the department are not given sufficient weight when selecting new faculty, then these are issues worth raising with the dean or through the faculty senate (or equivalent) at any time.
Additionally, you can get your ducks in a row regarding documentation of your own workload so that you can negotiate within your position if needed. Make yourself a breakdown of how your time is spent, what resources you currently depend upon, how you can best contribute to the department's and college's goals, etc. If the new hire's lack of qualifications means that you're expected to take on more responsibility, you could request to be compensated in some way for your expanded role or provided with more support. If the new hire is unable to contribute in the way that was originally planned for the department, but brings other valuable skills to the department, maybe responsibilities can be shifted around.
posted by desuetude at 4:53 PM on November 19, 2011
However, if you feel that in general, the selection process insufficiently guards against personal conflicts of interest, or that the programmatic needs of the department are not given sufficient weight when selecting new faculty, then these are issues worth raising with the dean or through the faculty senate (or equivalent) at any time.
Additionally, you can get your ducks in a row regarding documentation of your own workload so that you can negotiate within your position if needed. Make yourself a breakdown of how your time is spent, what resources you currently depend upon, how you can best contribute to the department's and college's goals, etc. If the new hire's lack of qualifications means that you're expected to take on more responsibility, you could request to be compensated in some way for your expanded role or provided with more support. If the new hire is unable to contribute in the way that was originally planned for the department, but brings other valuable skills to the department, maybe responsibilities can be shifted around.
posted by desuetude at 4:53 PM on November 19, 2011
I worked at a major US university for several years, in a high profile department, and it was understood that under qualified spouses were routinely hired in order to retain valued faculty members.
This strikes me as so routine that your objections are pointless.
posted by jayder at 6:54 PM on November 19, 2011
This strikes me as so routine that your objections are pointless.
posted by jayder at 6:54 PM on November 19, 2011
the department chair feels she would be ideal for the position and is pushing for her to be hired
The department chair doesn't actually feel she'd be ideal for the job. The department chair feels it would be ideal to retain her husband in his job. Your objections wouldn't be revelations, they'd be repetitions of things your department chair has already considered (and concluded are less bad than losing this woman's husband).
posted by Meg_Murry at 6:59 PM on November 19, 2011 [3 favorites]
The department chair doesn't actually feel she'd be ideal for the job. The department chair feels it would be ideal to retain her husband in his job. Your objections wouldn't be revelations, they'd be repetitions of things your department chair has already considered (and concluded are less bad than losing this woman's husband).
posted by Meg_Murry at 6:59 PM on November 19, 2011 [3 favorites]
Usually in situations like this, the potential hire's shortcomings are acknowledged and the department/program getting the short end of the stick has some bargaining power: if you make us hire Dr. X, we get an additional tenure track faculty member that we get to choose.
posted by sciencegeek at 8:18 PM on November 19, 2011
posted by sciencegeek at 8:18 PM on November 19, 2011
Is it possible this person is more qualified than you realize? The search committee may know more than you do about the candidates. I've read quite a bit about partner hire practices at a number of schools, being an academic married to a future academic. All programs claim that the partner hire must meet minimum competency standards, but unfortunately some fall through the cracks like in wintersweet's unfortunate example. Still, I think most schools try hard to make sure they only hire qualified people, and those that aren't qualified are helped in finding work elsewhere within commuting distance.
Some schools now have something like a partner-issues office in HR. There's a slim chance there's something like that at your smaller school, but it's worth checking it out. If nothing else, HR should be trained on this sort of thing. You can always ask them about the policy, couched in curiosity, if you don't want to risk causing tension with the chair or dean.
posted by monkeymadness at 6:11 AM on November 20, 2011
Some schools now have something like a partner-issues office in HR. There's a slim chance there's something like that at your smaller school, but it's worth checking it out. If nothing else, HR should be trained on this sort of thing. You can always ask them about the policy, couched in curiosity, if you don't want to risk causing tension with the chair or dean.
posted by monkeymadness at 6:11 AM on November 20, 2011
I'm with escabeche here in thinking that the real scandal has nothing to do with this particular hire and the bizarrely behind-the-scenes way in which appointments are made in your department. Having the hiring decisions made with no departmental debate and vote seems like an open invitation to abuse.
posted by yoink at 7:49 AM on November 20, 2011
posted by yoink at 7:49 AM on November 20, 2011
Mod note: From the OP:
Thanks for all the responses and advice - it's been really helpful for me to put my feelings abut the hire in perspective. I have been following this up with talking with faculty in my department and outside (I am currently on fellowship with someone from another department who has had dealings with our chair, so I've been getting perspective on her from outside, which has been a little disturbingly eyeopening): one member of the search committee thinks it's a done deal and is already planning on early retirement because they don't want to deal with it, another tenured faculty member that this will affect is now looking for another job. So at least I know I'm not alone!posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:39 AM on November 20, 2011
A few more special snowflake details: basically, although we are few tenure track in my programme, we are part of the major that makes up 90% of the department's majors, so decimating us is not so good for the department overall. Especially because this person has taught in our department before and that has been a little problematic (it is how I know she isn't able to teach the languages), and the language she would take over is suffering hugely compared to the language I teach (their classes are getting cancelled for lack of students, in other words). As far as I have been able to tell, there is no long range plan to get another hire: my chair really just feels the faculty member is irreplaceable (and has apparently. We are also not competing with a rival offer; he's tried and failed to get a spousal hire elsewhere. Not that this affects the situation or your advice, of course; it just makes the hire even more problematic.
Again thanks once more.
One potential strategy you could try would be to suggest that all language teachers are given some sort of test upon application as to rheir language skills, as for example, you might test word or spreadheet skills for admin vacancies. You could sell this as good practice.
But the Dean might not like it and you might be pissinng into the wind.
posted by biffa at 8:50 AM on November 20, 2011
But the Dean might not like it and you might be pissinng into the wind.
posted by biffa at 8:50 AM on November 20, 2011
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Spousal hiring is not at all weird. No full-department vote on hires between the search committee and the dean, though -- with no notification of the faculty of who's being hired??? -- does sound weird. If that's the culture of hiring in your department, I think you could make a forceful argument independent of this hire that that should be changed.
posted by escabeche at 3:06 PM on November 19, 2011 [5 favorites]