Job Hunting Update: Next Interviews
Jan. 19th, 2014 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebAfter the first interview and some additional research, I know a lot more about what the job is actually like.
The Flags
First a brief overview of the "skills and experience flags," affectionately known as the "Six Flags over Texas." The Committee of 125, a group of local businesspersons meeting to give advice to the university on its 125th anniversary, recommended that all students should have these six skills, and they should be taught as part of their major courses, not as separate mix-and-match courses:
Writing - Students should do a significant amount of writing and get instruction on writing (involving critiques of rough drafts, ideally by other students as well as the instructor). They should have three courses with this flag (and one course with each of the other flags). (We had already been requiring two courses with a "substantial writing component" to make sure that even in this big university, students had some writing practice.)
Quantitative Reasoning - Students should learn how to apply math calculations to real-world situations.
Ethics and [Ethical] Leadership - Students should study ethics as it relates to real-world situations.
Global Cultures - Students should learn something about another culture.
Cultural diversity - Students should learn about underrepresented populations in the US as well.
Independent inquiry - Students should explore something on their own, such as by doing their own research project or other sort of creation.
The Staff
Five people are in charge of flags. Three are people with PhDs who are in charge of one or four of the flags and take care of the faculty-facing part of the job. (One focuses on Writing, one on Independent Inquiry, and the other takes the rest.) They try to convince faculty to incorporate flags into their courses and they teach faculty about best practices in teaching that content and are otherwise available for answering questions and giving advice.
One person is in charge of working with course schedulers across the departments and with the Office of the Registrar to make sure that all the flag courses that are offered are properly labeled. She also does lots of other administrative stuff. For example, she is the one who had to find a time when everyone would be available for the second and third interviews.
And the person in the job I'm applying for handles the student-facing part of the job. She advises students on what the flags are and how best to fulfill those requirements within their own majors (as do their advisors in their own majors). Since courses taken elsewhere do not have these flags, students can petition to count their study-abroad courses and other transfer courses toward these requirements. The person in this position helps them see whether that is even necessary or whether they still need a required course that is always taught with that flag. And they help them fill out the form and find the best possible course to petition. This person can also approve or deny petitions and, if she's not sure, contact the appropriate PhD staff member to help decide. She is also the one who works with advisors--she goes to advising meetings, runs workshops on the flags so advisors can better understand when to encourage their students to petition a course, and stuff like that. And she also works with the degree audit coders (woo hoo! my old chickadees!)--she codes the requirements and does the overrides for all approved petitions.
Actually, there's also a sixth person in charge of several programs, one of which is this flags program, and that is the person who interviewed me. She actually implemented the flags program, does the hiring and firing, and keeps everything working as well as possible.
The Next Interviews
My next interviews are at 2:00 and 3:00 this Wednesday. The 2:00 interview is with the three faculty contacts. I will ask them a bunch of questions about what kinds of courses do and don't fulfill the requirements of their respective flags.
The 3:00 interview is with three other staff members. One is the administrative person who set up the interview.
One is a person who does similar things with "core courses" (the ones that are required for everyone earning an undergraduate degree, such as two literature courses, one math course, three science courses, one creative arts course, etc.). She is the one I have worked with before and who is my reference.
And the third is another person with the same HR job title as the Flag Petitions Coordinator (Associate Academic Advisor), but she works with one of the other programs under the auspices of the woman who did my first interview.
It makes sense to ask them how they would interact with whomever is hired, but they will probably tell me most of that themselves when they introduce themselves to me. So I suppose I can ask things like what they like most about their jobs and what they are most hoping for from the new person. And maybe advice they would have for the new person.
The Flags
First a brief overview of the "skills and experience flags," affectionately known as the "Six Flags over Texas." The Committee of 125, a group of local businesspersons meeting to give advice to the university on its 125th anniversary, recommended that all students should have these six skills, and they should be taught as part of their major courses, not as separate mix-and-match courses:
Writing - Students should do a significant amount of writing and get instruction on writing (involving critiques of rough drafts, ideally by other students as well as the instructor). They should have three courses with this flag (and one course with each of the other flags). (We had already been requiring two courses with a "substantial writing component" to make sure that even in this big university, students had some writing practice.)
Quantitative Reasoning - Students should learn how to apply math calculations to real-world situations.
Ethics and [Ethical] Leadership - Students should study ethics as it relates to real-world situations.
Global Cultures - Students should learn something about another culture.
Cultural diversity - Students should learn about underrepresented populations in the US as well.
Independent inquiry - Students should explore something on their own, such as by doing their own research project or other sort of creation.
The Staff
Five people are in charge of flags. Three are people with PhDs who are in charge of one or four of the flags and take care of the faculty-facing part of the job. (One focuses on Writing, one on Independent Inquiry, and the other takes the rest.) They try to convince faculty to incorporate flags into their courses and they teach faculty about best practices in teaching that content and are otherwise available for answering questions and giving advice.
One person is in charge of working with course schedulers across the departments and with the Office of the Registrar to make sure that all the flag courses that are offered are properly labeled. She also does lots of other administrative stuff. For example, she is the one who had to find a time when everyone would be available for the second and third interviews.
And the person in the job I'm applying for handles the student-facing part of the job. She advises students on what the flags are and how best to fulfill those requirements within their own majors (as do their advisors in their own majors). Since courses taken elsewhere do not have these flags, students can petition to count their study-abroad courses and other transfer courses toward these requirements. The person in this position helps them see whether that is even necessary or whether they still need a required course that is always taught with that flag. And they help them fill out the form and find the best possible course to petition. This person can also approve or deny petitions and, if she's not sure, contact the appropriate PhD staff member to help decide. She is also the one who works with advisors--she goes to advising meetings, runs workshops on the flags so advisors can better understand when to encourage their students to petition a course, and stuff like that. And she also works with the degree audit coders (woo hoo! my old chickadees!)--she codes the requirements and does the overrides for all approved petitions.
Actually, there's also a sixth person in charge of several programs, one of which is this flags program, and that is the person who interviewed me. She actually implemented the flags program, does the hiring and firing, and keeps everything working as well as possible.
The Next Interviews
My next interviews are at 2:00 and 3:00 this Wednesday. The 2:00 interview is with the three faculty contacts. I will ask them a bunch of questions about what kinds of courses do and don't fulfill the requirements of their respective flags.
The 3:00 interview is with three other staff members. One is the administrative person who set up the interview.
One is a person who does similar things with "core courses" (the ones that are required for everyone earning an undergraduate degree, such as two literature courses, one math course, three science courses, one creative arts course, etc.). She is the one I have worked with before and who is my reference.
And the third is another person with the same HR job title as the Flag Petitions Coordinator (Associate Academic Advisor), but she works with one of the other programs under the auspices of the woman who did my first interview.
It makes sense to ask them how they would interact with whomever is hired, but they will probably tell me most of that themselves when they introduce themselves to me. So I suppose I can ask things like what they like most about their jobs and what they are most hoping for from the new person. And maybe advice they would have for the new person.