Updated Baronial 1, 2018

As the annual job market season rapidly approaches for folklore, you may be wondering if you want (to apply for) a job at a liberal arts college. None of us earn our PhDs at liberal arts colleges and if you did not attend one for undergrad you may just be relying on myths about what it means to exist a liberal arts professor. Some of those myths may come from people who don't know much about liberal arts colleges either or want yous to only apply to big inquiry institutions.

Like and so-called R1 institutions, professors at liberal arts colleges are responsible for and assessed based on their enquiry, teaching, and service, but at liberal arts colleges, the accent is different. The best way I have heard it said is that at R1s when you are evaluated (possibly for tenure) they start past looking at your research. If that is not upward to their standards, they don't intendance how good y'all are as a classroom instructor. At a liberal arts college, they first evaluate your pedagogy. If your teaching does not reach high standards, they don't really care if y'all are a rock star researcher. Occasionally, you will see a news story of students at an R1 in an uproar considering their favorite professor was denied tenure, even though they were incredibly engaging and inspiring, readily available for advising in part hours, and taught them how to think critically unlike anyone else.

This doesn't hateful that yous are free to completely focus on pedagogy at a liberal arts college.

Most liberal arts colleges that hire tenure-track positions still want/require you to exist engaged in your field of enquiry. Withal, this may mean they expect that you will publish ii-5 articles or a single book before tenure (practical for in yr half-dozen), not per yr. Additionally, some R1 departments have expectations that your work will be published in a very limited number of acme-tier journals (AJS, ASR, etc.). Liberal arts colleges want you to publish your work in double-bullheaded, peer-reviewed journals, only many will provide much more leeway regarding the journal'due south rank.

Some liberal arts colleges are improve at facilitating enquiry than others. What is the teaching load? Are you required to teach two, three or iv classes a semester? If you teach a two:ii you should take ample time to also engage in more than inquiry and you will probable exist expected to produce more. A 3:iii load? Well, you tin can crisis things out in the summertime. A four:iv load? Forget information technology. Does the college provide a pre-tenure inquiry leave or grade reduction? Some at present give tenure-track faculty a semester without teaching responsibilities in their 4th or fifth year. This can be a huge assist in getting new projects underway or finalizing revise and resubmits. Are there internal research funds available? Can you hire students as RAs? When because these jobs, look for the signals the liberal arts colleges are sending regarding the importance of your research. Are they setting you upwards for success? Do the resource they provide align with their expectations of productivity? Hopefully, the Dean of Faculty is professional and clear regarding their expectations. I was fortunate enough to have a very clear moving picture from a Dean of what was expected of me to increase my chances of tenure (a ballpark number of articles, positive or improving form evaluations, and being an engaged fellow member of the faculty/campus community). I know of others who are not as fortunate. Sometimes a new Dean wants to heighten the ranking of the college and places the responsibility on the faculty to publish in the highest ranking journals, even though there is no other institutional support to help you lot make that happen. Others I have talked to become simply vague, even opaque responses when asking about the expectations for tenure and one colleague even said her Dean wouldn't count publications from her dissertation!? Of course, the Dean of Kinesthesia is non the only one contributing to that determination, only can certainly be a hurdle.

Thinking nearly the tenure process, they are offer you lot a job for life. They probable want to make certain you are not a "one-hit wonder" in regards to your research. Did yous squeeze a volume or a few articles out of your dissertation? Not bad. That'southward definitely the first step, but and then before tenure, your section and if you have a promotion committee volition want to see that you lot have at least taken the initial steps in establishing another line of research. What else can they expect from yous?

In the past half dozen years at a liberal arts college, I take had numerous inquiry assistants (paid for past the college), received coin from the college to help collect survey information and travel to distant research sites, and had a semester free of didactics to work on new projects and wrap upwardly manufactures from my dissertation. This institutional support matches their expectations that I publish from my dissertation and begin new projects.

At a liberal arts college, you will need to take teaching seriously.

They want you to do more than give a multiple-choice midterm and final exam. You volition spend a lot of time grading paper assignments, essay exams, and other more engaging cess tools. You volition not be able to utilise TAs to help you class. Fortunately, your grade size at a liberal arts college is typically much smaller than what you have seen or experienced at an R1. Introductory courses may be as many as 30 students but advanced undergraduate classes may simply have 10-12 students. I typically run upper-level undergrad courses more than similar a graduate seminar with lots of discussion, more all-encompassing research papers, and, at least in part, the management of the course led by student's item involvement in the topic. Faculty at R1s that teach undergrad courses with hundreds of students are understandably express in their pedagogical choices.

Service at a small liberal arts higher is also more extensive than at an R1. Many liberal arts colleges are extensively faculty governed.

Our unabridged faculty, of the college, not just the section, meet one time a month to go over policies and other college business organization. Depending on the size of your department, you volition also probable serve as the advisor to at least a dozen, maybe several dozen students. Other examples among the numerous committees include a sustainability commission, homo subjects research committee (in lieu of a full IRB), disciplinary judicial committee, curriculum committees, and MANY more. Expect to spend more time in meetings as part of being a liberal arts professor. Committees I am on meet in one case a week throughout the entire school year.

What are the students like?

Coming into the job, I held onto the myth every educatee at a liberal arts college was well-prepared, defended, and politically engaged. Nope. I have both amazing students and I have some that are clearly still not certain they want to exist in that location. I have some that are intellectually curious and some that the class assignments are a depression priority on their long list of things to practice. My indicate is, just like the R1 students you may take served as a TA for, at liberal arts colleges there is a mix of students. A professor from Northwestern Academy once told me that he thinks that the top students at every college are fairly like, there are just more of them at aristocracy institutions.

Additionally, like larger R1 classrooms, your students will come up to higher with a wide range of educational experiences. Some volition have attended higher prep high schools and be ready to write a inquiry newspaper from day one, others will not have been exposed to or given the opportunity to develop the skills needed to succeed in the higher classroom. Be prepared to spend some fourth dimension instruction writing, reading, and disquisitional thinking skills.

What kind of colleague do you need to be?

At a liberal arts college, you will likely exist in a pocket-size department, sometimes VERY small. In my department, there are iv other faculty members. Collegiality serves a prominent office in such a small group. You don't need to be best friends with everyone, just you need to be professional and expect to encounter plenty of your colleagues. You will likely exist THE proficient in your subfield. Nobody else in my department teaches (or does research on) globalization, environmental folklore, or social movements. My colleagues are engaged scholars and can often offer a completely different angle in discussing my piece of work with me, but if I want to get into the nitty gritty depths of ecosocialism or world society theory, I need to achieve outside of the higher and stay in affect with others by attention national and regional conferences.

What can y'all practice now to qualify yourself to exist a professor at a liberal arts higher?

Y'all need to teach. A CV without ANY instruction experience volition get speedily passed over as an applicant. If you have the opportunity, teach as many unlike classes equally possible while in graduate school. Yeah, form prep is difficult and takes time away from your dissertation, merely you need to show how y'all will contribute to a pocket-size department. This may be contradictory advice from what you receive from your advisor who wants you to focus on research. In just my first four years as a kinesthesia fellow member, I taught ix different courses! You volition exist expected to teach foundational required courses like Introduction to Folklore (and peradventure anthropology) and perhaps a methods or theory course.

Additionally, you tin't just teach the same elective class over and over every semester. You tin can't just exist an instructor of a single subfield. Electives may rotate back into the schedule in a small section only every three years. I teach 3 courses a semester. Every leap I teach Survey Methods and Analysis with a lab, and I unremarkably teach one, perhaps two sections of Introduction to Sociology and Anthropology every year. That leaves me as many as three other courses per twelvemonth. So, for instance, since leaving graduate school, I added Race and Ethnicity to my repertoire of courses and adult a first-year studies grade on climate change. I likewise regularly teach Environmental Sociology, Social Movements, and Globalization.

If you take limited opportunities to teach during graduate schoolhouse, y'all can show that you accept teaching seriously in other means.

For your application to a liberal arts college, prepare a few boosted class syllabi for classes you lot are prepared to teach, even if you have never taught them. This demonstrates that you are thinking nearly teaching. Additionally, you can attend teaching related sessions at ASA and indicate that on your CV. If your university has a Preparing Future Faculty Program, participate in the seminars. Find a liberal arts college nigh you and approach a faculty member about being a mentor or shadowing them so you can say that you lot have a practiced agreement of what it means to be a professor at a liberal arts college. While I was at IU, I shadowed someone from DePauw and went to IU's PFF briefing every yr. You should as well customize your CV and cover messages to each school. When applying to liberal arts colleges, be certain you talk virtually teaching starting time in your comprehend letter and practise not bury whatsoever teaching feel deep in your CV. I normally list information technology very early on – right after my educational credentials.

Teach well, it matters.

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