Here is the run down of my interview day in New Paltz. This is really long and a lot of you will find it boring, but those of you who are going to go through this job process will hopefully find it helpful. I have had a hard time finding good resources to help with this kind of stuff, partially because I am skipping the postdoc phase so a lot of my elder peers haven't gone through this yet. One resource that I did find helpful is the pdf file at this website. So, here's how the day went.
9-10 Interview with hiring committee. This actually kindof amused me because at 9:00 only half of the committee (2 people) were actually there. Apparently they are not early birds, which is fine with me. Then it was a very low key interview. The day before the dept chair had mentioned to me that he was thinking of changing their lab structure from 2 person groups to 4 person groups and I said that was how my lab was structured. So the first question was a conversation amongst the three of us on the pros and cons of 2 versus 4 person groups. This was a lot of the interview. Eventually the rest of the committee showed up, including the outside member from geology. They asked me generic questions like why did I think I woud fit at that school, especially now that I had seen it. They also asked what resources and how much money I would require, which admittedly I was not very prepared to answer. Astronomers are pretty cheap as far as research goes, we just need a computer and money to travel. But it turns out that a lot of the new equipment that I would want for teaching astro majors (like a CCD on their new telescope, optics lab equipment, etc.) would probably come out of my start up funds. That seemed a little strange to me. But I guess that would be part of the negotiations if I actually get the job. The only other thing we discussed was how much math I thought an astro major should need. I said up through three dimensional calculus and definitely diff eq, but it turns out this was somewhat of a trick question because I think the physics folks agree with me, but the Dean doesn't think we should make this major math intensive (and perhaps not so much with physics either). Oh, they also did ask me which classes I would envision teaching, and I think I impressed them with having prepared copies of a list of classes. I think they also thought the classes were creative thanks to things like Instrumentation, History and Philosophy of Astronomy (the Dean really liked this too), and a Current Topics Seminar - thanks to UT for having good classes!
10-11 "Free Time" Really the previous interview got started late and then ran long, so it ended around 10:30. First we went to the room where my presentation would be to make sure that my computer connected ok, then the Dept Chair decided to give me a mini tour of campus, showing me the library (they are heavy into fine arts so have lots of sheet music you can check out, nice!), the other science buildings, where the planetarium is, etc. At that point it was 5 minutes before my talk so I stole time to go to the bathroom.
11-12 My presentation. The audience was about 5 physics students, the hiring committee, the Dean, and the planetarium director. I think that it went well. I've given so many talks that it comes pretty naturally to me (thanks again, UT!). I didn't have a chance to time it beforehand, and I compensated by letting myself talk a little quickly in the beginning, which led to stretching things in the end. But I ended up going about 45 minutes and then I had a TON of questions so it ended up taking the full hour. I think it's good that I got a lot of questions, and I think I answered them well. Though it is very apparent that nobody there knows a thing about astronomy.
12-1 Lunch. We got some food to go at an on campus place and ate in a physics department conference room. It was the physics faculty (oh, there are only 3 faculty members, plus the planetarium director who teaches astronomy as an adjunct), a student, and some other random faculty that usually meet at that time to knit during lunch with one of the physics faculty members. Idle chit chat during lunch. One of the faculty members administers a program for underpriviledged students and she was talking about a field trip they took to the Hayden Planetarium in NYC - fun!
1-2 Meeting with the Dean. This was a whirlwind of the Dean throwing information at me. First his vision of the astronomy major - liberal arts only, not very sciencey, but also to build up the physics department since it has dwindled. Then all of the things I would have to do - developing the observatory (he gave me blueprints), getting the major approved by all the bureaucracy, creating all the new classes including renovating the current ones taught by the planetarium director since they kinda suck, and basically being that woman's boss (she has white hair, funny to me that I would be her boss). He wanted no input from me on any of this so I had to interject with my ideas and the ways I thought I was qualified to do these things. Then he went into how the tenure track works and how tenure is evaluated (more on that below). He basically answered every single question on my list of things to ask him, so when it was finally my turn (with about 5 minutes left) there wasn't much for me to say. I asked about salary levels - awkward! (more on that below too), and his vision of the department for the next 10 years. The Dean has a very agressive personality and the Provost later described him as "rough around the edges" but the Department Chair said that he is good beacuse he gets stuff done that other people let slip by. (Funny that they all volunteered information about each other - even the Dean told me strengths and weaknesses of all the faculty.) This was also one of the meetings where the Dean abandoned all "if you are hired" pretenses and flat out was just telling me "you need to do this" and "this is your responsibility" as though he was my boss already.
2-3 Meeting with the Provost. Again the Provost had his script down. I guess he does this a lot. He told me right off the bat what the schedule of the next hour would be. First he told me about the school then told me he had 4 questions for me that he would list in advance and we would go through. They were 1) What do you view as the exciting things going on in astronomy right now?; 2) What is your research? (Then I had an extended layman's conversation with him about it even though he is a chemist and therefore should have known a bit more science than he seemed to); 3) Teaching - name a specific situation or tool that you encountered and tried and how it worked (thank you CAE, which the Provost said he would fund for me to travel to); 4) Why should you get this job over the other 3-4 people that I will meet with? That all went fine I think. Then he told me again about the tenure process in much detail and then employee benefits. I also asked him about salaries and his 10 year vision.
3-4 Supposedly the day was over. NOT! I did get to walk myself back from the Provost's office, so I had my first moments to myself (not counting my one bathroom break). Then the Department Chair took me to visit the planetarium and the lady who runs it. The room is nice and holds about 45 people, but they need a new projector and have no money for it. That would be part of my job. I suggested to the planetarium director that they get some of those movies intentened to be shown in planetariums and charge the public to watch them, but she didn't seem interested. In fact, she didn't seem interested in much change at all - it would definitely be interesting to be her boss. She has no background in astronomy and it seems that she teaches her class things that only an amateur astronomer would be interested in, spending most of the time in the planetarium talking about how the sky moves. The class is called Exploring the Solar System (and there is also an Exploring the Universe), but I don't think there is actually any mention of planets and the like. There seems to be no actual teaching of astronomy as a science. This would explain why the Dean told me he would support me scrapping her syllabus and telling her what to teach. (I would be teaching the more upper level stuff.)
4:30-5:30 Driving around the city with the Department Chair. He showed me all the local sights and highlights of the city. I'll probably do a post on the city later once I can get my pictures.
5:30-6:30 Dropped off at my inn and immediately passed out. Too tired to set alarm so was awoken by the inn keeper when the dept chair was in the living room waiting for me.
6:30-8:00 Dinner with the Department Chair. At this point reeeeaalllly running out of things to say. This and the drive around the town felt very much like when a prospective student stays with me and the burden is on me to deliver beacuse they are too worn out. I tried my best to stay charming, though. An interesting note is that the restaurant we went to was owned by a recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America because apparently it is very close by and a lot of the graduates open places in New Paltz. Cool!
8:00 Delivered back to the inn. Had two phone messages and over 100 emails. Sigh... Waded through all that and finally got the glory of sleep.
Throughout the whole day I was almost never left alone. Even if there was a few minutes inbetween things I spent it in a faculty member's office. I didn't have a visitor's office of my own (though they did show me where my office will be).
Since Day 3 is not very exciting I'll just include it here and say I got to spend the morning on my own (mostly because they were all teaching, I think), so I walked around the village and the campus. Then I had lunch with a faculty member and headed out. I'm still traveling - yay delayed flights.
Ok, now on to the two big topics that people looking for these jobs might be interested in.
Tenure Process. Apparently it's ok if I don't get my PhD before I get there, though that certainly is not my plan. But I would be hired as an Instructor for up to 2 years, then the tenure clock would start after that. You basically get reviewed every 2 years. After 2 years you are mostly judged on teaching, and you should have an article submitted to a journal. They were explicit that you should not join any committees in this time. After 4 years you should have submitted a second paper (the first being published), show some progress in teaching, and around now join a department and university committee. After 6 years you are evaluated for tenure. You need to have 2 papers fully published and one in the works or almost done. These are to be new and unique to your time there and should not be in collaboration with your PhD advisor. This is a bit scary to me because my advisor wrote the code I use so he automatically gets on every paper I write using it, regardless of his involvement. This means I will just have to make up new research, which I suppose is the point. The Department Chair said that I might be able to ask my advisor to let me publish one without him just for this purpose (I guess people have done this before). They also said that having a student on one of these papers is the golden ticket. You also of course have to be a good teacher and now be on a few committees. You can get promoted early but the tenure has to come after 6 years - a state law or something. One interesting thing of note is that the Dean said that once I get tenure he would make me Department Chair.
Salaries. People are always very hush hush about this but I had no idea what to expect so I'll share with you all. The starting salary would be about $50k. The Provost said you get a $2500 raise as associate prof and a $4000 raise to full prof. He said that you also get merit bonus each year - $1000-$1500 each for things like publishing a paper, giving an invited talk, etc. The Dean said that the average salary of a tenured professor is $70-$90k. The highest Distinguished Profs (a real category above full prof) make up to $120k. These are 10 month salaries and technically you don't have to work in the summer. Some people can get grant money (either through the univ or the NSF) to make extra money in the summer. So crappy starting salary, but I guess potential to grow.
UPDATE: I told this to my advisor and he said "If they said 50 that means you can get 60."
Whew, that's all! I'm sure I forgot something. Hopefully this is useful to someone out there!
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