HOW I GOT A TENURE TRACK TEACHING POSITION AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE *Jeff Mahr

Community College, diversity and adjuncts

Mission of CCs is different from universities Not selective; educate all but keep rigor high This creates…

Diversity in my classrooms Diversity of

academic preparation, age, life stage, culture etc Hiring committees want to know you understand this

Adjunct – teacher with a semester to semester contract

Bottom line, you need teaching experience to get a full time position

My story

Always wanted to teach but listened to bosses too much

Began as an adjunct in Fall 2007 Taught one class per semester at City College

ever since Introductory Biology (majors classes and non-majors

classes)

Began applying for full time positions January 2009

Got “the phone call” April 2010 from Georgia Perimeter College

The application process I

Where I looked: Higheredlearning.com The Chronicle of Higher Education

(chronicle.com)

Its all online

Things that might be useful when you apply

Take advantage of opportunities for professional development At SDCCD: Flex Credit Will go on CV, shows you want to be a better

teacher

Ask colleagues to visit your class and review you Extremely valuable for improving teaching Source of reference letters

The application process II

A CV that highlights your teaching experience How important is your research? Not very.

Statement of teaching philosophy “Shows you have thought about your teaching”

Statement of diversity in some form or another, they all ask for it.

Extra questions: specific to each college, many related to diversity.

Research the school

Student population statistics Any school-specific emphases? Feeder programs to send students into

biotech? Nursing? GPC has an extensive arboretum, I

mentioned it as a possible botany field trip

The application process III

Cover letter: each one unique, follow all the standard

advice put in personal touches

Have a document listing all of your professional development activities listed. If they don’t ask for it, try to upload it

anyway “Other docs” space on online application

The community college interview process

First you will get an email inviting you for onsite interview or (Georgia) a phone interview California CCs: they have already picked the

interview day, you pick a time Onsite interview:

Very regimented All candidates asked the same questions No personal chit chat

California: NO follow up questions from committee, hardly a smile. Georgia: a bit more relaxed Answer the question and work into the answer all

that stuff they want to ask you but can’t.

1. Photosynthesis2. The sliding filament theory of muscle contraction3. Protein synthesis4. Conjugation in bacteria5. Human nephron function6. Ethnobotany7. Nitrogen cycle in ecosystems8. Phylogeny of birds9. Lac operon

My teaching demo options

The teaching demonstration They pick the topic, you have ~15 minutes to impress them

For my first 3 interviews: try to impress them Threw in every contrived fancy teaching thing I could

Last teaching demonstration: try to teach them Starts off with equipment malfunction When they couldn’t answer questions, I reviewed on

the board until I saw that they “knew it” Prepared 12 slides, got through only 4 Had sample exam questions that covered that

material It worked!

Great website

While it is specifically a geosciences website, most of the questions I was asked at all my interviews were variations on the questions at this site: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/j

obsearch/2YC-InterviewQuestions.html