The View From Kalamazoo

I posted on the new Tribble Drivel on the fly yesterday and (not that I’m less swamped. shhh, don’t tell) I want to return to the subject for a bit, if you don’t mind. (or if you do, I’m still typing. nyah nyah) I find it interesting (and darn convenient) that Tribble zeroed in on the weakest arguments (IMO) that appeared in response to his first piece. The comments on free speech that I read were mostly afterthoughts to meatier postings that discussed the professionalism of dirt-digging on Google and the state of the academic hiring committee in general. And his response to those worried about Googlers running into name-alikes and making wild assumptions? Disavow?! On a CV?!?! WTF? “Or you could choose to trust the discretion of the hiring committee members” Like you, Ivan? As if public mocking of applicants is professional, discreet?? Clearly no trust whatsoever can be placed in those hands if you are, as you seem to assert, a fine example of a hiring committee member. If I was John Smith, Ph.D. applying for an English position I’d be damn worried if there was a John Smith who posted pictures of soft-core bondage porn on this site because clearly the hiring committee can’t be trusted to be discerning or professional. I don’t have a common name (or so I thought) particularly since I’m an Elisabeth-with-an-S, not an Elizabeth-with-a-Z, yet Googling my name will also bring up the activities of another me, in Scotland.

And that brings me to the real rant portion of today’s posting: as I thought more on the newest Tribble Drivel it occurs to me that Tribble is a fine example – a fine example of why academia, and academic hiring in particular, is seen as so capricious, so arbitrary, so Ivory Tower. If Tribble is right then every epithet aimed at academia, every accusation of parochialism and elitism is smack on. Is this just a great spotlight on a system that is broken (or, at least, badly mangled)?

Going back to the original Drivel, Tribble’s committee tossed out the application of “Professor Turbo Geek” because the blog showed an interest in “the minutiae of software systems, server hardware, and other tech exotica” that the committee assumed meant that the applicant wasn’t academic enough and would be “ditching us to hang out in computer science after a few weeks on the job.” And if another applicant, when Googled, didn’t have a blog but was mentioned in a handful of newspaper or magazine articles as a fine marathon runner, that same committee could easily come to the same sort of wild conclusion: that the runner wasn’t committed to academia, either.

Oh, the places we could go! Consider an applicant who has a hobby of writing (rather bad) Christian-themed poetry for their church newsletter…and the church newsletter is online. Can this application be tossed under the assumption that the rest of the applicant’s writing must be as bad? Or worse – that a primarily Atheist committee can decide that the applicant won’t be a ‘good fit’?!? To continue in the area of ‘questions you can’t ask legally via form or interview but can be Googled’, now consider another applicant who does have a blog (not advertised on the CV, of course, as the vast majority are not), and it’s focused on his child, specifically a special needs child. It details day-to-day struggles (doctors, specialists, the schools) as a single parent…Tribble’s committee can assume the applicant would be far too busy with his family responsibilities, too distracted, and he, too, dismissed out of hand, no, or the applicant without a blog, but who had written a book ten years ago that described her debilitating post-partum depression, dismissed because she could get pregnant again, after all.

Applicants know their capabilities – how can a committee like Tribble’s assume they know better? The father could have a super live-in support network that allows him to spend as much time as necessary on professional matters, the runner could be involved in only summer races, or could have since ended all such activities. “Professor Turbo Geek” could have an interest in developing a technological project that would serve others in his academic field and put the department on the map – the question is, why is it the applicant can not be trusted to know what is expected and whether they can do it?

Let’s see…religion, family status…politics! A lot of bloggers, academic or no, give some indication of political leaning even if they are not specifically politics-focused. Perhaps there is a letter to the editor out there somewhere, a newsletter entry, or (in my case) maybe they wrote op-ed columns for a school paper a decade earlier that sit in a cache somewhere. How easy it is for a committee like Tribble describes to quietly wean out applicants who don’t lean in the direction they lean – and that may not even be a simple case of conservative v. liberal…maybe they prefer a yellow-dog Democrat, or perhaps they’ll not want to consider a vegan Green. What if they’re OK with a feminist, but not with a Feminist, hmmm?

Tribble’s earlier assertion that “past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum,” clearly should be applied towards academic hiring practices. And admissions, for that matter. I have to wonder – is it the quality of the materials in the professional dossier that matters, or is it just about the dirt-digging? Has anyone considered the dangerous place Tribble and his committee are going if they’re online trying to get around the legal (and ethical) no-no questions in an interview by digging online? This isn’t about ‘free speech’, Ivan, it’s about total lack of professionalism, ethics, regard for or respect of the candidates and the laws protecting them.