What the Committee Is Really Looking For

By Matt Reed. Last week, Rebecca Schuman did a wonderful meditation on a job ad from Sewanee that touched off quite a discussion, including here. This week, Cheryl Ball offered a more global how-to on reading faculty job postings.  The trend of reading job ads as texts strikes me as positive, and someday -- when I’m feeling a little braver -- I may do the same for some administrative postings.  But in the meantime, I was struck by some of the commentary to Ball’s piece in which various readers claimed that it’s possible, by this phrase or that one, to know what a committee is reallylooking for. Read more...