Mark Tonelli

Assistant Professor of Music at Millikin University

Job-Market Diaries: A Religious Studies

Professor
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August 21, 2017

Here is the latest column in our series of Job-Market Diaries, in which Mark Tonelli, himself
an assistant professor, interviews new faculty members about how they found their full-time
teaching job. This month he talks with a scholar in religious studies.

Name: Laura E. Alexander

Institution: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Position: assistant professor of religious studies, and the Goldstein Family Community
Chair in Human Rights
Responsibilities: Research and teaching in the area of religion and human rights,
specializing in religious ethical thinking and issues of human rights, just war,
immigration, and the nation-state.
Start date: August 2017
Describe your background.

Alexander: I went to the University of Virginia for my doctoral studies, having completed
bachelors and masters degrees in religion, as well as having taught overseas and worked in
refugee resettlement through two service year programs. I strongly recommend service years
to students who can do them they provide excellent job experience and, in my case,
significantly shaped my academic and humanitarian commitments.

At UVA, I completed a Ph.D. in religious ethics with a dissertation on religious ethics, just war
thinking, and the principle of responsibility to protect. During my doctoral studies, I taught
and TAed courses and interned at two administrative offices. I also gave birth to two children,
which slowed my progress somewhat, but also helped me focus my time (i.e., I had to get work
done during the work day or it wasnt getting done at all).

After earning my Ph.D., I worked at the university in two administrative positions, as a senior
academic adviser and lecturer, and then as a career adviser.

What types of things did you do to prepare to teach full-time in academia?

Alexander: UVA provides an excellent balance of teaching and research for doctoral
students. Those who are coming out of the program are well-prepared to teach at R1
universities, non-R1 state institutions, liberal-arts colleges, or community colleges. Im
grateful for that. I did the usual teaching and research expected of a grad student, and I sought
out some special teaching opportunities in areas of my particular interest.

Within the first year or two of my doctoral program, I got involved with a book-project
seminar related to religious thinking about immigration, which has met for years at the
American Academy of Religion annual meeting. That involvement has borne fruit in a lot of
ways: It inspired some of my own research, gave me a chance to co-chair the seminar (service
to the profession), and, most recently, I agreed to serve as one of the editors for a second
edited volume based on papers written for the seminar.

In my case at least, the administrative work I did at UVA also proved important. It gave me a
varied set of skills and experiences so that I felt I would be able to find fulfilling work in higher
education, even if I didnt end up on the tenure track. Because of the somewhat-unique nature
of the position Ive just been hired for, it also proved to be an asset in my tenure-track search
rather than the liability I assumed it would be.

Between holding administrative posts and having children in daycare, Ive had to get much
better than I was as an early graduate student at keeping a calendar with clearly
delineated times for research, course planning, meetings, and so on. That may not work for
everyone, but it has been helpful for me as I prepare for a faculty job with multiple
responsibilities.
What would you have done differently to prepare?

Alexander: I would have read more broadly in the field if I could have managed it. Its easy
as a graduate student to get bogged down in literature in your particular area of study, and to
some extent thats unavoidable. But now Im keeping up more with book reviews in major
journals in my field, arguments over methodology in the area of religious (especially
comparative religious) ethics, and discussions of pedagogy and research practices. Theres
only so much any one person can do, but I wish Id been engaged more in discipline-wide
debates and conversations as a graduate student. That kind of reading helps a job seeker, I
think, to be able to present oneself as a fellow scholar, not as a desperate or nave student.

I did have excellent preparation as a teacher from various sources, and I would encourage
graduate students and other job candidates to seek help from your universitys teaching or
faculty-development center both to improve your teaching skills and to figure out how to
develop and articulate a teaching philosophy. The Center for Teaching Excellence at UVA was
a wonderful resource for research-based best practices in pedagogy. And the center employed
me as a graduate associate for a year, so I really got the benefit of their work and knowledge.

What do you think helped you get your current job?

Alexander: My research and teaching record must have been acceptable to the search
committee. But whats different in some ways about my job search is that the administrative
work Id done also helped my application. The University of Nebraska at Omaha has a unique
type of faculty position called a community chair, and I'll be holding the Goldstein Family
Community Chair in Human Rights. The work that Ill do for that part of the position requires
significant community outreach and connection. It helped to be able to show that I know how
to manage a calendar, interact with university leadership, bring people together around
innovative projects, reach out to alumni and community members, and connect students to
academic and career opportunities. I was also able to demonstrate that I had kept up, at least
to an extent, with research and teaching while doing full-time administrative work, which I
think helped show that I could handle the demands of the job though I'll still have to prove
myself over the next few years!

I also followed the rules for job applications: I worked extremely hard on my application
materials, checked everything carefully for typos, developed well-written (I hope!) teaching
and research statements, researched the departments and universities I was applying to, etc.

The very first question the search committee asked me during my on-campus interview was,
What do you know about our university and department? They quite explicitly wanted to
check that candidates had done their due diligence. In an academic job market like this one,
following the rules is not going to get every candidate a job. Im obviously very lucky that this
particular job came up at this particular time. But following the rules does help.
What advice do you have for academic job candidates?

Alexander: Besides the above, the best advice I can give is to prioritize not just in the job
market but in life. Especially having a young family, I had to make decisions all along the way
about how to balance my academic interests and my hope for a faculty job with my
commitment to my spouse and children. I can trace the beginning of my seeking out
opportunities in administration to the birth of my first child, because I realized then that I
wasn't going to be able to (or perhaps didnt want to) prioritize getting the tenure-track job
above everything else. I didnt want to move 4 or 5 times, never be at home, etc.

So I began to develop administrative skills in order to have an option other than the tenure
track, if that didn't happen or if, for instance, it required too many geographical moves.

I even turned down an offer for a postdoc that I would gladly have taken if it didn't mean
moving at least twice (for the postdoc and then the next opportunity). I only applied for jobs in
areas/cities where my spouse could reasonably find a job. I did hope for a tenure-track job and
feel both very lucky and very excited about my new role, but I was also prepared to find ways
to do fulfilling work on the administrative side.

For those whose highest priority is getting a faculty job, I say go for it. If you have other
competing priorities, having a plan and finding some different options is really helpful. Alt-ac
positions can be interesting if you want to stay in higher ed, or you might have opportunities
in your field outside the university. Whatever it is, its good to think about these things during
graduate school, before the intense pressure of the academic job search hits.

Its also possible to network in a way that helps your job search without feeling icky about it.
The Chronicle has had some helpful articles on this topic recently. I didn't fully realize it at the
time, but going to that first meeting of the immigration seminar at AAR and being willing to
get involved with that group was a means of networking that has done a lot for both the quality
and the quantity of my work.

Reading other scholars work and responding to it whether through an article, a book
review, or an email is a form of networking. I got one of my graduate internships simply by
showing up to an event and talking with someone who then turned out to be hiring. Plus, I
really do enjoy connecting people with other people, so it feels good when I can introduce one
of my friends to someone I think they may find interesting, and that builds up goodwill among
all of us.

Academic work is already a conversation among scholars which means that networking can
be just another way to continue that conversation, and enrich it, through verbal, in-person,
and online exchanges. I find it enhances both my scholarly work and my career to think of
myself as always involved in such conversations and to welcome them.
Mark Tonelli is an assistant professor of music at Millikin University.

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