From The Faculty Lounge, here are 30 Questions FAR Candidates would really like to ask at the meat market. Pretty funny stuff:
1. Why did your academic dean ask you to serve on the hiring committee, and how can I avoid the same mistake you made?
2. Has the economic downturn affected where your committee will be dining on this trip to DC?
3. What is the starting salary, and how quickly do retirement benefits vest?
4. Why are YOU asking ME about scholarship, given [y]our respective output in the last three years?
5. If I were to ask your students how your institution could be improved, what would they tell me?
6. How important is placement?
7. Why isn’t your law school ranked in the first tier?
8. What role do your research assistants perform in grading final exams?
9. Why did your recent dean search fail?
10. Can you envision any (ANY!) situation arising in the next 50 years that would require me to teach a UCC course?
11. How important is quality teaching in the tenure decision?
12. Does your technology permit me to teach from home?
13. How successful are faculty-student dating relationships at your school?
14. Is parking free?
15. Does your tenure committee view “Professor of the Year” accolades as the kiss of death?
16. Will I have a window office?
17. If you require four articles for tenure and I have already published four articles, do I start with tenure?
18. Does blogging count as scholarship?
19. Is teaching in the night program completely optional?
20. How many reams of personalized letterhead stationery do you provide?
21. Will I have more than one new prep during my first year of teaching?
22. Will my office be equipped with cable TV hook-up?
23. What brand of coffee do you serve in your faculty lounge, and how often are pastries and fruit provided?
24. If you could jettison some of your faculty deadwood, which three colleagues would be gone by tomorrow?
25. How often do you host brown-bag lunch presentations, and do I have to stay for the presentation if I have no interest in the topic?
26. What makes your school the best fit for my talents?
27. When did you last review and offer written comments on a draft of a colleague?
28. Can I apply early for tenure if I use PowerPoint in my classes?
29. Will the other seventeen folks on your faculty who teach constitutional law be upset that you’re telling me I can teach the course every semester?
30. May I have those assurances IN WRITING?