How do you get a college teaching job?

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Watchman
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How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

Back in the "old days" this was an easier question to answer. Step one, get doctorate. Step two, apply for job. Step three, get job. Sometimes, there was an extra step, step 2.5, get your well-connected professor to make a phone call.

Nowadays, with tuba doctors running around all over the place, things are a little different. If you were advising a person who seriously wanted to teach college tuba (and no....not one of those people on the audition circuit who plan to do this as a "backup career") what would you tell them they need to be doing from day 1? What needs to be on their checklist to do before they graduate? How can they stand out in a sea of other tuba doctors?
Last edited by Watchman on Mon May 29, 2017 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by windshieldbug »

It's like real estate (only location doesn't matter): Network, Network, Network!

And have EVERY graduate degree because a job is likely to be Tuba AND ___________! :shock: :D
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by UDELBR »

Don't hope to be chosen on your (even outstanding!) qualifications. There seems to be an inbred network of folks who get interviewed and hired.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Ken Crawford »

Be an awesome player and have ideas to share about music so that you are a solid addition to their faculty quintet. Be easy to get along with and super friendly, nobody wants to hire a jerk or a recluse. Build your resume with every playing opportunity you can. Also build your resume with amazing things you've done, like establishing a 501c3 professional wind ensemble or something along those lines. If your degree isn't going to get you the job, you're going to have to get it based on what you bring to the table. Be an amazing musician, a great person and a leader. Simple.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by dwaskew »

Diversify what you can offer. Have the ability to teach theory, music history, music apprec. (or other Gen Ed offerings) or some other(s) areas. Not necessarily being a jack-of-all trades (and master of none) but certainly having an extra area of ability is virtually requisite. For me, it was Music Education--I was a high school band director before being lucky enough to land a college position--along the way I've taught brass tech, brass lit, brass ped, and other mus ed classes, along with supervising student teachers. None of this guarantees a job, but it helps keep your resume in the stack.

Another often overlooked thing is the letter of application. Now that I've turned to the "dark side", and in administration, I've really learned that the letter of application is your first point of encounter with a future employer--it needs to be more than perfunctory, but without being presumptuous. Good grammar, using spell check, and giving a good introduction to who you are and why you feel you will be a good fit is important and far, far too often not fully worked through.

All that said, I don't disagree with any of the opinions given in other responses. It's tough, the market is saturated.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by dwaskew »

bloke wrote:I was always under the impression that "being assigned 8 A.M. Music Apprec. classes" was punishment for non-p.c., microaggressive, or other truthful/accurate remarks at faculty meetings.
we don't have that luxury anymore.....
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

tuben wrote:As someone completely removed from that aspect of musical life, I've been astonished by the dilution in value of a terminal level degree by the sheer number of people pursuing and holding said. I currently know four guys heading off to start DMA's next fall, and three others that obtained DMA's and have since sold all their instruments for lack of work and student loan debt. Yet Universities are usually looking for those individuals with terminal level degrees, even for adjunct faculty.

It all seems shitty somehow to me.
I think some people get a DMA as a way to buy time for themselves. Maybe they will have time to win that audition, or land that college interview, without having to simultaneously figure out how to support themselves. Despite the best efforts of our music schools to create "music entrepreneurs", for most people, if you don't have that job by the time you graduate, your career is over. Student loan people don't give a damn that you don't have a job yet. Once your degree is in your hands, it's time to pay it back.

For me, even if I hustled and hustled and hustled, the best I was going to do was 15-20K a year from tuba money. Without any benefits, of course. That's why I'm barely involved in this "business" anymore.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

dwaskew wrote:Another often overlooked thing is the letter of application. Now that I've turned to the "dark side", and in administration, I've really learned that the letter of application is your first point of encounter with a future employer--it needs to be more than perfunctory, but without being presumptuous. Good grammar, using spell check, and giving a good introduction to who you are and why you feel you will be a good fit is important and far, far too often not fully worked through.

All that said, I don't disagree with any of the opinions given in other responses. It's tough, the market is saturated.
Psst....I promise not to tell anyone how you answer this question. Have you ever invited someone to an interview because your phone rang, and someone on the other end said you absolutely, positively, MUST give a call to X candidate?
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by dwaskew »

Watchman wrote:Psst....I promise not to tell anyone how you answer this question. Have you ever invited someone to an interview because your phone rang, and someone on the other end said you absolutely, positively, MUST give a call to X candidate?
Nope. never have.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

dwaskew wrote:
Watchman wrote:Psst....I promise not to tell anyone how you answer this question. Have you ever invited someone to an interview because your phone rang, and someone on the other end said you absolutely, positively, MUST give a call to X candidate?
Nope. never have.
Good on you. I knew a trombone professor who never called a person to interview unless he either knew them himself, or had someone call and vouch for them.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Michael Bush »

Dennis is a wise guide to all this, obviously.

I'm just going to add one little thing. When I started in academia, I had a job teaching in a skills-based but non-musical discipline. My predecessor bottomed out because he was really good at the skill, but didn't have the remotest idea how to help others develop it. He didn't really know what he was doing that produced the results.

Whether I was right or wrong, I had some ideas about why some people thought I was good at it, and how I got that way, so it went well for a while, until I just got more interested in another aspect of academic life and became a development officer.

So I would propose two ideas that came from my experience that I think apply:

1. Make sure you really, really love helping people who aspire to play well take the next step from where they are, otherwise you might find what the fundraisers (or ________) are doing more interesting before long.

2. You have to be a great player to be a great colleague within the faculty (and this is hugely important for getting the job in the first place), but to be a great teacher you have to know how great players are made. Beyond a certain level, whether you can do it yourself becomes secondary. One of the most highly regarded tuba professors working today has been heard to say he's usually the third or fourth best player in his studio. What he doesn't say is he is indisputably the best teacher in the studio. (The best touring pro in golf always has a swing coach who couldn't post a lower score than his client more than a half-dozen times in a hundred rounds.) So you have to be a great player, and you have to be a great teacher, but these are quite different things.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by justben »

I rarely post here, but as someone that has been offered three different tenure track faculty positions in the last 18 months, I felt my opinion was qualified enough to share.

Most adjunct/Part-time/NTEN positions require what has already been said. Networking, good performance ability, diversification in a variety of areas, a dynamic cover letter, and a CV that hopefully shows a promising career trajectory. Something that I often see aspiring college teachers forget is the ability to teach effectively. This is a critical component for all jobs, but is particularly so for tenure track positions and especially those at the "larger" programs. In my opinion, teaching effectively requires a disposition that makes it easy to get along and connect with people, an impeccable standard and ear for a high-level of performance, the ability to relay this information through word and sound, and a range of pedagogy that allows you to adapt to the most effective way(s) to communicate ideas to a student. A doctorate is an obligatory prerequisite for almost all tenure track positions these days, but none of these teaching skills are "given" to you when you receive your degree. It is still up to the individual to seek them out during your studies or through experience.

My advice to aspiring college teachers is to learn how to perform well on both tuba and euphonium (at least), teach applied lessons to both tuba and euphonium students to refine your skills through that experience (even at the secondary school level), develop skills in another area to market yourself (composition/theory/conducting/music ed), and study with as many different teachers as possible to get varied view points on pedagogy. Be ready to apply to openings during the summer as the trickle down of shifting jobs creates "entry-level type" openings for those without experience. Be willing to move to a remote part of the country to get your career started.

I graduated with my DMA in 2010 and did not have a job waiting for me. Although the field is difficult to crack into and even harder to move up in, it's still possible. I'm proof of it.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

tuben wrote: three others that obtained DMA's and have since sold all their instruments for lack of work and student loan debt.
Just out of curiousity, what happened to those people? What sorts of jobs do they have now? Hopefully, Dr. So-and-so isn't cooking the fries at McDonald's as we speak.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

justben wrote:Something that I often see aspiring college teachers forget is the ability to teach effectively.
That is excellent advice, but what is an appropriate way to show this during the "resume round" of the process? List of student accomplishments? Testimonials? Articles you have written?
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by UDELBR »

tuben wrote: There are also (apocryphal) reports that such 'inbred networks' even play factors in orchestral audition.
At least in an audition you get the opportunity to impress and potentially overwhelm the panel with your ability. This can't be said of the academic selection process.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by tubalex »

OK Tubenet, you caught me on a vacation day.

Justin's post is excellent and comes from the rare point of view of his incredible accomplishments in interviews. Reread that with the same attention you'd go over Alan Baer's or Mike Roylance's discussions of audition prep, or the way you (I) pour over Gene Pokorny's excerpt CD.

To put it very simply, look hard at the qualifications listed in the past dozen full-time studio job listings, and make sure that you, without question, meet those qualifications (and make sure your cover letter points that out clearly early in the letter). It's a matter of getting as good as you possibly can, getting the right people to be your support system, getting as much experience as possible, and then having a good day when that lifetime of development and preparation is given an opportunity to shine.

I'm kind of a junkie for stories about how careers are made. That's one of the reasons I love the Brass Junkies podcast. Check it out.

Here's the semi-short version of how I got to UT, step-by-step, backwards. It's worth noting that along the way I wouldn't have gotten the jobs I'd gotten if not for the combination of having become professionally qualified for each position (more or less) and having the helping hand of my teachers. It's also worth noting that I have gotten exponentially more rejections, at every step along the way, than I got offers. To some extent, Frank Zappa had the best advice for any aspiring professional musician in any part of the field: "Never stop, and keep going."

13. December 2015: signed the contract as assistant professor (tenure-track) of tuba/euphonium at UT. I teach lessons, chamber groups, play in the faculty quintet and do a lot of service in and out of the university.

12. Fall 2015: interviewed for the tenure-track position at UT. Involved three rounds: a CV round, skype round (yes, I was skyping from my UT office to people in another UT office), in-person interview including solo performance including tuba and euphonium, quintet reading, masterclass teaching tuba and euphonium, advanced and younger students, interviews with search committee, director of the music school, assistant dean of college of arts and sciences. There were three other candidates in the final round; each of us had doctorates from elite schools of music, current full-time college teaching positions, and considerable professional performing experience in a variety of genres.

11. I was the interim, full-time but non-tenure-track tuba/euph teacher at UT during the 2015/2016 academic year, following the catastrophic loss to the world and our community of Kelly Thomas. I'm sure already being at UT helped me be a candidate for the tenure-track position, but it wasn't a cinch; UT has not uniformly considered lecturers for professor positions when the line is approved and the job jumps to that level. Some get the interview, some don't.

10. I was hired for the 15/16 academic year at UT in late July 2015. When we lost Kelly mid-summer, the brass faculty at UT made calls to various teachers who have a useful perspective on who is available, qualified and might be right for the year's work. Because this was a VERY late hire under VERY unusual circumstances (not just the profound tragedy, but also ITEC), the search process needed to be fast and targeted. I was asked to apply, got the OK from my wife and got a year's leave from NAU provisionally approved, and had a skype interview from Flagstaff, and an in-person interview in Knoxville. The interview was virtually identical in structure to my later interview for the tenure-track position. I was the last of three candidates to interview in-person, and I was offered the job. Among the qualifications that were important were extensive quintet experience, a record of collegiate studio teaching and studio building, quality pedagogy, and an ability to work and play well with others in an academic environment.

9. I had six arguably successful years teaching, studio-building and performing primarily as a soloist and chamber musician as a full-time, non-tenure-track lecturer at Northern Arizona University. This time included me hosting a regional TEC, visiting dozens of schools in several states to recruit, getting many young musicians successfully through their degrees, developing a youtube channel to get attention to myself and the studio primarily for recruitment purposes, and having a grand time living in one of the most beautiful parts of the USA. It was during this time I learned to play euphonium, as I was having an impossible time recruiting euph students in competition with Kelly Thomas down at UA. Halfway through this time I was promoted from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer, and was looking ahead to applying for Principal Lecturer when UT happened.

8. I got the job at NAU in the summer of 2009. I didn't apply for the job at first, as I already had a non-tenure track job and the way the position was advertised didn't make it seem like it was a step up. NAU interviewed someone else, didn't hire that person, and one of the teachers there called one of my teachers for recommendations. I was told by my teacher to apply right away. Two days later I had a phone interview. A week later I had the in-person interview in Flagstaff, which was structured like my interviews at UT. I was offered the position as I was dropped off at the Flagstaff airport. The basic qualifications that I had for this job were; extensive quintet experience, college teaching experience, quality pedagogy, good college degrees including an almost-completed doctorate.

7. Taught adjunct at Indiana State University and University of Indianapolis, four years and three years, respectively. Lessons and chamber groups, plus faculty quintet (no quintet at UI). Here I made just about every conceivable professional mistake possible in teaching, professionalism, and really figured out what did and did NOT work in my teaching. If I hadn't had this time to fall down and get back up, and to hone my knowledge into effective skills, I would have never been offered full-time teaching jobs. I'm dead certain of that.

6. While a DM student I won several bigger summer festivals and several regional orchestra auditions, all of which made me bold enough to pursue getting on some big orchestras' sub lists, which I eventually did accomplish. I was asked to join a couple of gigging brass quintets, by recommendation got on call lists for recording studio work (and stayed on the lists by being basically competent and behaving professionally).

5. When the positions at Indiana State University and University of Indianapolis opened I was recommended by both the departing faculty, based on their work with me in professional performances and pedagogical discussions, and by my teacher at Indiana University. The interviews at both schools both involved phone interviews and in-person interviews. I believe I was the only person who made it to the in-person interview in both searches. Both positions were adjunct (part time) and non-tenure track. Along with my quintet experience and education, I had also taught at many summer camps, had private studios, and had been a teaching assistant at IU; the experience was key.

4. Started my DM at Indiana 2002, completed coursework 2006, finished the exams and dissertation over the next three years while freelancing and teaching adjunct at two universities, and defended my dissertation in the fall of 2009. I became the studio teaching assistant in 2004. I played in the graduate brass quintet, which did a fair amount of service for the university at times. The studio was then at one of its many high points, and it forced me to go way beyond my conception of what I understood to be "good playing". I got into several other DMA programs and was rejected by three others. I chose Indiana because it was the most challenging environment that accepted me, because I had always wanted to study with the teacher there, and because I was offered enough financial aid to get by, even though I had to wait two years for the assistantship to open up.

3. I got into the DM program at Indiana in 2002.

2. I got into and graduated from the Master's program at the University of Michigan, 2000-2002. I played smaller summer festivals and was on faculty at smaller summer schools. I put together a terrific quintet at UM, and filled my lack of experience as an orchestral player as best I could. The studio was then at one of its many high points, and it forced me to go way beyond my conception of what I understood to be "good playing". I was accepted into three other MM programs and rejected by two other MM programs. I chose UM because it was the most elite program that admitted me, because the teacher challenged me the more than anyone else ever had, and because I was offered a full-tuition fellowship based on my audition.

1. I graduated from James Madison University in 2000. While there I was always in at least one brass quintet, had one of the best tuba teachers in the country, and constantly traveled to hear professional ensembles play, and to get lessons with as many professionals as possible. I took pride in practicing more than most of my classmates, learned over and over again that cockiness was pointless and that everyone who over-inflates themselves will be deflated absolutely and regularly, and enjoyed thinking about the future with my classmates who also had professional ambitions. I auditioned for summer programs constantly and got into some smaller ones, and I taught as many lessons as I could.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Tubaguyry »

Watchman wrote:Back in the "old days" this was an easier question to answer. Step one, get doctorate...
I disagree. Look at the topmost level of LEGENDS of the instrument who have been teaching at the university level since what seems like the beginning of time.

Now tell me how many of THOSE guys have their doctoral degrees.

I'll wait.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by tmmcas1 »

Great, informative, and honest answers from two of the most hard working guys in the business.

Bravo Justin and Alex!

One thing that is constantly overlooked is the long term commitment it takes to gain a full time position in music. Whether orchestra, military band or college teaching hardly any students are prepared for the decade or longer it may take to get to the job that everyone remembers you by. They may seem "young" but these guys slugged it out (while constantly improving their skills) for almost ten years each before landing their jobs. These guys have sacrificed a lot to get where they are. Phone calls didn't get these guys their jobs.

I took orchestra and college teaching interviews from 1999-2016. That's closing in on twenty years of work to get to where I am. Years ago I attended an audition for a big five orchestra and waited in the green room after my round. Two extremely prominent (now "famous" players) turned to the other and said "So it's just us left from the old days?".

My advice: be prepared to sacrifice and wait for a significantly long time while ALWAYS improving. If you can do that you might just be the person to outlast the glut and be the candidate who's left standing.

Tom

P.S It's worth it.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by Watchman »

Tubaguyry wrote:
Watchman wrote:Back in the "old days" this was an easier question to answer. Step one, get doctorate...
I disagree. Look at the topmost level of LEGENDS of the instrument who have been teaching at the university level since what seems like the beginning of time.

Now tell me how many of THOSE guys have their doctoral degrees.

I'll wait.
You are referring to the "old old days", and yes, some of them are still around. What I am referring to is that period of time shortly after the "tuba doctor" was invented.
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Re: How do you get a college teaching job?

Post by southtubist »

Almost every job (non-music, but music especially) has the "good ole boy" factor as part of the process of hiring. If no one has ever heard of you it is unlikely you'll get anywhere regardless of how skilled you are. Or, at least "know someone who knows someone who knows someone" (etc) related to what you're applying/auditioning for.

Those of you more sophisticated than me call it networking. . .
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