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For April 26th– our last meeting

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By noon on the 26th, please post a copy of:

  • A cover letter (if you’re about to be on the market) or a draft unit plan
  • An updated CV (this is ALWAYS useful, even if you’re not on the job market)

If you would like to attach or send pdfs or word docs, that’s fine.

Here are some resources and some info:

Job descriptions may call for the following documents:

  1. Cover letter (always! The most important document!)
  2. CV (always)
  3. Writing Sample (the second most important document in tenure-track jobs)
  4. Teaching materials (teaching portfolio/ particular teaching sample—this will be the second most important document in a teaching-focused job.)
  5. Diversity Statement
  6. Teaching statement

Cover Letter: The most important document (BY FAR) is the cover letter.  For Comp jobs, and any job in the English Dept, this is about 2 pages.  This document: https://grad.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/academiccoverletters.pdf  gives a pretty good outline of the format.  I would also add—show a little personality, man! I will share my letter (HallCityTechLetter) with you, not because I think it’s the greatest, but because it’s what I’ve got and, I did get the job. Please do not show this to anyone outside of this group.  I’m also asking for other cover letters to show when we meet.

Here is a screencast video I made of the ins and outs of cover letters IN GREAT AND EXCRUCIATING DETAIL. You don’t need to watch it, but if you’re on the market, I think it will be useful to you.  (note: I misspoke a bit, you should still have service on your CV. Just not ONLY on your CV. Mention it briefly in your cover letter as well).

CV: The site theprofessorisin.com is great, but is a lot to parse through.  She has a good post on CV’s here: https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/08/19/dr-karens-rules-of-the-academic-cv/. Sometimes there is a page limit on CVs, but generally speaking, these are long and extensive. Here is another good resource: https://grad.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/cvsamples.pdf

Writing Sample: The writing sample is important! The advice is this: Submit your best writing. It needs to be pertinent to the field (you will not get hired for a Technical Writing position if you submit a chapter on Chaucer) and you should not go over the page limit. It should also not be out of date.

Teaching Materials: they could ask for any number of things.  Make them look nice, make them clear, make sure the committee will not be confused what this lesson, unit, course, etc… will look like for students. But also (this is what other CUNY writing program administrators told me!) they are looking for something innovative and cool—some new thinking. A caveat: don’t turn in the model courses—these are the property of FYW. Myself and a few other faculty members wrote them. Most CUNY departments know this.

Diversity Statement: Committees want to know you’d be a good fit for their student body and faculty. I, personally, do not want to read a diversity statement with an us/ them vibe. Here are some good resources: http://facultydiversity.ucsd.edu/_files/c2d-guidelines.pdf and https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/10/how-write-effective-diversity-statement-essay

Final notes: Label your files clearly!  Don’t just label them “cover letter” because there are 7000 files labeled the same.  Label them HallCityTechCover or something clear.  Also, I always send pdfs because Word can change formatting.

Other resources:  

This guy (in communications) posted his materials and that was kind and useful: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/job-market-materials

Cheryl Ball on additional materials: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/11/18/essay-requests-additional-materials-academic-job-searches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For Tuesday, April 12– Zoom

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Hello everyone! For next Tuesday, we’ll be meeting on Zoom and discussing principles of Universal Design and accessibility.  To review, Universal Design :

(A) provides flexibility in the ways information is presented, in the ways students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged; and (B) reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports, and challenges, and maintains high achievement expectations for all students, including students with disabilities and students who have limited English proficiency (Chardin & Novak 3)

Key to the ideals of UD is that we are designing for everyone, not just those who have been given non-normative labels.

For Tues, I’d like to do things slightly differently. With the ideas of UD in mind, I would like everyone to:

  1. Take a look at accessiblesyllabus.com Then
  2. please choose to read or listen to ONE of the following:
    • UNIVERSAL_DESIGN_AS_AN_INSTRUMENT_OF_CHANGE-1. This book chapter gives a pretty solid overview of the theory and praxis behind UD. It’s a good starting place!
    • TEA FOR TEACHING: DISABILITY AND HIGHER ED This podcast involves some teachers chatting and “spilling the tea” about experiences with disability for both instructors and students, and how institutions can better serve us all. Transcript available if you, like me, can’t concentrate on podcasts.

3. Write a blog post about your thoughts/ feelings/ questions/ experiences/ whatever’s on your mind about Universal Design and Accessibility.

Just FYI, and kind of on the topic, a deaf friend of mine posted this article about how outsiders respond to deafness today and I found it very helpful/ interesting, if you wanna give it a read.

Minimalist CV

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I don’t have my laptop with me, so I am using my iPad. I am not sure what happened to the format.

PATRICIA A. HICKEY

 

PROFILE

I am a retired New York State Support Magistrate and and part time English Adjunct looking for a part time teaching position. Teaching a diverse population is my passion.

Adjunct Lecturer Queensborough Community College 2001 – 2020

Taught English Composition and Introduction to Literature to a diverse group of students.

Child Support Magistrate NYS Courts 2001- 2018

Decided child support cases and violation of support agreements in Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan Family Court. Decided contested Paternity cases.

Assistant Corporation Counsel. NYC Law Department 1992-2001

Prosecuted Juvenile Delinquency cases in Brooklyn and Queens Family Court.

Adjunct Lecturer Queensborough Community College 1987-1989

Taught English Composition and Introduction to Literature to a diverse group of students.

EDUCATION

Saint John’s University School of Law, JD 1992

Queens College, CUNY, MA English 1981

York College CUNY, BA English 1978

SKILLS

Proficient in writing. Basic Spanish

91-16 Shore Front Parkway, 3A

Rockaway Beach, New York 11693

917 757-7673 718 225-1051

patriciahickey@live.com

Josh’s Cover Letter

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Hello all,

I was waiting to post my CV from my BMCC computer, as the CV on my work computer is more recent/updated than the CV on my laptop. The college network is currently down, or partially down, so I am unable to access my workstation. Hopefully I can post it before we meet today. In the meantime, I’m posting my most recent cover letter, for an F/T position at City Tech I was going to apply for but didn’t find out about the openings until it was too late.

Cover letter 4-2022

Thoughts on Accessibility in Higher Education

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I have very strong feelings abut accessibility in all shapes and forms because I identify as “partially” disabled that I would not like to expand upon here in this post. I even feel frustrated with myself referring to any kind of disability as partial since for so many individuals, it is usually invisible. This is discussed in both Rachel Zemach’s article as well as Kat Mcfarlane’s appearance in the podcast. Zemach’s article about having perfect english while being deaf resonated with me so much. When you find yourself being viewed as “in-between,” the accessibility discussion becomes so much more difficult, as explained with numerous examples in the spilled tea podcast with Kat Mcfarlane.

The process to prove disability not only makes you feel like you’ve been outed, but is also costly and not very respectful of one’s time. Mcfarlane refers to this as the medical documentation loop in her example about laptop use permission in the classroom. If this process is cut out and applied across the board to all students (which I think our department has been making great progress in), we can create a more comfortable learning environment.This is why I strongly feel that accessibility should be naturally built into our courses. In the last two years, every accessibility option I could have utilized seems to have benefitted nearly every student and has caused absolutely no harm. There should be no red tape or documentation proceedings on a repeated individual basis for each and every single class. Let’s take the bureaucracy out of our accessibility please.