Friday, March 04, 2005

Eating Out With Job Candidates

The past month I have had to eat out a whole lot and the thrill has most definitely faded away. Why? Well this involves a bit of explaining about the inner workings of higher education. At this time of year, colleges and universities are in the final stages of hiring new tenure-track faculty members. What this means is that we have reduced a list of hundreds of worthy candidates down to a select few. We’ve invited them to come to IUSB where we can get to know them better and they can get to see a little of South Bend. Ok, now multiply breakfast, lunch, and dinner by five or six candidates over several days and you’ll have an idea of how many meals I’m talking about.

Now eating out should be a pretty simple event. You and your family or friends agree on a place and go. You eat, talk, pay, and leave. All of these points, though, are highly contested terrain when taking a job candidate out. First off, there is the question of where to eat. I wanted to steer clear of the chain restaurants on Grape and Main Road and go to places that, instead, shout out that they are unique to South Bend. Sounds good, right? Help out the local establishments, right? Except by a freak of nature a whole lot of our candidates came on Sundays and this required a meal that day and on Monday. And many of the nicer places in town (are you listening Ciao’s? Francesca’s?) are closed those days. Next, there is the question of what to drink. A little vino is my idea of how one should end the day, but many of our candidates, already a bit overwhelmed by the social and professional requirements of their visit, often refused any of the hard stuff. So how do you think that makes me feel when I say, I still think a glass of wine would be nice? I’ll tell you: it made me feel like Jack Lemmon in that gut-wrenching scene from Days of Wine and Roses where he systematically destroys a greenhouse in search of a bottle of demon rum.

Next, there is the all-important question of where to sit. Should we place the candidate in the middle seat so that all eyes can be on them? Of course we do! And so this recently minted Ph.D. had turned presto, into the panda attraction at the zoo. Then there is the most difficult question of all: what should we talk about? This one is really tough. You want to have a nice time and get to know the person a bit better--I mean this person could be in the office next door for the next twenty years. And I’m not expecting them to have the wit of a John Stewart or the wisdom of a John Stuart Mill. After all we’re not going to marry the person, so all we should really care about is if they will do a good job in the classroom and produce good scholarship. But the human in me comes out when every social sally is received with a meek smile or unbending silence and I think, “oh my god, what a loser.” At times I over-compensated for these bouts of silence and found myself describing with ever more intensity the whole time zone thing to people who have never been to Indiana. And of course, the greater my excitement with this subject, the more likely their eyes would begin to glaze over. Also inhibiting the conversation is that there are certain things that you can not bring up, under strict university and professional guidelines, unless the candidate does. Thus questions pertaining to their social life, marriage, children, religion, are all out of the question. Just try to go out with someone and talk about things that are not too social, not too serious, and yet not bring up such things as the focal point of many of their lives. Ummm, waiter, another bottle of wine please.

Ok, next is the question of what to order. Some of our candidates were vegetarian and thus Tippecanoe might not be the best place for them. And yet, I’m quite partial toward their prime rib. Must I suffer because of their healthiness? Yet it does seem a little unfair to watch a pure-minded vegan searching a mid-western menu fo something to eat while having to listen to someone prattle on and on about time zones.

Finally, I feel confident in telling you that Western Civilization is going to crash under a mountain of paper required to expense account our lives and these little meals just may have helped nudge the Enlightenment that much closer to the edge. I now look forward to reheated leftovers with a newfound passion. 

Broadcast by Jonathan Nashel on March 04, 2005
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