I really appreciate your positive comments about me and my work. I actually applied to that MSU position (it was one of my 10 from this past year). It would have been great to work with my colleague and friend Nicole Ellison, but I didn’t even get an interview. They expected that someone at my level should have had at least some major external funding (I have to say that I agree).

Your diverse experience is an obvious strength, in my view. I’ve never understood higher ed faculty who have not worked professionally in student affairs or other professional divisions. How can you provide insight into a field if you’ve never experienced the minutia of day-to-day life there?

I don’t pretend to have any answers to your job search challenges, but I am curious as to how you present yourself in your cover letters. I hope that you highlight your administrative experience as one of the assets that makes you stand out as an exceptional researcher. Explaining your experience would also help to explain why your number of publications is even more productive than at first glance, because you have not been full-time faculty. Again, I don’t think these things would solve the issues you suspect are hindering your search, but they are just my initial reactions.

Good Luck

Linda (Sail Wozniak)

A couple of other thoughts:

1. Student affairs programs tend to be small which means that programs need faculty members who have a focus, but are also generalists. You continue to describe yourself as specialist.

2. It seems by your description that you don’t fit neatly into a particular type of program. Your doctorate is in counselor education and you are applying for teaching positions across 3 disciplines which are related, but have difference.

3. You stressed in your original post that you are “full professor,” but are primarily and administrator. Outside of small group of institutions were a subset of administrators are granted faculty rank and tenure this is very unusual.

4. You also describe yourself as a full professor, but state in your letters of application that you are willing to accept appointment as an assistant professor. Can you see where that might be regarded by some search committees as a red flag. Imagine a VPSA applying for a early mid-career level position.

5. As for search firms, they aren’t employed for mid-level student affairs positions either. And in the end the search firm only identifies candidates, it doesn’t make hiring decisions.

I should point out two things: 1. I publish in technology and education journals, certainly not a niche area and 2. The last three journals I’ve published in have all had impact factors greater than 2.14. In the last year and a half, I’ve published three papers in Computers & Education which has an impact factor of 2.617 and is one of the top journals in the “Education and Educational Research” category. 

For what it’s worth, I’ve had two deans at separate research 1′s (when I’ve had on-campus interviews) tell me that I have enough publications for tenure at their institutions; however, your point is right on the money– I don’t have as many publications as someone who’s been out for 10 years mostly because I’ve been doing administrative work and didn’t start to focus on publishing journal articles until later in my career (I’ve done it backwards writing my first two books first, then peer-reviewed papers). 

But my points are actually both moot as I have been willing to come in at a lower rank and without tenure and have made that clear to search committees, even including a statement to that effect in my cover letter. While it might sound crazy, I’m even willing to come in at the assistant level.