“Time-sucking academic job applications don’t know enormity of what they ask”
“Some hiring departments, however, are going in the direction of less standardization, not more. I saw a job ad today that asked for two sample syllabi — not merely syllabi for courses previously taught — but rather syllabi for specific courses in the hiring department, and I was outraged. Asking applicants to write full syllabi for courses not only requires an incredible amount of time for applicants who don’t make the cut.
It also perpetuates a cycle of privilege in which only candidates with enough time to carefully put together syllabi (again, above and beyond the norms of regular job applications) are considered for the position. (And this is not even considering cases where there have been accusations on the part of job applicants that their sample syllabi have been used, without permission or pay, to develop actual course content.)”
