Hello all. I thought this might be the best place for this question. Have any of you used the Commons to organize a job search for a new faculty member? Not publicly – although if you have used it for applications I’d be interested to hear how that went – but as a private group to organize applications. It doesn’t seem quite the right fit to manage the influx of materials that usually comes with such searches, but I may be thinking too narrowly or missing a feature that could help. Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Kelly

Hello all. I thought this might be the best place for this question. Have any of you used the Commons to organize a job search for a new faculty member? Not publicly – although if you have used it for applications I’d be interested to hear how that went – but as a private group to organize applications. It doesn’t seem quite the right fit to manage the influx of materials that usually comes with such searches, but I may be thinking too narrowly or missing a feature that could help. Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Kelly

[Maria Helena Reis]

Unfortunately I can offer no help on this, as I have never used Commons for that purpose.

Good luck though,

Maria Helena

Maria Helena Reis
Assistant to the Executive Officer/Academic Program Coordinator
2011 Graduate Center of CUNY Employee of the Year
Ph.D. Program in Psychology
The Graduate Center of CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue, #6203.23
New York, NY  10016
Phone:(212)817-8753
Fax:(212)817-1533
E-mail:mreis@gc.cuny.edu
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Psychology/pages/index.htm

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Kelly,

I think that the Ph.D. Program in English at the Graduate Center has used the Commons for some committee work; you might contact Assistant Program Officer Nancy Silverman to ask questions about that.

Also, the English Department at the College of Staten Island, chaired by Ashley Dawson, uses a Commons group instead of a listserv — you can check in with Ashley to see if the CSI department has ever used the Commons for the purposes you describe.

If I can help in any way, please let me know.

Best,

Matt

[Polly Thistlethwaite]

Hi, Kelly- we’ve used a private commons group for job searches before. Worked well. Let me know if i can tell you more- Polly

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

As a follow up and upon reflection, I just wanted to note that for a job search, where security is paramount and legal issues could conceivably come into play, it’s best to use a campus-based file-sharing service.

[Anne Chamberlain (she/her/hers)]

If I can add…
To collect information, I have to agree with the above comment. Brooklyn College has developed an automated system of their own to track all the faculty application materials, and I think they might demonstrate and/or share (?)

I would be interested if you find other creative ways to handle this issue. I work on search issues at the CUNY Office of Recruitment and Diversity. FYI over the past two years we have been encouraging HR and Diversity personnel to participate in the Academic Commons and post faculty vacancies where appropriate to the “Help Wanted” section. We also have paid subscriptions to post faculty openings on academia.edu (another social network for faculty), the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC), and insidehighered.com.