Fall is the season when people like me apply for tenure-track college faculty jobs that start the following fall. Most job ads request a curriculum vitae, a statement of teaching philosophy and research interests, three letters of reference, and perhaps undergraduate and graduate transcripts. Certain schools make you work a bit harder, though.
One university, for example, asks applicants to read and reflect on its mission statement, which includes the following: “The Jesuit educational tradition promotes independent critical thinkers informed by the humanities, open to finding and serving God in all things, and challenged by the Jesuit priority of ‘the service of faith and the promotion of justice’ to address issues of poverty, injustice, discrimination, violence, and the environment in knowledgeable, committed, and effective ways.”
Because of my nonreligious worldview, I struggled with this assignment when applying for a position at this university last year. I wound up saying, in part, “I respect students’ religious beliefs and cultural traditions, and I encourage them to learn from and respect each other by assigning group projects in which cooperation breeds success.” Truthful and yet tasteful, right? Well, it wasn’t enough to land me an interview.
Now that application season has returned, I’m once again trying to fit myself into oddly shaped holes at various schools. The most interesting challenge thus far has been writing a statement of my potential contribution to the diversity of one of these colleges. I suppose I could have played up my multiethnic ancestry — if you go back far enough, I’m part English, part German, and part French — but instead I said this:
Although I wouldn’t add much socioeconomic, political, or ethnic diversity to the college community, I believe that I could help sustain its behavioral diversity (for lack of a better term). While the pursuit of scientific knowledge is central to my identity, I like to think that I defy the usual stereotypes of what scientists are like, thereby broadening my students’ and acquaintances’ perceptions of what it means to be a scientist. Moreover, my experiences as an “outlier” allow me to sympathize with and support others who are atypical in one way or another.
Three examples of stereotype-challenging behavior come to mind. The first concerns my research, which has entailed studying enzymes and metabolic pathways in plant tissues (as an undergraduate), human muscles (as a graduate student), and bacteria (as a postdoc). Am I a physiologist, a biochemist, a microbiologist, or all or none of the above? The labels don’t greatly interest me; I want people to recognize that my work is interdisciplinary, requiring techniques and insights from several fields. The lesson for students is that you don’t need to define yourself according to your major; you can focus on the intellectual questions that interest you most and draw upon whatever disciplines are most relevant to those questions.
A second example is my interest in science songs (i.e., songs whose lyrics are about some aspect of science). I have written, recorded, and performed science songs for academic and nonacademic audiences, sometimes for explicitly educational purposes and sometimes not. My colleagues think I’m crazy for doing this, but bridging the gap between science and the arts can help communicate scientific humor, drama, and jargon to people who might otherwise find the material bewildering and/or boring. Given that different people learn in different ways, it makes sense to present information using multiple modalities in order to connect with as many people as possible.
A final example is the fact that I train for and compete in ultramarathons (i.e., races longer than 26.2 miles). This too causes raised eyebrows among my colleagues, some of whom were previously unaware that humans can run 60 miles or more without stopping. But ultramarathoning is a challenge that I’m good at and enjoy, so why not do it? Similarly, many of my students also have serious nonscientific interests, and, while holding them to high academic standards, I try to be flexible in accommodating their other pursuits.
Maybe the search committee will be impressed, and maybe they won’t be. Either way, that’s what I have to offer.
My Track Record 
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