Wanted: Assistant Professor
of Second-Language Acquisition, U. of Florida
The department of linguistics at the University of Florida received 71 applications
for a tenure-track opening in 2011-12. Here’s what the CVs from the search showed
about the candidate pool.
WHO MADE IT TO FINAL ROUNDS
Others who were top contenders include
two assistant professors, a postdoctoral
fellow, and a Ph.D. student who had com-
pleted his coursework but not his disserta-
tion.
DAVID MASSEy FOr THE CHrONICLE
Assistant professor of linguistics
at U. of Florida, Stefanie Wulff
WHO GOT THE JOB
Stefanie Wulff
Previously assistant professor in the de-
partment of linguistics and technological
communication, U. of North Texas
Highest degree: Ph.D. in English linguistics,
U. of Bremen, Germany, 2007
Publishing highlights: Wrote one book and
was a co-editor of another, 10 journal ar-
ticles, six contributions to edited volumes,
7 publications in progress.
Conference presentations: 35
Research focus: She examines digital col-
lections of authentic language to identify
distributional patters that help second-lan-
guage learners learn English.
Teaching experience: 9 years
WHO WAS IN THE POOL
71 applicants
13 assistant professors
2 people who applied from jobs outside of
academe: a test developer for a global-lan-
guage-learning company, and a translator
and technical communicator for a major
credit-card-processing company
36 people who were expecting to earn
Ph.D.’s before the job started, in August
2012
10 people who had two master’s degrees
each
Earliest Ph.D. earned by a candidate: 1998
14 people who earned Ph.D.’s from univer-
sities outside of the United States
Classmates from 8 different colleges who
competed against each other for the job
work but not their dissertations
(A.B.D.). Two applicants earned
their degrees from the University
of California at Los Angeles in the
same year, 2009.
Caroline Payant remembers
thinking that it might be too dif-
ficult for her to finish her disserta-
tion and go on the market in 2011
at the same time. But she decided
to apply for jobs anyway, including
the position at Florida.
To stand out from the compe-
tition, Ms. Payant says, she posi-
tioned herself as a multilinguist,
highlighting her specialty in
French-, Spanish- and English-
language acquisition. When she
was applying for jobs, she had one
article under review, one that had
been submitted for review, one in
preparation, and a book review
that had been published a year
earlier.
Hers wasn’t nearly the publica-
tion record the committee was
looking for. But as a graduate stu-
dent, she focused on “attending
conferences and presenting on dif-
ferent topics,” she says.
“I think I did a really good job
in my graduate-school training
of making myself readily avail-
able to work with other faculty
and colleagues,” she says. Indeed,
Ms. Payant, who earned a Ph.D. in
applied linguistics from Georgia
State University last year, had pre-
sented refereed papers at 21 con-
ferences at the time she applied.
Ms. Payant didn’t get hired
by Florida. But after applying to
Continued From Preceding Page
nearly 25 jobs, she landed five
campus visits. She was hired as an
assistant professor of applied lin-
guistics at the University of Idaho.
In the Florida search, Ms. Pay-
ant and others like her faced off
against scholars in their field with
much more experience. Thirteen
applicants were assistant profes-
sors, including two of the finalists.
The other finalist was employed in
a prestigious postdoctoral fellow-
ship at an institution that belongs
to the Association of American
Universities, an elite group of re-
search universities. One person
who made one of the search’s final
rounds was A.B.D. but with rough-
ly four dozen publications.
“The person we hired had a
postdoc and a tenure-track po-
sition,” Ms. Boxer says. “That’s
how competitive it has become.”
That hire was Stefanie Wulff, who
says she was “generally happy”
at the University of North Texas,
her previous employer. But she
wanted to work with Ph.D. stu-
dents and have a wider selection
of people with whom to collabo-
rate on research. The job at Flori-
da, along with a few select others
to which she applied, offered her
that chance.
As an assistant professor, Ms.
Wulff had more publications on
her CV than when she applied
for jobs near the end of graduate
school, in 2007. And after com-
pleting two years at North Texas,
Ms. Wulff also had more exten-
sive teaching experience, a well-
defined research agenda study-
“Diversit y
calls for new
teaching tools.
Dr. Hermán S. García
Regents Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
Director of Elementary Education
NMSU College of Education
At New Mexico State University, Hermán García’s research focuses on preparing teachers with the tools necessary
to engage and inspire students from different backgrounds. García is a renowned specialist in multicultural and
transnational education. He knows that our nation’s changing demographics require innovative classroom teaching so
that students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds reach their full potential.
New Mexico State University
teachdiversity.nmsu.edu
