Background: we are a “primarily undergraduate” non-R1 institution. We do not offer math master’s degrees but the engineering college does.
Me: old full professor who has either served on or chaired several search committees.
I’ll break this post down into the two types of jobs we are likely to offer:
Tenure Track lecturer
Tenure Track Assistant Professor.
Lecturer
No research requirement; this job consists of teaching 12 hour loads of lower division mathematics classes, mostly “business calculus and below”; college algebra and precalculus will be your staples. There will be some service work too.
What we are looking for:
Evidence that you have taught lower division courses (college algebra, precalculus, maybe “baby stats”) successfully. Yes, it is great that you were the only postdoc asked to teach a course on differentiable manifolds or commutative ring theory but that is not relevant to this job.
So hopefully you have had taught these courses in the past (several times) and your teaching references talk about how well you did in said courses; e. g. students did well in said courses, went on to the next course prepared, course was as well received as such a course can be, etc. If you won a teaching award of some kind (or nominated for one), that is good to note. And, in this day and age..how did the online stuff go?
Teaching statement: ok, I am speaking for myself, but what I look for is: did you evaluate your own teaching? What did you try? What problems did you notice? Where could you have done better, or what could you try next time? Did you discuss your teaching with someone else? All of those things stand out to me. And yes, that means recognizing that what you tried didn’t work this time…and that you have a plan to revise it..or DID revise it. This applies to the online stuff too.
Diversity Statement Yes, that is a relatively new requirement for us. What I look for: how do you adjust to having some cultural variation in your classroom? Here are examples of what I am talking about:
We usually get students from the suburbs who are used to a “car culture.” So, I often use the car speedometer as something that gives you the derivative of the car’s position. But I ended up with a student from an urban culture and she explained to me that she and her friends took public transportation everywhere…I had to explain what a speedometer was. It was NOT walking around knowledge.
Or: there was a time when I uploaded *.doc files to our learning management system. It turns out that not all students have Microsoft word; taking a few seconds to make them *.pdf files made it a LOT easier for them.
Other things: not everyone gets every sports analogy, gambling analogy (cards, dice, etc.) so be patient when explaining the background for such examples.
Also: a discussion on how one adjusts for the “gaps” in preparation that students have is a plus; a student can place into a course but have missing topics here and there. And the rigor of the high school courses may well vary from student to student; some might expect to be given a “make up” exam if they do poorly on an exam; another might have been used to be given credit for totally incorrect work (I’ve seen both).
Also: if you’ve tutored or volunteered to help a diverse group of students, be sure to mention that (e. g. maternity homes, sports teams, urban league, or just the tutoring center, etc.)
Transcript: yes, we require it, but what we are looking for is breath for the lecturer’s job: the typical is to have three of the following covered: “algebra, analysis, topology, probability, statistics, applied math”
Cover letter: Something that shows that you know the type of job we are offering is very helpful; if you state that you “want to direct undergraduate research”, well, our lecturer job will be a huge letdown.
Assistant Professor
This job will involve 9-12 hours teaching; 10-11 is typical and we do have a modest research requirement. 2-3 papers in solid journals will be sufficient for tenure; you might not want to have your heart set on an Annals of Math publication. If you do get one, you won’t be with us for long anyway. There is also advising and service work.
What we are looking for: teaching: we want some evidence that you can teach the courses typically taught by our department. This means some experience in calculus/business calculus for our math track, and statistics for our statistics track. For this job, some evidence for upper division is a plus, but not required nor even expected; is is an extra “nice to have.”
But it is all but essential that your teaching references talks about your performance in teaching lower division classes (calculus or below); if all you have is “the functional analysis students loved him/her”, that is not helpful. Being observed while teaching a lower division course is all but essential.
Teaching and Diversity statement : same as for the lecturer job. An extra: did you have any involvement with the math club?
Research: the thing we are looking for is: will you “die on the vine” or not? Having a plan: “I intend to move from my dissertation in this direction” is a plus, as is having others to collaborate with (though collaboration isn’t necessary). Also, a statement from your advisor that you can work INDEPENDENTLY ..that is, you can find realistic problems to work on and do NOT need hand holding, is a major plus. You are likely to be somewhat isolated here. And of course, loving mathematics is essential with us. Not all candidates do..if you see your dissertation as a task you had to do to get the credential then our job isn’t for you.
Another plus: having side projects that an undergraduate can work on is a plus. We do have some undergraduate research but that won’t be the bulk of the job.
Transcript: same as the lecturer job.
College Math Teaching 