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Where to find academic position announcements
- Discipline's primary publication
- Networking with faculty in the discipline through conferences, seminar speakers, your advisor
- Professional organization website
- Discipline's conferences
- Chronicle of Higher Education job list
- Department websites
General notes about the cover letter
- Refer to all position requirements with your own relevant experiences in the order they are presented in the announcement (research first or teaching first?)
- Refer to the commonalities among your interests, the position requirements, and the current department environment
- Demonstrate how you will grow as a person at this institution and how the institution will benefit from having you
Salutation
- Address cover letter to the hiring committee chair or at least department chair
- Provide brief background information
- For what position are you applying?
- How or where did you find out about this position?
- What is your current position and where is it?
- If you have not defended yet, when is the expected defense date?
Research
- Background information about your current and future research interests
- How will this position/department/institution help you further those interests?
- Are there any potential collaborations? Mention specific faculty if you can.
- Are there campus resources available that will facilitate your work? (e.g. special library collections, special research equipment or facilities.)
Teaching
- What formal and informal teaching experience do you have?
- Are there any special teaching skills you have?
- Mention your breadth of teaching experience
- discussions, labs, studios, majors, non-majors, freshman, seniors, non-traditional students
- Mention your depth of teaching experience
- 100 through 400 level courses
- How does your teaching experience match the needs of the institution?
- student body makeup, size of classes, focus of university
- List classes or topics of classes you would like to teach with reference to the current department curriculum
- what current classes would you teach?
- what new classes would you like to teach?
Service or other personal interests
- Refer to your service participation and committee work
- graduate student committee, curriculum committee, graduate seminar organization, website development, journal review, conference planning
- What other outside interests do you have?
- How would this location/institution foster those interests?
Close
- A sentence or two about why you want to be at this institution and why this institution should want you; why are you excited about this position?
- What other supporting materials have you sent (CV, portfolio, teaching statement)? Send only the requested information
- How may they contact you?
- State that you look forward to hearing from them
List of references
List the names, mailing and e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of people (usually professors) who have agreed to serve as references for you. (You can include this list either in the cover letter or on a separate page.) Carefully note in the advertisement for the position whether they will contact your references or you need to ask the references to send letters directly.
Other resources
Center for Excellence in Teaching (2004) Sample Cover Letter.
Chronicle of Higher Education Careers website.
Feirsen, R. and Weitzman, S. (2004) How to get the teaching job you want , 2 nd edition. Sterling, Virgina: Stylus Press.
Formo, D.M. and Reed, C. (1999) Job Search in Academe: Strategic Rhetorics for Faculty Job Candidates . Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Press.
Heiberger, M.M. and Vick, J.M. (1996) The Academic Job Search Handbook , 2 nd edition. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute website. Resources for science postdocs and junior faculty on career development.
Preparing Future Faculty website. Resources for graduate students on teaching, research, and academic job searches.
Your professional organization's website usually will have information on job searching and professional documentation tailored to the discipline.
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