Personal Statements, Research Statements, and Diversity Statements

(An idiot’s guide)

Me. I’m the idiot here.

I emphasize this because I can’t know exactly what any individual search committee is looking for when they put out a call to hire new professors. Some of this is because different programs and different universities are looking for different things; some of this is because programs and universities aren’t always sure what they are looking for.

Also–and for some of you, maybe more importantly–I am not faculty. I’ve not been hired by a faculty search committee and I don’t plan on trying to be. If I’m so smart, why am I etc.

Nevertheless, if you’re here it is because you are trying to put together application materials for faculty positions and are probably feeling overwhelmed. Apart from being the specific person that a search committee had in mind when they opened the call, there is no surefire way to get past a first cut. Take that as a consolation.  You will already be doing a lot to costume your academic life for different calls; no reason to forget who you are under the makeup.

Here’s how this resource is organized.  First, I’ll outline a basic framework for writing about yourself that I think can suit any application materials you’ll be asked for.  This framework isn’t a template for a whole document; rather, it is a way to organize individual examples that you will be describing in your documents. To be honest, I don’t know what a teaching/research/diversity statement should “look like.” But I can tell you what they should do.

Next, I’ve put together a list of questions that I’d ask you if we were to meet in person to talk about your professional documents. Each one comes with an explanation of why I’m asking that and a suggestion for how your answer might change the way you prepare your application materials.  If any of the advice doesn’t seem like it fits you, it probably doesn’t! Take what seems helpful and leave the rest behind.

First, my assumptions:

    • There’s probably a better way to do things, but you can’t always know what that is.  Making conscious decisions about your writing–being able to explain why you’ve written what you’ve written–is better than many (most) writers will do.
    • Much of your material will be essentially the same for most of the jobs you are applying for.  However, you will probably have to do some work to tailor your materials to each (sometimes more sometimes less).
    • Getting your materials in a ready-enough state to make it past a first cut/pass is more important than making your portfolio absolutely perfect for each and every call (especially if you are applying to dozens/hundreds of calls that you are half-interested in). To elaborate on this:
        • The opportunity to make it further in the process a few times–to get some experience with interviews and maybe even campus visits or job talks–can be helpful in the long run (and is probably a more likely short-term goal than getting hired for the one position that you think perfectly suits you). 
        • It isn’t wrong to tier your job prospects. Put your energy to things you really want but leave the door open to be pleasantly surprised. 
    • If you’re in it for the long haul, shoot for a process that is sustainable. Writing a few dozen perfect, bespoke cover letters and then burning out is probably less effective than writing a really good cover letter that you can more or less adapt to different jobs.
    • It is ok to take a break and miss a call. Maybe it is because I grew up in a gambling family–we had a slot machine and a craps table in the living room–but I think that this is as much a numbers game as anything else. It is probably more likely that you’ll burn yourself out worrying you might miss a big windfall than it is to actually hit the jackpot. Take care of yourself.

If you don’t share these assumptions–or, if these assumptions don’t reflect what your advisors have told you about the job market or what you want out of this–don’t worry! There’s a reason you are applying to academic jobs and I am working my way out of platinum rank in Street Fighter 6. But, at the same time, take those discrepancies as a chance to think more about the process you are developing to apply for academic jobs. No matter what it looks like, it should work for you, nobody else.

Talking about yourself: A framework

You can come up with a distinct purpose for any kind of document in your application portfolio.  Let’s use a real example.  Here’s what is required to apply to a tenure-track position in the Communication Media Studies department at Loyola Marymount (9/19/2023):

Completed applications will be reviewed beginning on September 15, 2023 and will continue until the position is filled. A complete application portfolio requires: 1) a letter of application, 2) a current curriculum vitae, 3) unofficial transcripts (submitted as a single pdf), 4) one example of representative scholarship (such as a published article, key dissertation chapter, competitively selected conference paper, or manuscript submission), and 5) evidence of teaching excellence (a two-page summary of teaching evaluative criteria, evaluator type such as students, advisors, employers, etc., and results). Candidates should be prepared to submit the following materials upon request should they advance further in the search process: official transcripts, complete copies of original teaching evaluations (including qualitative comments) or other evaluations reflecting most recent years of university-level or equivalent teaching, a statement of teaching philosophy, sample syllabi related to the position, three letters of recommendation, and if the candidate does not have a doctorate, evidence of timeline and anticipated completion.

Lets line it up, required and available upon request:

    • Cover letter
    • CV
    • Transcripts
    • Writing sample
    • Teaching evaluation
    • Teaching statement
    • Sample syllabi
    • Letters of recommendation

(And also, while it isn’t listed here, I expect that the application portal has a section where you should upload/write a short diversity statement.  Sometimes the job listings are just about what the committee asks for and then the university has standard docs it wants, too.)

Presumably, each of these documents has a purpose (God, I hope so). Let’s jot that down:

    • Cover letter
        • Your introduction to the committee
        • Demonstrates professional acumen
        • Clarifies your want in applying (i.e. pretend that “I need a job” isn’t sufficient)
        • Summarizes your fit for the position
    • CV
        • Easy summary of your professional/academic credentials
    • Transcripts
        • Tbh I have no idea why they ask for this but presumably it is to make sure you are not fabricating an entire career. Maybe it makes sense for new career scholars
    • Writing sample
        • Demonstrates research/writing expertise
        • Clarifies how you imagine yourself and your contributions within the field.
        • Helps to contextualize you within a broader canon of scholarship
    • Teaching evaluation
        • Evidence that other people can stand you
    • Teaching statement
        • Clarifies your pedagogical approach and goals
        • Describes past teaching experiences
        • Further opportunities to demonstrate your fit within the university
    • Sample syllabi
        • Similar to the teaching statement but in a less abstract way
    • Letters of recommendation
        • More evidence that other people can stand you.  This time, presumably important people

Of these materials, only a few are written by you specifically for the purpose of applying to a job:

    • Cover letter
    • CV
    • Teaching Statement

That means that in this application process you only have control of the following:

    • How you introduce yourself to the committee and display your professional acumen
    • How you describe the reason you are applying
    • How you clarify your fit for the department/university
    • What professional/academic experiences you highlight
    • What your pedagogical approach is; what teaching experiences you highlight

So, let’s take one of those tasks and figure out how to do it.

From a distance, it seems like there are three ways to talk about teaching in a teaching statement: 1) you can talk about your teaching philosophy in the abstract; 2) you can talk about things that you have done; 3) you can talk about things you want to do.  Strong teaching statements don’t just do all three–they connect them to develop a narrative:General statements about your ideas now can be supported by your past experiences. Likewise, statements about what you plan to do in the future should align with your ideas now. If your past experiences and future goals are really different, you can frame the narrative around growth or change or adaptation. If your past experiences line up with your future goals, you can frame the narrative around commitment.

Here’s something from an old statement of mine. It isn’t a great example, but it’s an example. I’ve highlighted statements that demonstrate my present philosophy in green, statements that provide past evidence for that philosophy in orange, and statements that demonstrate the future significance of that philosophy in purple. The verb tense gets a little confusing (i.e. statements about what I have done and will continue to do sort of bridge the gap between orange and purple), but it more or less works:

These experiences have emphasized the important role that I can play to not only support students as they consider their own goals, but also to facilitate their engagement with the larger educational structures and communities that they belong to. This, in turn, has shaped how I’ve sought to adapt my work to better serve marginalized students. For example, in my courses at the University of La Verne, I worked to diversify my syllabi to include more scholars of color, more female scholars, and scholars from “non-elite” institutions. Doing so, I hope, inspired more analytical engagement between me and my students about the extent to which the production of academic knowledge is, itself, contingent upon the same kinds of structural
inequities that our courses try to interrogate. Likewise, I worked to incorporate more “nontraditional” assignments in my course design, looking for ways that standard research papers could be supplemented (or even replaced by) activities that seek to engage students on a number of skills or genres that may prove more enriching for those with different learning styles abilities, or career goals.

If you’ve talked to me before, you might see how this lines up with the AXES framework of academic argumentation (and the AXES editing technique I’ve outlined here). Following that technique, I’ve outlined the Assertion in blue, the supporting eXample in red, the Elaboration/Explanation in pink, and the Significance in olive:

These experiences have emphasized the important role that I can play to not only support students as they consider their own goals, but also to facilitate their engagement with the larger educational structures and communities that they belong to. This, in turn, has shaped how I’ve sought to adapt my work to better serve marginalized students. For example, in my courses at the University of La Verne, I worked to diversify my syllabi to include more scholars of color, more female scholars, and scholars from “non-elite” institutions. Doing so, I hope, inspired more analytical engagement between me and my students about the extent to which the production of academic knowledge is, itself, contingent upon the same kinds of structural inequities that our courses try to interrogate. Likewise, I worked to incorporate more “nontraditional” assignments in my course design, looking for ways that standard research papers could be supplemented (or even replaced by) activities that seek to engage students on a number of skills or genres that may prove more enriching for those with different learning styles abilities, or career goals

Again, the colors/order aren’t one-to-one. It would probably be a more accessible and successful paragraph if they were.  Either way, if you find yourself stuck–in any of the documents you have to write–try the three-part structure I’ve outlined above. What do you think? Why do you think this? What are you going to do? Or, if you’re more comfortable with the AXES model: What are you saying about yourself? How did you get that way? How do those things connect? So what?

Guiding Questions

Now, onto the questions. The only thing a writing coach is good for is telling you what it is like for someone who has not written your words to read your words. And I mostly do that by asking big dumb questions. Here’s what we would talk about during a session on your application materials along with explanations.

What are the materials that the search committee is asking of you? What do you look like from just those materials?

This seems kinda dumb and obvious, but stick with me. Some postings might ask for a CV, a teaching statement, and a diversity statement; others just a CV and a research statement; some might all want of them; and others might name the documents they require something silly like “Evidence of Academic Rigor and Achievement” or some nonsense.  Beyond that, you might be asked for letters of recommendation upfront or those might come later on (thankfully, the trend seems to be for those to come after a first or second cut).

Anyway, all that to say that it is important to think about what any given search committee will know about you from just the materials they ask for.  There’s a balance here–you don’t want to double up all your information, but you also don’t want to put something really important about your scholarship in just one document if that document is only going to be sent to a small sample of the universities you are applying to.

Here’s an example: Two jobs, one at UNR and one at UNLV.  Equivalent departments, equivalent tenure-track positions, teaching and research at both. UNR wants a CV, a teaching statement, and a research statement; UNLV wants a CV, a research statement, and a diversity statement. In their application portals, though, the way that they define these documents overlaps.  UNR says that your teaching statement should “demonstrate how you’ve adapted your pedagogy to suit the needs of marginalized communities.” UNLV says that your diversity statement should “demonstrate your commitment to confronting both institutional and interpersonal prejudice in the classroom.”

So, the quick answer would be that both your teaching statement and your diversity statement should demonstrate your commitment to diversity and social justice. And that’s probably true! But, it’s a problem of degree.  If your entire teaching statement is written to essentially be both a teaching statement and a diversity statement, you are going to have trouble adapting that for calls where they want both–you’ll be leaving a lot on the table in your teaching statement and your diversity statement will seem repetitive.

What to do: There isn’t an easy solution to this, but there are things that you can do to make the process of matching your application materials to the jobs you are applying to a little easier.  First, keep a way-too-long version of each of your materials (CV, teaching statement, diversity statement, research statement, whatever else) on your desktop. This isn’t the version you send out to schools, this is the version that you draw from for the shorter, more targeted version that you send out to schools. Then, as you tailor your materials to each new application, add to your reservoir. This can be helpful both for subsequent applications that ask the same kinds of questions and also as a way for you to reframe and reimagine your qualifications and professional narrative. For instance, the description of that grant proposal you’ve always used to demonstrate your research prowess might also be a good way to tie your research to some broader community outreach that another university is looking for.

Why are you highlighting the specific thing you are highlighting in your teaching/research/diversity/etc. statement?

It is easy to go into the job hunt process thinking that you need to show every potential employer all your accomplishments from every vantage. But, think of the process from the perspective of the search committee:

It is different at every university, but most job searches (at least for full-time tenure-track positions) are the result of lots of administrative horse-trading. The department needs to fill vacancies in both Digital Media Studies and Global Marketing, but the dean says they can only do one of those things. Or they can do both as long as they make it work financially. On top of that, when they open the call, they’ll receive several hundred applications. Maybe their process involves a quick first cut where a central committee scans through CVs and cover letters.  Maybe there’s a lot of money on the line and every application is considered by a couple teams and then the whole committee gets together to submit their top candidates. I dunno–those sound plausible, right? Again, I’m the idiot here. But I’d put folding money on the process being a bit different everywhere you apply.

To that end, as with any job application–or journal submission, or conference proposal–you should discern from the job call what particular things the department is looking for and then make sure that your materials highlight those aspects of you as a candidate.  That is to say, that if a position is very teaching intensive, you’ll have diminishing returns on every new tidbit you include about your research background.  Sure (in this hypothetical position) they would probably want to know that you can research; but they’re hiring you to teach.

What to do: There are lots of ways to edit your application materials. Rather than just focusing on grammar or typos or coherence, though, think about each section of each document rhetorically: “What does this example say about me? What does this example do for me?” For each paragraph in your application materials, write yourself a one-sentence note on the side, something to the effect of “This example demonstrates X about me.” If, after reviewing your entire teaching statement, you notice that each paragraph demonstrates that you’ve incorporated multiple modalities of instruction into your classroom, you have to wonder–do all of these examples need to support this one idea or can I frame some of them differently and emphasize a different aspect of my teaching? Maybe that bit about assignment design could be reworked to emphasize the way that you are preparing students with a diverse range of college goals for different careers after they graduate. Maybe you could emphasize that you’ve incorporated these different kinds of teaching materials to uplift voices or kinds of discourse that have been marginalized by more “traditional” teaching materials. None of your experiences demonstrates any one thing; you might fit the needs of the department you are applying to even if you don’t notice it at first.

If you are asked to expand on any of what you talk about (in an interview, job talk, etc.) what will you say?

This might feel like jumping the gun, but as with keeping a larger document full of the examples you pull from for your submittable application pieces, it can be an exercise in sharpening your explanation of yourself. Many students who come to me struggling with application materials often say something to the effect of “I’m not good at writing about myself.” Fair enough. But there’s writing about yourself and then there’s writing about yourself, which is to say that you can tell stories about what you’ve done and what’s happened to you, but you can also narrate those stories in order to give your audience a better sense of who they are talking to. But why does this matter?

I’ve emphasized it to death, but you won’t be able to be everything you want to be in your application materials. What you’re offering is a condensed version designed for easy accessibility with the understanding that your reader probably isn’t going to spend a lot of time writing what you’ve spent a lot of time writing.

What to do: For the individual experiences/descriptive sections that you write about yourself, try annotating each part with a note about how deep or involved or complex it is. For instance, if you are describing your dissertation research, here are the things you could presumably talk about (short of copy-pasting the whole thing):

  • Social/real-world context
  • Academic context (research gap)
  • Broad research question
  • Operationalized research question
  • Methodology
    • Selection of data-type
    • Data collection
    • Data analysis
  • Descriptive results
  • Analytical interpretations
    • Major arguments
    • Significance for different audiences
    • Connections to prior scholarship
  • Limitations
  • Future research

But not all of that is important right now–not in the context of research statement (or whatever document). Instead, we can think about your dissertation in three layers: What pieces are needed for the general story, the more involved story, and the story for experts:

General story
  • Social/real-world context
  • Broad research question
  • Methodology (simplified)
  • Analytical interpretations
    • Major arguments
More involved story
  • Social/real-world context
  • Academic context (research gap)
  • Broad research question
  • Methodology
    • Selection of data-type
  • Descriptive results
  • Analytical interpretations
    • Major arguments
    • Significance for different audiences
Expert story
  • Social/real-world context
  • Academic context (research gap)
  • Broad research question
  • Operationalized research question
  • Methodology
    • Selection of data-type
    • Data collection
    • Data analysis
  • Descriptive results
  • Analytical interpretations
    • Major arguments
    • Significance for different audiences
    • Connections to prior scholarship
  • Limitations
  • Future research

Sure, there isn’t one way to simplify or complicate the story (maybe for some kinds of research, the academic research gap is more salient than the social context). But, the point remains that you get to decide how complex and complete your retelling is. And sometimes it helps to lead with a simplified version and keep the more complex version in your back pocket for when you need it. This may be more helpful for those who have made it past the paper application stage–knowing how to frame your research differently for a panel of students than a panel of professors is important. However, considering it as you write your application materials can give you a stronger sense of the ways that you do and do not fit the headline version of what the department is looking for (and how you can adapt).

What are the ways that you can demonstrate your “fit” within an institution/department?

“Fit” is kind of a shell game.  Certainly there are ways that you as a candidate might fit better in one department or another, but I’d bet that the range of potential successful candidates for any given job is probably pretty diverse. In short, if they want you, they want you.

I don’t think it is worth chasing fit. To be clear–I think it is a good idea to apply for jobs that you think might be longshots.  Whether because you don’t feel qualified enough or because you think you aren’t the perfect fit, it’s best to let someone else tell you that. However, there’s a difference between giving it a shot and trying to be something you’re not. If you know that the department is looking for a quant and you’ve never taken stats, save yourself the headache.

But, if fit is a shell game, there are a lot of shells. And as an exercise it might be helpful to wonder about all the different ways you can or cannot fit into a department. Excluding things that are particular to schools with a devotional mission, there are a lot of ways to align yourself with the wants of a university or department:

  • Research focus
  • Methodological focus
  • Teaching focus
  • Demographics/goals/interests of the student body
  • Community ties/focus/outreach/commitment
  • Relevant industry experience
  • Relation to the mission of the university
  • Topical expertise/interest
  • Geographic/national considerations
  • Dominant theoretical presuppositions
  • Opportunities/expectations of public service

And probably a lot more. But, if you find yourself stuck trying to personalize your materials to any one place, try to think beyond the keywords in the call to see if there are other ways you might fit the bill.