[PLing] Tenure Track Position in Finland

Sat Feb 3 08:49:08 CET 2024

Dear all, attractive position being advertised in Jyväskylä.
best, christiane

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Date:    Fri, 2 Feb 2024 11:16:30 +0200
 From:    Dave Sayers <dave.sayers at CANTAB.NET>
Subject: Be my colleague! Associate Prof (Tenure Track), English, 
University of Jyväskylä

My employer is recruiting!
https://ats.talentadore.com/apply/associate-professor-tenure-track-english/Zx35XY?lang=en

I can *genuinely* recommend working here! I mean we have our grumbles, 
but compared
to other places I've worked, phew! Finland is great too, and Jyväskylä 
is a lovely
place to live and work.

Interestingly the job ad doesn't seem to mention the usual requirement 
to acquire
some level of Finnish proficiency within a certain period. Pretty sure 
that would be
a thing, although to an extent it's more about the effort than the 
actual result! In
any case, certainly worth expressing a willingness to try.

Aside from that it's all the usual TT job application stuff. They 
unsurprisingly
stipulate that getting external funding is among the "main duties", and 
last time we
had a TT post it went to someone with a big ongoing multi-year funded 
project. I
don't say that to discourage! Just to clarify the requirements for this 
level.

Here's the (not very easy to find) page explaining the dept's 'five 
focus areas'
mentioned in the ad: https://www.jyu.fi/en/humsoc/kivi/research-at-kivi. 
Your 'fit'
with those will certainly be a factor, not least because JYU -- like 
other Finnish
universities -- is strongly encouraged to build coherent research 
profiles:
https://www.aka.fi/en/research-funding/programmes-and-other-funding-schemes/university-profiling/.
This has its good points and bad points, but anyway, a very important 
thing to consider.

For talking about research funding generally, it's important to know the 
priorities
of the Research Council of Finland (until last year known as the Academy 
of Finland);
also common European funding sources, especially Horizon.

To help with your 'teaching portfolio', here are the pages for our two 
main degree
programmes: 
https://studyguide.jyu.fi/2023/en/degreeprogram/mokka2020sisu/,
https://studyguide.jyu.fi/2023/en/education/kopkandimaisterikou/ (for 
those in the UK
& Ireland, Finland 'course' = UK/IE 'module'). We do a good amount of 
team-teaching,
and often take on each other's courses in different years. It's a 
healthy way to
blend expertise, and safeguard courses in case of research leave etc. 
With all that
in mind it's certainly worth clearly listing of all the courses on those 
pages which
you could teach, and/or adapt to teaching. Obviously, bonus points for 
bringing new
courses that complement the existing curriculum. :)

I'm afraid the online application form has some slightly esoteric things 
for anyone
outside Finland so I'll explain those:
- 'Referees' doesn't specifically ask for your chair, head of dept or 
line manager,
because in theory this could be anyone really, whoever could vouch for 
your
experience and expertise. Back when I applied for my job here, I was 
working in the
UK, and I gave the details of the head of department at a previous 
university I'd
worked at (in Finland), plus a current senior colleague, but not my line 
manager.
That was useful because frankly my line manager at the time didn't 
really know much
about my teaching or research beyond the standard internal paperwork 
about it.
- It might seem weird to be asked to upload a picture. It's just a 
customary Finnish
thing, and yes there is a live debate across Finland about how this 
custom has
consequences (gasp!) for issues like racialised hiring practices. It 
doesn't look
like it's mandatory though, and the university itself is accredited for 
equality in
hiring:
https://www.jyu.fi/en/research/developing-researcher-career-with-hrs4r-hr-excellence-in-research
- The 'Gender' question is disappointingly constrained, I'm sorry to 
say. I'll ask
about that.
- I don't know why it asks 'Which job (mentioned in the application 
notice) are you
applying for?'; it's only Associate Prof so just pick that.
- Under 'The date, place and grade of your latest trial lecture', if 
this doesn't
exist where you are (I'd never heard about it before coming to Finland), 
it seems as
though it doesn't have to be formatted as a date, so you could explain 
that it
doesn't exist where you are but you'd be happy to deliver one if needed.
- Under 'Pedagogical studies (number of study points or study weeks) / 
Pedagogiset
opinnot (OP)', if your pedagogical training is from outside Finland, I 
would suggest
reading a little on Finnish pedagogical studies,
https://studyguide.jyu.fi/2023/en/module/yppper/, then basically just 
comparing this
to your own training level, giving a number based on that comparison, 
and then
explaining that number in your 'Teaching portfolio' document.
- 'Evidence of societal interaction' always makes me laugh. I kinda want 
to list all
the conversations I've had with other humans. But basically it means 
'impact', how
you've pursued social outcomes or done non-academic things either 
directly connected
to your research or more broadly.
- A 'docentship' is a Finnish post-PhD qualification demonstrating a 
certain level of
experience. Similarly you could just say it doesn't exist where you are 
but you have
whatever other post-PhD recognition of experience (when I did this I 
think I
mentioned my Higher Education Academy accreditation in the UK).

Good luck to all those who apply!

All the best,
Dave

__________________
Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
Senior Lecturer & Docent, Dept Language & Communication Studies, U. 
Jyväskylä, Finland |www.jyu.fi [1]
Chair, EU COST Action CA19102 'Language in the Human-Machine Era' 
|www.lithme.eu [2]
Founder & Moderator, TeachLing |https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/teachling
dave.sayers at cantab.net  |https://jyu.academia.edu/DaveSayers

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