Personal Statement Update

So I now have equal numbers of people saying "great job" and "I think you should rewrite it." I am not sure where one is supposed to go from there. I guess I have a week to figure it out.

So far the issue seems to be that it doesn't appear to be about me, or at least about me enough. I wonder a little bit if it sounds a little bit too "teachy." I'm tenure track and I wonder if maybe higher up someone will say "this sounds an awful lot more like something we would want to hear from a lecture track faculty member." The lecture track is the school's teaching track. Since I talk primarily about teaching there's the chance it might just be wrong for tenure track, maybe something talking more about research.

"Research" for someone in my world is about professional development, so I guess I'd wind up talking about becoming an ETCP Recognized Rigging Instructor, maybe about the USITT Commercial Outreach Project.

There's also some question about length. I'd been kicking around the net the other day and stumbled on something online suggesting the something called a "personal statement" ought to be one page. So, when I sat down to write I worked with a one page goal. The other two personal statements I wrote were both longer, two pages last time and three the time before that. Like this time I always kinda thought that the last two weren't what they were supposed to be.

So maybe there isn't anything wrong with what I've got but rather that there needs to be more. For the last pass I used the CV headings as topic headings: Teaching, Research & Creative Activity, and Professional Service. I wrote the thing as a sort of faculty semester review covering three years of work, answering the things I usually ask about at crits: "what went well, what went less well, what you conquered and what conquered you..." I guess maybe what I've got could be broken up and re-purposed under teaching and service, and then fill the middle with the ETCP and USITT items. That's a plan anyway.

I know they are just trying to leave people all the freedom they can, but sometimes the vague instructions really frustrate me.

Longer? Less "Teachy?" More Personal? Maybe.