Department of English

• Tuesday, April 21, 2026 - 2:00pm to 4:00pm

Fisher-Bennett Hall Faculty Lounge, room 135

Professor Kate Thomas will give a seminar on how to get a job in liberal arts colleges. 

By definition, well-qualified job candidates come out of programs in research universities, but not all tenure track positions are in those familiar settings.  How can candidates best prepare themselves to win jobs at undergraduate liberal arts colleges?  It can be hard to know how to translate your experience for the smaller liberal arts setting, and even harder to know how liberal arts structures, cultures and values will shape the interview process. 

Kate Thomas is the K. Laurence Stapleton Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College and was, for seven years, Chair of the English department   She has chaired multiple national searches in English and participated in many more across the humanities.  This workshop will give graduate students a realist and pragmatic guide to application materials, interviews and campus visits. 

Dr Thomas will cover topics such as: balancing emphases on teaching and research; assessing your audience; framing your specializations; navigating the call to be a “good fit”; making it easy for a search committee to hire you; recent changes in liberal arts education; challenges specific to liberal arts campuses; mistakes that can lose you the job.