Standards and Guidelines
Standards for Professional Placement
Adopted unanimously by CAA Board of Directors, October 22, 1977; amended December 12, 1992.
The College Art Association of America is a national learned society and professional association made up of individuals and institutions concerned with the advancement of scholarship and excellence in the teaching and practice of art history and the fine arts.
In addition to its other legitimate functions, CAA has, particularly in recent years, become a central and effective link between those seeking and those offering teaching, curatorial, and administrative positions within the disciplines it encompasses. In order to protect the interests both of applicants and of hiring institutions and to allow both to know their separate responsibilities during the placement process, the following standards for professional placement have been formulated.
I. CAA Positions Listings
A. Listing of ALL Positions. CAA Positions Listings are mailed five times annually to more than 6,000 individual members of the association. They are thus a central, national, and effective means of announcing job openings to the profession. The vast majority of positions listed with CAA are at the Instructor/Assistant Professor level; the usual means for identifying candidates for positions at higher ranks is by personal inquiry to individuals or institutions known to those responsible for the search. In order to insure maximum communication, this procedure should properly be supplemented by listing senior positions as well with CAA. Clear specification of the qualifications and requirements of the position should eliminate the feared “flood” of applicants and might well turn up a superior candidate.
B. Nondiscriminatory Listings. CAA will not accept position listings that include qualifications held to be discriminatory under applicable law.
C. Right to Privacy. CAA holds that hiring should be based on professional qualifications only and reaffirms the Resolution Concerning Personal Information, adopted November 1, 1975. (See Appendix.)
D. Accuracy of Listings. In recent years, institutions that have listed positions with CAA have reported a median of 150 applicants for each studio position and 35 for each art-history position. In many instances, applicants did not have the qualifications required by the institutions. In part, this problem results from failure on the part of the candidates to read thoroughly the printed job descriptions. It also results from listing positions without specifying precisely the required qualifications.
While institutions have a legitimate interest in retaining their options, they help neither themselves nor the candidates when they list entry-level positions as “open,” fail to indicate preferred areas of specialization where such preferences do exist, or exaggerate their expectations (“five years teaching experience,” “PhD required,” etc.) where neither the salary being offered nor the present practices of the institution warrant such requirements.
Hiring institutions are urged to make their listings as accurate and specific as possible and to state clearly the nature of the credentials required. Further, while “tentative” listings are encouraged in order to maximize publicity, institutions are required to state clearly that such positions are subject to budgetary or other contingencies.
E. Application Deadlines. Hiring institutions are reminded of both the legal and moral imperatives of keeping positions open until the stated deadline has passed, no matter how many applications are received. Deadlines must allow reasonable time for announcements to reach applicants and for them to prepare and submit their applications.
F. Charade Listings. Affirmative-action procedures required that all positions be given wide publicity through channels designed to reach the broadest spectrum of potential candidates. In some instances, listings are published where the successful candidate is known in advance, simply to conform with affirmative-action regulations. CAA firmly states its disapproval of this violation of the spirit of the law.
G. Screenings and Notification. Screenings should be conducted as expeditiously as possible. It is the obligation of all hiring institutions to inform all applicants promptly and courteously as soon as they have been eliminated from serious consideration. Those being seriously considered should be notified as soon as possible after the application deadline, of the status of their candidacy and of the expected schedule of departmental action.
H. Return of Materials. Candidates are reminded that a response to a Positions Listing is the initial step in the selection process and are urged not to send slides, offprints, or other materials of value unless specifically requested in the announcement of the opening. In all cases where such materials have been requested by the hiring institution—whether initially or in later stages of selection—they should be promptly returned as soon as an applicant is eliminated from consideration.
I. Curriculum Vitae Forms. These are intended to supplement the published Positions Listings. Institutions are urged to request them from the CAA office (by submitting a detailed description of requirements and qualifications for the position) whenever they must fill an opening in between publication of the Listings. The curriculum vitae forms are also available at the annual meeting, where they may be examined by interviewers as an aid in initial screening. A file of slides by artist applicants is also available at the annual meeting and at the CAA office throughout the year.
J. Report on Positions Listings. It is essential that CAA have complete statistical information on how its placement service is operating. To obtain this information, a statistical questionnaire is sent to institutions as soon as their openings are listed and each time curriculum vitae forms are requested. Institutions are required to complete and return that questionnaire once final action on the position has been taken, that is, when the appointment is made OR when the opening is canceled.
II. Interviewing
Whether conducted at the CAA annual meeting or elsewhere, interviews should proceed in such a manner as to respect the professional and personal integrity of the candidates. Interviews should take place promptly as scheduled; applicants should be allowed sufficient time to develop their candidacy in some depth; interviewers should be prepared to respond to legitimate questions about the institution, its nature, program, location, etc. (A simple printed brochure supplying this information can save valuable time and energy.)
Respect for the integrity of the interviewing process involves a reciprocal obligation on the part of candidates to come to interviews prepared with all necessary supporting materials and to follow established procedures and schedules in asserting or pursuing their claims upon the time and attention of the interviewers.
Institutions conducting interviews not at the CAA annual meeting should make efforts to arrange an interview site and time convenient to both parties and should be aware that the expenses involved for candidates to get to an interview can be quite high. Candidates who would have to travel a long distance should be given an honest evaluation of their chances for the position in order that the candidates can decide if the expense involved is justified.
Interviews conducted at the annual meeting entail the following specific obligations:
A. Interviewers who have announced in a prior Positions Listing that they will be present at the annual meeting are required to report to the CAA Interviewer Center so that their room numbers may be registered.
B. All interviewers are required to pick up messages left for them at the Placement Message Center.
III. Enforcement
The association will monitor those violations that can be clearly ascertained through its own administrative processes, namely:
A. Failure to adhere to application deadlines.
B. Failure by interviewers to honor their commitment to be present at the annual meeting.
C. Failure to complete and return the Positions Listing Report.
Willful violations will be reported to the profession in CAA News and will be communicated by letter to the chief administrative officer of the offending institution.
Other alleged serious violations will be referred for investigation and such action as deemed appropriate in accordance with established grievance procedure.
Ad Hoc Committee on Placement Standards: George Sadek, Cooper Union (chair); Paul B. Arnold, Oberlin College; August L. Freundlich, Syracuse University; Kenneth S. Friedman, Institute for Advanced Studies in Contemporary Art, San Diego; Daniel M. Kadish, Kean College of New Jersey; Donald R. MacKenzie, College of Wooster; Jerrold Maddox, Kansas State University; Floyd W. Martin, Champaign, Illinois; Edward D. Maryon, University of Utah; Charles E. Meyer, Western Michigan University; Minerva Navarrete, CAA; Richard Ross, University of California, Santa Barbara; Christopher R. Schultz, Federal Way, Washington; David M. Sokol, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle; Gary D. Sweeney, Hollywood, California; P. R. Szeitz, Moorhead State University; Guy Walton, New York University; Rose R. Weil, CAA; Beverly Zisla Welber, St. Anselm’s College; Henri Zerner, Harvard University.
Appendix
Resolution Concerning Private Information in Interviewing
Adopted by the CAA Board of Directors, November 1, 1975.
Be it resolved that,
1. Applicants for positions be advised not to include personal information such as marital or parental status on curricula vitae or application forms.
2. Potential employers and their representatives be advised not to request such information either verbally or in writing.
3. Any candidate from whom such information has been requested and who believes that this has had a prejudicial effect upon his or her employment prospects be advised to report such situations to the College Art Association, which will communicate to the institutions the information that such a complaint has been received and that the alleged practice is contrary to the policy of the association.
Amendment
On December 12, 1992, the CAA Board of Directors, on recommendation of the Committee on Professional Practices, has amended the CAA Standards for Professional Placement as follows:
The CAA Careers bulletin will henceforth denote by an asterisk any job listing submitted by an institution that has been censured or is under invesigation for censure by the AAUP. The Careers bulletin will denote by a diamond any postion listing submitted by an institution that NASAD, an accrediting organization, has published as being on probation.
It should be emphasized that CAA’s purpose in this identification is solely to inform its membership of the existence of potential problems. CAA has no means of investigation or procedures in place for holding hearings and therefore cannot make factual determinations with respect to the merits of a particular complaint or accusation.
