This memo recently came around via e-mail:

To: Department
From: General George Armstrong Custer

Greetings:

I am writing to inform the department that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny have resigned from the hiring committee elected to conduct a search for a Subject instructor. Thanks to Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the rest of the committee for their hard work so far. Even given the small pool of applicants (20 or so), the commitee was able to narrow the field to a group of strong candidates. The remaining members of the committee (Conan the Barbarian, Vlad the Impaler, and Casper the Friendly Ghost) are contacting these candidates to see if they are still available and to arrange on-campus interviews for them.

Even though the committee can continue to function with the three remaining elected members (plus the Chair of the department), I would like to ask if any faculty members would like to volunteer to fill the vacated spots. The work that remains is to arrange the on-campus visits and to decide wheter or not we would like to hire one of the candidates we interview. If ther are more than two volunteers, we will hold an election.

In any case, this is the point in the search process when it becomes crucial for the entire department to participate. Each candidate will be interviewed and observed teaching by the search committee; after the formal interview, any interested facyulty members, graduate students, and English majors will be invited to an informal talk, preferably over lunch or refreshments. The committee is currently discussing other ways to involve faculty and students in this process, and if you have any ideas, please let us know.

Thanks very much.