The Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP) at John Jay is hiring a new professor and a board of current professors have found a way to involve students in the hiring process. The professors’ idea was to have candidates host mock classes for students to attend, giving the ISP student community a chance to share their thoughts on their potential future professor. 

The department posted an advertisement calling for candidates to apply for the position in October 2024. The hiring board received 180 applications that were then narrowed down to 15 Zoom interviews. 

The 15 virtual interviewees became a final applicant pool of five candidates. The five selected professionals taught their mock class on campus in 6.65.33 NB during community hour on February 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th, and 13th, 2025. 

Richard Haw, ISP professor and minor coordinator, provided insight as to why ISP professors collectively decided to involve their students.

“By employing and bringing student voices into the classroom, they feel somewhat invested. That’s important to us,” said Haw.

Each candidate was asked to construct a 30-minute class discussing a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin titled The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The story is about an utopia where every citizen experiences profound happiness and paradise at the cost of a child, Omelas, who is locked under the city and forced to experience all life’s pain and torment for them. 

Susannah Crowder, ISP Department Chair and professor, commented on the reading’s influence on the mini classes. 

“Each candidate who came and taught the class had a different take on it,” she said. “The conversation about the story got richer and richer with each session,” said Crowder. 

The interviewees used slideshows, discussion groups, interactive activities, reflection papers, and observation skills to teach their classes. Each professor delved deep into the uncomfortable questions that manifest from reading a story like Omelas’. 

Candidates pushed students to explore topics like humanity, suffering, and society’s complicity with injustice, as is the theme with all ISP classes. 

Judith Boza, ISP ambassador and senior, commented on what she thinks about ISP’s new hiring method. 

“It gets the perspective of the people who matter and those who will be impacted by the new professor’s work,” she said. “I’m grateful to ISP for giving us this opportunity because I feel considered,” said Boza. 

Anisa Rahman, a junior and political science major, offered a similar sentiment. 

“It felt very intimate, like the students’ opinions really mattered to ISP,” she said. “Usually I feel like I am seeking feedback from my professors, so to be asked for feedback on how a professor ran a lesson was different,” said Rahman.

At the end of each interview session, the professors and students involved were invited to give feedback to the candidate. When the candidate left, students were prompted to give more extensive feedback to the hiring board. 

Now that all five of the interview and mock class sessions have been completed, it is up to the professor hiring group to take their notes, student feedback, and select the best person for ISP. 

Looking back on the class sessions, ISP professors Haw and Crowder comment on what adding students to the process did for it. 

“There is a lot our students have seen that we haven’t seen,” she said. “Students are really good at assessing and understanding who and what is effective in the classroom,” said Haw. 

Professor Crowder offered a similar evaluation.

“There was a fierce intelligence and honesty of students in the room,” she said. “Seeing the ways that having students in the room pressed candidates to open up and unpack what they’re doing in straightforward and concrete ways was amazing.”