Friday, June 22, 2012

Yeah, I just met you... and this is crazy...

--or-- Riding in Cars with Candidates

I'm currently chairing a search committee and we're in the midst of on-campus interviews. The higher ed interview process is already a strange beast, but one of the areas where this manifests itself is one-on-one time with the candidate. As the chair, it has been my role to get candidates from the hotel to campus the morning of the interview.

Clearly I'm using my personal vehicle. This is no problem. I make it a point to keep it a little cleaner than I might otherwise (whoops, forgot about the clothes headed to Goodwill in the back) and be sure there is space for them to place their bags and personal items. But in the 10 or so minutes we're together in the car, what should be on the radio?

Left to my own devices, I almost always have my iPod plugged in. In most cases I'm listening to podcasts--typically either sports or marching/athletic music--but the music present represents quite a range from the serene to the ign'ant. My radio station presets tell a similar tale; The range on my primary setting is, in order: Rap, Urban Adult Contemporary, Top 40, Top 40, Variety, and Country. I've been sticking to the radio for practical reasons, partially selfish; if I'm listening to a podcast, it's because I'm interested in the subject matter and actually want to hear the podcast, not the candidate, talk. In the same vein, I'm not going to ride around silent--it's not realistic and gives you no hiding place should silence become awkward. So I go the radio route. I know that rap and country tend to be the most polarizing, so I keep it quite literally to the middle of the set.

With the first candidate I transported, I went the Urban AC route. They tend to stay on the mellower side, but I forget that Urban AC radio has done to me what Nick at Nite did long ago: I'm old enough that stations that once played music from when my parents were younger now play music from when I was younger. As luck would have it, they were playing Queen Latifah's Unity (who you callin' a...) Fortunately we were engaged in conversation so it wasn't at the forefront, but certainly potentially awkward.

With the most recent candidate, I instead went the pop radio route. I kept the volume a bit lower as well, not that my speakers were going hammer previously. But during a lull in conversation, we realized what was on. You guessed it (or read it on Twitter earlier): Call Me Maybe. We commented briefly on its current ubiquity and moved on from there. Not extremely awkward, but perhaps a bit.

Have you found yourself in the car either with a candidate or as a candidate? Do you remember what was on the radio?

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