Assignment for Friday 2.24.17 - Reaching Out to Profile Subject

The assignment is simple: Ask someone to serve as your subject and corroborate the request. The best way to ask for an interview is usually face to face, though a phone call followed by an email is fine if your potential subject is not someone you rub up against every day.

You will satisfy this assignment through an email to your subject asking for an interview which you copy to me. Of course, if you ask your subject face to face and he/she agrees, the email you copy to me will consist of thanks to your subject for agreeing and confirmation of when your interview will take place.

Employ the GOSS model in your interview. (Some people call this the GOSSY model, the Y standing for all the times in your interview that you ask Why.)

G=goals

O=obstacles to achieving those goals

S=solutions to overcoming those obstacles

S=first step in implementing the solutions

The point of your interview is understanding how your subject came to USF and how your subject sees her/his future at this fine institution. Was getting a job here a specific goal or one of many possible satisfying outcomes? What is your subject's most important goal now that she is teaching here?

You will collect basic biographical information, but you will be alert to how that information plugs into the GOSS model.

Finally, I want you to ask what your subject makes of the current labor troubles at USF. (We will talk about this in more detail in class.) I'm guessing the outcome of the faculty vote on the recent contract offer from the university will influence your subject's goals, both personal and professional. This will be true even if your subject is not a faculty member because I heard at a recent union meeting that faculty salary increases are tied to that of other campus unions, which was explained to me as meaning that our actions could result in other employees getting bigger - or smaller - raises.

Addendum: You may want to ask several people for interviews. Since there will be a penalty for late stories, you want to make sure you have *somebody* to interview. You also want to have a fallback position if your first choice agrees, schedules the interview close to deadline and then blows you off.