Although the academic curriculum vitae (CV) and annual activity report often differ in scope and format, both documents attempt to describe and/or document the range of professional activities faculty and staff perform. On some campuses, the annual report may in fact consist only of an updated CV; on others the CV is only one part of an annual reporting effort that may also involve the completion of forms or spreadsheets.
Although updating and completing these documents can feel like a chore, especially at busy times of semester, they offer important rhetorical opportunities to convey the variety, depth, and scope of your professional work. Joshua Eyler’s excellent recent essay The Rhetoric of the CV considers this point in relation to graduate students’ self-presentation on the job market. Here at ProfHacker, we’ve discussed some other important aspects of CVs and annual reports:
My post on Creating and Maintaining Your CV discusses the purpose, length, and formatting for academic CVs.
Brian explains how he uses Dropbox’s public folders feature to keep his online CV always updated.
Guest author Jason Mittell took Brian’s advice one step further in Using Google Docs to Publish Your CV to the Web.
Heather explores some Ideas for Archiving CVs (and Why You’d Want To).
In Writing Annual Reviews, Nels suggests thinking about your annual report in relation to your tenure or promotion file.
Ana describes her approach to collecting materials for tenure in Starting a Tenure Box.
Ana reminds us that Keeping Up With Your Records is something to think about year-round, not just during the week your annual report is due.
What questions do you have about annual reports or CVs? let us know in the comments!
[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user FeatheredTar]