School Days

Before I get into my lengthy post -- I want to point out that meetings are not fun. I'm sure you all know this. My incredible husband likes to say "Meetings are where good ideas go to die." I agree. I should note that I cannot confidently credit Dave with that quote. He has always had very witty and smart things to say that I always enjoy and often repeat. However, I have learned to attribute quotes to him only after investigation. We had been seeing each other for about a year when I discovered that most of his funny one-liners from our first months together were all "sampled" from the classic movie Animal House.

So now most all teachers and students have returned to school (save, perhaps, those people on the goofy trimester system). I am jealous. A good friend of ours sent pictures of his oldest on her first day of preschool -- what promise! what joy! what freedom! Everything is before her.

I know that I am made for a life of school because I can look at the pictures of this beautiful little girl and recall detailed memories of my own days in preschool. Does that make me strange? Some have said so.

I remember the room, the toys, my blue and red quiet time mat, and a construction paper crown with a "5" in gold glitter on it for my birthday.

I remember my Mom came to help one day and she was in charge of a station where she showed us how to cut an apple to reveal a star-shape in the seeds. I remember that she had chosen to wear a blouse that was silky and off-white with a pattern of large apples in red and black before she knew what she would be doing that day. And that I thought that made my Mom very cool.

I remember another mom helping one day. She chose to wear pants and a very 1975 leather belt that had two sets of holes like one my father had. I remember a small male classmate telling the mom that she couldn't wear a belt because she was a girl. I remember her explaining to him that she could. [Note: This is one of several early feminist memories I have -- another idea for a post!]

I distinctly remember the class sitting in a circle on our "sit upons" for a lesson on shapes. The teacher held up large geometric cut outs and called on individual students to ask them the name of the shape. Square. Triangle. This is so easy! She called on me. I was excited. I confidently answered, "Circle." I was wrong. I was crushed. She politely explained that it was in fact an oval. And I never got that wrong again.

So in this theme of going back to school I am posting below the article I mentioned in a previous post. I submitted the article in an attempt to be accepted as a less-than-regular columnist (4 times in one year) on my experiences on the academic job hunt. The article that requested submissions requested a "conversational tone" essay that described the author's background, current situation, and experiences on the job market including anything that might affect his/her search for a job in academia. It pointed out that humor was good, and that this submission -- if accepted -- would be the author's first column.

In an earlier posting I explained that my article was not accepted. I am posting it here to finally set it free -- or to release myself from it...

I have been a student my entire life. I like school. I still have clear memories of preschool, and I haven't missed an academic year since then. I grew up on the academic calendar. I love that I could say "next year" in March and mean September. Each new semester provided a fresh start, a renewed energy fueled by new school supplies: a stack of used books and new course packets, the latest pen, the hippest university notebook, and the binder system with elastic bands and Velcro to rival my old Trapper Keeper that will keep me organized this semester.

After completing a BA in political science at a mid-sized, private, liberal arts university in the Midwest, I informed my mother that her dreams of an attorney daughter with the LA Law career and Susan Dey's wardrobe would have to be passed down to a younger sister. I was headed to a large, public, research university in the Midwest to pursue an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language. I planned to get the masters and then graduate, take one of several job offers to work in a large Midwestern city, and get married -- in that order. After three semesters, I emailed my boyfriend of several years to inform him that I was spending a few more years in graduate school. I decided to pursue the title Dr. before assuming the title Ms.

My work towards an MA morphed into my work towards a PhD. I decided that while I enjoyed teaching ESL, I was very interested in conducting research in Second Language Acquisition, specifically, the teaching and learning of ESL pronunciation. It became difficult to easily formulate or elucidate an answer to the dreaded question, "What do you study?" I eventually settled on "English as a Second Language." This often prompted, "Wow, your English is so good!"

"Um, thank you. More broadly, it's second language acquisition -- how people learn language. It lots of research and --"

"My cousin teaches English in Japan..."

The decision to "go all the way" was easily made and then frequently second-guessed. I was scared to death. This was a whole new level. Friends and family lovingly joked that I did it to delay entering the "real world" or getting a "real job." I sometimes wondered if that was true. I sometimes wondered if I could actually do it. I feared that I would become one of the mythical career graduate students I had heard about. Graduate school provided just enough freedom to linger in perpetuity with just one more course, maybe another independent study project, and another time-consuming teaching assistantship -- all of which could be rationalized as providing more education and experience to enter the academic workforce.

I had planned to graduate in May 2001. I had not yet encountered a PhD candidate who had set her own deadline and met it, but I was determined. I had a life to get on with -- including a boyfriend of ten years living 160 miles away. Unfortunately, I had not put a lot of thought into the fact that the job I wanted would not exist or be available on my timeline. I began to envy the undergraduates I encountered on campus dressed in their first suits braving the early spring semester cold without a coat to avoid committing a fashion faux pas. They were going to huge job fairs where representatives from major corporations wearing work casual outfits with smart knit shirts embroidered with their logo courted undergrads with shiny briefcases (early graduation gift) and slick resumes. I longed for a job fair.

Armed with a five-page CV of teaching assistantships and conference presentations (but lacking the ever-elusive publication), I entered the market. I hoped that putting myself out there for 2001-2002 would mean my committee would have to let me finish. I focused on job listings that allowed for ABD just to be safe.

Soon, I had job application piles of paper in direct competition with my dissertation and teaching piles of paper. I applied to eight positions. Only a handful of them described a position anything like what I had envisioned. I was looking for a tenure-track position in an MATESL program that would allow me to teach ESL courses as well as MA courses while conducting SLA research in pronunciation. I applied for positions that had anything to do with any of that in major metropolitan areas. My fiance was willing to move himself and his law career with me.

I collected letters informing me that my file was complete and that the search committee would be in touch. I never heard again from some places. Others sent me succinct but polite rejection letters that attempted to soothe my ego by informing me that they were inundated with qualified candidates. I received requests for on-campus interviews from three institutions. To my surprise, all three were in the general area of the large Midwestern city I was targeting. Jackpot.

Job #1 was at an institution that had rejected my application to be an undergraduate student. It was a non-faculty position, but in my field. I did my job talk on my on-going research (requiring me and my advisor to scramble to get some preliminary results). I thought things went very well. They gave the job to one of their own graduate students.

Job #2 was a tenure-track professor position with a community college. It looked like a lot of work and was all ESL, but it was very attractive. The people I met during my two separate campus visits were wonderful. The application and interview process was tedious. For one interview, several people sat around a conference table with pages of questions. They took turns reading questions to me and then scribbled my responses in concert. I was afraid the final question was going to be about world peace or how to keep kids off drugs. They gave the job to an in-house candidate.

Job #3 was a visiting professor position for one semester. It was the most similar to the department I worked in and was great money. I had a super campus visit. The committee and I got along well. I was elated. We discussed extending the position to two semesters and allowing me to teach a seminar. This was it. My dream was coming true. An administrative type called me and made an offer for two semesters with a slight salary increase over what was published for one semester. What? We negotiated over a few phone calls. Finally, he told me that my mother would tell me to take this offer. Clearly, he had never met my mother -- she would tell me to turn him down and go to law school. I turned the offer down. I turned it down? That still echoes in my head on long nights along with names of temporary staffing agencies I should call.

During the year-long process of job hunting and gathering, I had moved to the big city. I moved back to campus three weeks later to take a job as a visiting lecturer in my old department for 2001-2002. It felt like going to work for my parents and moving home. I even had to sleep in my office that first night. I did not apply for any positions for 2002-2003. The positions that were advertised were in foreign lands and rural areas that would be impossible for my fiance to work from, or they required qualifications I did not have such as teaching certification or experience in K-12 bilingual education. I got very worried about my timeline and my future.

My life in a 15-week cycle of self-renewal ended last May when I completed my PhD. I stayed on to teach the summer session while my fiance and I put the final touches on our wedding plans. I got married with no job prospects in sight.

I have been unemployed since last August (my wonderful, supporting husband calls it a sabbatical). I went to the yearly conference wearing a badge that had my name and city on it. I have embraced the label "independent" over the brand "unaffiliated." Colleagues, friends, and family have expressed sympathy and offered suggestions. Maybe I should write a book, or take on private students, or bake, or have a baby. I fear losing touch with the field while my self-identity as an academic fades. I am looking forward to an aggressive campaign for a job for the 2004-2005 year.