Job frustration

My friends who know me well know that I don't always deal with change very well. I am, by nature, a creature of routine. I like to know when things are going to happen so that I can plan. Of course, the fact that I've chosen to pursue a career in academia means that there is often a lot of uncertainty in my life.

As I wrote last week, the job situation is not good at CU, at least not for me. I met with Dr. Feminist last week, and she has been able to earmark one course for me next year, in the spring. She can't guarantee anything for the fall because of budget limitations. She told me that she was able to give me two courses this year because the Dean had "found" the money, which I knew. But this year's assignments didn't come with any guarantee that the Dean would "find" money again, which I didn't know. Let me clarify: I knew that I primarily got hired because of C, and frankly, I was (and am) ok with that. But I knew that I would only continue teaching at CU because of me; C may have gotten me in the door, but I am the one who has to keep me hear and, ultimately, turn the job into a tenure-track line. The Dean (who is, of course, no longer the Dean) did, however, lead us to believe that there would be a few years of part-time funding for me since she realized that me teaching here was a retention issue for C. It seems that this wasn't the case. The money was guaranteed only for this year, and now if Women's Studies wants to keep hiring me to teach part-time, they have to lobby the new Dean for money. Well, since I've been hired, the economy has gone to crap, and CU is at the end of a budget cycle. Deans and department heads across the board are starting to be conservative with their spending as they have no guarantees from the Canadian government what sort of funding they will get for the next 3-year budget cycle.

So what does this mean for us? Dr. Nice Guy, C's department head, was told point blank by the new Dean that she couldn't come up with any money for me, either for a term-appointment or a tenure-track line, unless C was in a position to leave. Meaning either one or both of us has to get a job at a comparable school and use that as leverage to get me a tenure-track job in either Women's Studies or English. I know all you academics are thinking: not so unusual. Well, this is actually a bit unusual for CU, which has a history of partner placement. In fact, both Dr. Nice Guy and the previous Dean had told C on multiple occasions (before he accepted the job) that I probably wouldn't have to have a job offer to secure a tenure track line at CU. He was told over and over again that they value their employees, have strong retention policies, and have high rates of partner placement. While I never really believed this (it seemed too good to be true), it did provide us both with a modicum of comfort. Now it seems that we will have to do things the old-fashioned way.

So why is this a source of so much frustration, since I knew inherently all along that this is the route we'd have to go? For two reasons. First, I'm now in the position of not having a teaching position for the fall. I am, of course, already looking. I'm being pro-active, which isn't always something I'm great at. I've already contacted the head of the English Department (the whole reason I didn't get courses there this year was because they had already hired all their part-time people by the time C was offered the job), and he has seemed very receptive. I have a meeting with him next week. Second, C loves his job. As nervous as he was about taking a position at an R1, he loves it, as I knew he would. He's already been asked to present at his field's major conference next spring, submitted an internal grant for research money, and proposed a major curiculum change for his department. On top of that, he has been solicited by a publisher to turn his dissertation into a book, and he actually has time to work on a book prospectus. He has also started working on an article. Because he was teaching a 4-4 load and commuting an hour each way, he didn't have time to do these things when he was lecturing at the small liberal arts college near Southwest College Town, a job that was slowly sucking the life out of him. In short, my husband is flourishing here. I don't want to be the reason he has to leave CU. I honestly don't see myself getting a job at a comparable school the first year on the market, which will be next year. And given the nature of my field and the economy, I am fully aware it will likely take me two years (if not more) to even get an offer. All of which means, I will be facing some job uncertainty for a while. It's times like these when I ask myself: M, why didn't you go to nursing school?