First Year Progress Report

Somewhere along the line, this blog forgot a few things: first, that it's a blog (see the giant gap in posting over the last several months), and second, that this has been a big year for things other than personal drama.

I'm almost at the one year anniversary of the move to the new job. And while there have been a lot of personal hurdles this year, the new job has been stellar.

The folks I work with, while high strung and needy as any department might be, are also by and large really nice people. Everyone who's invited me for dinner or drinks has turned out to be someone I like to have dinner or drinks with. They don't quite get what I do in some cases, but they've not dismissed it, and in most cases, they're open to hearing about it. Very impressive considering the idea of multidisciplinary stuff wasn't on their radar even when they hired me.

There's funding. I'm about to launch off for my summer conference fest, and I've been to at least three conferences this year. I've got a teaching release coming up, which will make my teaching load a 1/1.

That's right. A 1/1.

Read it again. I'm okay with rubbing it in. Take a few minutes and grumble. I'm okay. I've got time. 'Cause I'm going to be on a 1/1, suckas!

The new town is better than the old town. There are people here. With interests other than hockey (though the sports fans here are still ridiculous). And there's Thai food that can be delivered to my apartment anytime I want. And it doesn't equate "vinegary" with "spicy" as in some places. I've got friends who, even if they do mostly teach at universities, at least don't all teach at my university.

So, for those of you who've wondered: the first year gets an A-.

Smooth Sailing

I haven't forgotten about you, dear blog. Let the first song off the iPod today be my apology for having so neglected you (not to mention the post title).

While I was away at the conference, I did something to my hand. It left two of the fingers on my left hand close to numb, and that's made typing more than a little bit of a pain. The caps-lock key is often much too close to the letter "a."

That said, things have been crazy. I've been working to drum up funding for an international conference, and I went through the first year review process required here (even though, I've only been around a term). That went well, though I'm still feeling a bit bothered by the student evals. But what are you going to do? I also put in for course releases for next year and received them, so as things go work-wise, things are smelling like roses.

When the finger feels better, I'll try to write more. Onward, towards Spring Break.

Stuff I've Been Up To

Lordy, it's almost Thanksgiving, which I love. That also means the term is almost over. I also love that.

It's been maddening - two family members have been juggling hospital stays: one in, the other out. Of course, my family doesn't really speak well to each other, so I've juggled more than a bit of that drama. It hasn't quite died down: pulmonary embolisms are nightmares and they don't get dealt with quickly.

Since last I wrote, I've tilted multiple times with the school's curriculum committee and come out with an approved course. I've also been to another conference where I found one of the secret joys of Twitter: watching sycophants scoop quotes from their leader like pearls. I've been to dinners with senior faculty members, filed my expense reports, asked for more money for a conference next term (and been approved), been evaluated, responded to the evaluation, and written yet another biography.

And I am proud to report that I think I'm getting the hang of it. Now if I could just manage to get some actual research done when I wasn't away at a conference.

Walking to a meeting, my department chair said to me something to the effect of : "They're going to ask you to be department chair, one day." I laughed and was then advised "Of course, tell them no."

New Job, New Media?

Guess I really wasn't thinking about some of the bigger differences going.

In a meeting last week, one of the things that came up was the desire for faculty to find ways to use all these new fangled media devices to promote themselves - and hence, the U. - better.

"Consider running a blog," someone said. I snickered and tried to look aghast. But worse, they want us to do things like Facebook (Okay, I'm already there) and Twitter (which I'm less than convinced is useful for me to promote myself, and hence, the U.). I don't think I'm at the point in my career where I have profound things to say every hour. Honestly, there are days where I find myself stretching to complain in this blog.

Really, though, what I wanted to ask was: what's the model you're thinking about here? Because it seems to me a half-assed attempt to use something like this only looks bad (I was going to say makes one look like a whole ass, but isn't the phrase "half-assed" implying that a "full-assed" attempt would be the way to go? I don't know...). Is there any evidence that prospective students are using presence of a Twitter account to make their decisions? Are grant givers factoring it into their assessments on whether or not to give funding?

Because on some level it feels like that, best case, we've become convinced we need Twitter because we hear the word so much. Thoughts? Is this happening elsewhere? In particular disciplines?

Many Forms of Panic

I am in my office, reading a book of poems I ordered to help lessen the trauma of reading all the books that will hopefully catch me up so that I can appropriately mention names at parties, and many forms of panic begin to visit my lonely office vigil.

First, the colleague the chair talked to in the office next door about her loud study sessions. I've heard much about this in the last week, though as a music listener, I'm largely unfazed. Does she, with all her tenured might, think it was me?

Second, a parade of faculty down the hall, muttering about a conference room. Am I missing a faculty meeting? Why can't I find it in my e-mail? Who can I ask without exposing my horrible skills as a new colleague?

Third, the realization that my old lecture notes are all in a format that Microsoft Word for Mac refused to admit exists. Will I spend my whole term reinventing the wheel of my thoughts?

Doubt

And, lo, it was fated that not long after our hero began his new journey that doubt crept in. Like a thief in the night. Like a boorish party crasher. Like a bug in your bed sheets.

Having wandered through a couple of get-togethers in the past few weeks, listening to people name drop and conference-check, I began to wonder whether I'm about to be out of my research depth. Four years on a 4/4 didn't exactly do wonders for my knowledge of the field. Over the course of the term so far, I've been read by colleagues as working in at least three different areas - all close to theirs - none of which are the areas I actually work in.

This is what I love about academia - no matter how good things are going, you can always find a reason to believe you're there on a loophole.

DisOrientation

In my experience, the first truly bad experience with any new academic job is orientation. Think back to your own, and I'm betting you'll agree with me. While there's a ton of things to complain about - there is, for example, invariably someone with hyper-specific questions and tedious back story to the question. Really, it's like any class you've ever taught or attended, ever. That might explain why it's so frustrating to attend them when they often seem so poorly thought out.

But rather than spend much time worrying about those things, I want to offer some quick suggestions to make orientation a bit more useful, rather than the enormous time-suck that they so often are. So with that in mind, here's what I need from an orientation:

• enough time in advance of the term to make use of the information given
• a comparison of the benefits and costs of each
  
• someone who can actually answer my benefits questions (it's interesting that at every orientation I've had, the HR reps seem to actively fear answering benefits questions - is it a legal thing?)
• any specific language that's expected in my syllabi (for example: plagiarism policies, disability policies, departmental objectives, etc)
• how to get my parking decal and ID
• my e-mail id and how to contact IT
• a brief profile of the student population
  
• a copy of the faculty handbook and an explanation of who to go to with questions
• a copy of the campus directory

What I don't need from an orientation:

• a parade of people
  
• a meeting with different groups whose benefits options differ (honestly, do you need to rub adjunct noses into discussions of health care, etc?)
  
• meetings that involve decision making about long-term university projects or anything that has a context an incoming freshman couldn't intuit
  
• people talking about things that I won't be dealing with in the first two weeks (for example: study abroad). And if they must be there, then they should speak for a minimum amount of time
• acronyms and buzzwords
  
• references to policies that are no longer in effect
• references to web pages without a written URL
• references to forth-coming e-mails
  
• discussions of teaching that include the phrase "I'd never do what I'm doing now in the classroom" or anything similar

I think that's a pretty good start. I'm probably missing some, though. Thoughts?

Creative Ways to Experience Anxiety

I received another thank you letter from a student today. They've been very sweet about my departure. One of the students this morning told me they want tow write a letter demanding millions so the school could keep me. I told them it wasn't entirely about money.

And in the midst of it, I began to fret about what all these student letters might mean. There are some commonalities to them, after all. First, they tend to come from working class students (though this isn't particularly unusual here as most of the students are). They tend to be from students who struggled as part of their time here. And they tend to be from students who have been casting about for what they want to do.

The connections aren't particularly surprising. I was a working class kid, though I didn't quite realize it until the middle of my undergraduate. I struggled quite a bit myself. Between the freedom that college offered, the first true romances, and the working load that comes with putting yourself through as a working class kid who doesn't know any better, it was a struggle to get out of and a shock when I actually went back to school. I started out pre-med, jumped to a much more liberal arts focused degree, and took enough outside classes to have had five minors had the university allowed it.

And then I thought about what I know about the student population at the New Job, and those things aren't particularly present. Most of them don't seem to be working class. I'm told they all have very well-defined goals of where they want to be. What if my teaching doesn't match up?

Really, there's no way to know until I'm there and into the swing of it. And it's fair to say that it wasn't until maybe a year into my time here that I started to click with students, so it could take awhile anyway. But I think the impending departure has had weird reverberations on my thought processes. I was telling a colleague today that I think I might be grading senior seminar papers with a little nostalgia grade boost. And the other day, I tried to explain why a big goodbye party creeps me out.