On Thursday the Chair of my department sent an email to me and 13 of my colleagues inviting us to a meeting with the Dean on Friday. We knew it was bad news because not all instructors in the department of Foreign Languages and Literatures were on the cc: list. The Dean waltzed in and said "There's no good way to tell you what I have to tell you, so I'm just going to be brutal. The University has decided to enforce the letters you received in January. In other words, as of January 2011 you no longer have a job at LSU."
While this was expected, it was heartbreaking to see all the people, most of whom have spent their entire professional career teaching Louisiana's students, grasp the implications of this blunt announcement. The usual questions were asked aloud: "What will happen to the students?" "Are we eligible for unemployment?" "What were the criteria for retaining some of the instructors?" But there were individual questions that were left unasked: "How will I make my house payments?" "How will I feed my five children and send them to college?" "How will my chronic health issues be treated without insurance?"
Most of us are in the same boat: we were hired to teach. We were not expected to do research and publish to keep our jobs. We taught onerous course loads and some of us taught a new class practically every semester. Our "research" was done to present the material for our students but it was never published. This means each one of us will enter the job search without the basic credentials that separate the candidates into Pile A and Pile B. I've been through this before: No one will even look at my application and I will receive a form rejection letter. This despite the fact that I can teach Latin and Greek and Classical Studies and German and I have experience in residential colleges, academic advising and study abroad.
I'm taking this weekend off to recuperate (I've been sick for a week) and regroup. Monday morning will find me recouping my losses. Words of encouragement strongly desired!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
150 days
Today is the start of Fall Semester 2010, exactly 150 days before January 21, 2011 which marks the end of my contract with LSU. Here's what we know about the situation:
* We were told nearly 400 instructors received pink slips back in January 2010. If they are all released, it would be nearly a third of the faculty. (Later we learned that only 238 letters of non-reappointment had been sent).
* An email, carefully calculated to arrive on the day when most of the faculty and students had officially begun their summer vacation, announced that the University was seeking to eliminate several programs, including degrees in Latin and German.
* On July 16, the Board of Supervisors met to discuss the proposed program cuts. The motion was evidently tabled but there has been no official report of that meeting.
So where does this leave me (and the other 300 instructors in the same boat)? We can only assume that we have no job as of January 21, 2011 and must plan accordingly. In other words, there are exactly 150 days for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I've got many irons in the fire, including writing academic articles and applying for teaching certification in Austria, along with non-academic writing projects, ideas for self-incorporating and Plan B.
I do not mourn the loss of my job. I see it as an opportunity to spread my wings, both professionally and individually. But it galls me that the humanities-based education on which the modern university was founded has been devalued to such an extent that these courses, which foster cultural communication and understanding, are the first on the chopping block. I feel like someone has told me that everything I've studied since I was 13 years old was just a waste of time -- and I'm too young to be put out to pasture!!
* We were told nearly 400 instructors received pink slips back in January 2010. If they are all released, it would be nearly a third of the faculty. (Later we learned that only 238 letters of non-reappointment had been sent).
* An email, carefully calculated to arrive on the day when most of the faculty and students had officially begun their summer vacation, announced that the University was seeking to eliminate several programs, including degrees in Latin and German.
* On July 16, the Board of Supervisors met to discuss the proposed program cuts. The motion was evidently tabled but there has been no official report of that meeting.
So where does this leave me (and the other 300 instructors in the same boat)? We can only assume that we have no job as of January 21, 2011 and must plan accordingly. In other words, there are exactly 150 days for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I've got many irons in the fire, including writing academic articles and applying for teaching certification in Austria, along with non-academic writing projects, ideas for self-incorporating and Plan B.
I do not mourn the loss of my job. I see it as an opportunity to spread my wings, both professionally and individually. But it galls me that the humanities-based education on which the modern university was founded has been devalued to such an extent that these courses, which foster cultural communication and understanding, are the first on the chopping block. I feel like someone has told me that everything I've studied since I was 13 years old was just a waste of time -- and I'm too young to be put out to pasture!!
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