Things were going so well for me in Austria, that I decided to discontinue the academic topics I had hoped to work into publications. Instead I focused on immersing myself in Austrian culture, and exploring my own talents. I wrote a lot for my blog, took hundreds of good amateur photographs, started drawing (on the advice that my pre-school teacher had sent home in a note which I found when I was 35) and following the Austrian music scene. A one year stint as an assistant turned into two. If I could have stayed longer, I would have.
But at the time Austria didn't have a transparent method of obtaining residency. It was a Catch-22: you need a job to get residency, you need residency to get a job. I applied for lots of jobs and even had some interviews, but when faced with the paperwork of supporting my residency, potential employers turned to other candidates. As much as I wanted to stay in Austria, I was unwilling to "marry to stay in the country," although that was a possibility. I made the conscious decision to return to the States, to a position that had been held for me at LSU (and I have to give the chair at the time credit for allowing me to take a two year unpaid leave of absence to follow my bliss).
Shortly after I returned to LSU, the administration made it clear that the university was facing budget cuts of epic proportions and it was very likely that they were going to cut programs and staff. They cut the Latin major and the German major in 2010.
Meanwhile I kept on pursuing opportunities in Austria, including a visiting professorship in archaeology at the Karl Franzens Universität Graz where I taught Women in Antiquity and Funerary Practices in Austria. While there, my colleagues developed a plan: I would try to get my Ph.D. recognized as an Austrian Doctor of Philosophy in a process called Nostrification. I got the ball rolling in 2010, but the process took til 2013 (and taught me a valuable lesson about Austrian bureaucracy!).
In August 2010, the axe was dropped on the department of foreign languages. Fourteen foreign language instructors (of 3000 LSU employees) were slated to lose their jobs in the middle of the academic year. I am not going to relive the drama of that decision in this entry. As unfair as the decision was (and even the dean had to admit - as I unrolled a scroll of courses I had introduced and taught - that "maybe the administration had made a mistake"), I saw the gravity of the situation and took steps to make myself immediately marketable. I enrolled in the training program for tax preparers at H&R Block and by the time our pink slips were delivered, I was churning out tax returns at more than twice the rate of most new hires (120 as opposed to the expected 50). In addition, I taught mythology and German at a local community college - I worked virtually two full time jobs trying to keep body and soul together for a grand total of $11,000 in the first 8 months of 2011.
Surprisingly, shortly before the beginning of the next academic year, I was approached by the art history department at LSU. Their Greek and Roman guy was leaving unexpectedly - would I like to become their professional in residence? After a bit of haggling over my salary (if I was going to be a professional in residence, they were going to have to pay me like one!) I accepted. And I embarked on reinventing myself for the umpteenth time since 2006 (i.e. learning everything I never knew about Egyptian and Near Eastern art, and lecturing on 30000 years of art history in 16 weeks to full auditoriums). It was a great gig. I taught, mentored, even spearheaded an art exhibit featuring my students' takes on Women in Antiquity. As always, I gave 110%.
But as I've asked before "What if your best isn't good enough?" When the time came to make the art history position permanent, my colleagues said, "Apply!" And against my better judgment (after all, I didn't have a degree in art history) I applied. And what happened next confirmed my suspicion that someone in the administration had a guilt complex over firing me in 2011, and getting me to apply through proper channels would let LSU off the hook, were I to fail in the job search. I didn't even get an interview... for the job I had been doing (and doing damn well, I might add) for the past two years. I was gutted, not only because I felt I'd been misled by my well-meaning colleagues, but because I knew my academic career was over. Adding insult to injury, one of my colleagues approached me after four (or was it five?) candidates had rejected the job offer, and asked me to stay at my current salary, only til they could find someone to replace me. I calmly and confidently told him I was not interested and threw him out of my office - one of the best decisions of my life.
But that decision left me scrambling to figure out what was next for me. My classics colleagues confirmed that I had no chance at my age with my non-existent publication record. I talked to people in academic publishing who said I'd start at the bottom and have to work my way up, working 80 hour weeks. Before I had a proper breakdown, I ended up getting my credentials nostrified in Austria, and with the nostrification came a job interview and job offer in the same day. I was going to teach English at a business college. I just had to move halfway around the world to do it. The education department would support my residency - it was now just paperwork.
Except that Austrian bureaucracy never runs smoothly. I had cleaned out my apartment, given away or auctioned off nearly everything I owned, and was sitting in my bare Baton Rouge apartment when I got an email: residency rejected. Naturally, I flipped out. But my friends in Austria helped put my application back on track (turns out, the education department had filled out the forms wrong) and I moved to Austria with literally two suitcases....
TO BE CONTINUED...
Shortly after I returned to LSU, the administration made it clear that the university was facing budget cuts of epic proportions and it was very likely that they were going to cut programs and staff. They cut the Latin major and the German major in 2010.
Meanwhile I kept on pursuing opportunities in Austria, including a visiting professorship in archaeology at the Karl Franzens Universität Graz where I taught Women in Antiquity and Funerary Practices in Austria. While there, my colleagues developed a plan: I would try to get my Ph.D. recognized as an Austrian Doctor of Philosophy in a process called Nostrification. I got the ball rolling in 2010, but the process took til 2013 (and taught me a valuable lesson about Austrian bureaucracy!).
In August 2010, the axe was dropped on the department of foreign languages. Fourteen foreign language instructors (of 3000 LSU employees) were slated to lose their jobs in the middle of the academic year. I am not going to relive the drama of that decision in this entry. As unfair as the decision was (and even the dean had to admit - as I unrolled a scroll of courses I had introduced and taught - that "maybe the administration had made a mistake"), I saw the gravity of the situation and took steps to make myself immediately marketable. I enrolled in the training program for tax preparers at H&R Block and by the time our pink slips were delivered, I was churning out tax returns at more than twice the rate of most new hires (120 as opposed to the expected 50). In addition, I taught mythology and German at a local community college - I worked virtually two full time jobs trying to keep body and soul together for a grand total of $11,000 in the first 8 months of 2011.
Surprisingly, shortly before the beginning of the next academic year, I was approached by the art history department at LSU. Their Greek and Roman guy was leaving unexpectedly - would I like to become their professional in residence? After a bit of haggling over my salary (if I was going to be a professional in residence, they were going to have to pay me like one!) I accepted. And I embarked on reinventing myself for the umpteenth time since 2006 (i.e. learning everything I never knew about Egyptian and Near Eastern art, and lecturing on 30000 years of art history in 16 weeks to full auditoriums). It was a great gig. I taught, mentored, even spearheaded an art exhibit featuring my students' takes on Women in Antiquity. As always, I gave 110%.
But as I've asked before "What if your best isn't good enough?" When the time came to make the art history position permanent, my colleagues said, "Apply!" And against my better judgment (after all, I didn't have a degree in art history) I applied. And what happened next confirmed my suspicion that someone in the administration had a guilt complex over firing me in 2011, and getting me to apply through proper channels would let LSU off the hook, were I to fail in the job search. I didn't even get an interview... for the job I had been doing (and doing damn well, I might add) for the past two years. I was gutted, not only because I felt I'd been misled by my well-meaning colleagues, but because I knew my academic career was over. Adding insult to injury, one of my colleagues approached me after four (or was it five?) candidates had rejected the job offer, and asked me to stay at my current salary, only til they could find someone to replace me. I calmly and confidently told him I was not interested and threw him out of my office - one of the best decisions of my life.
But that decision left me scrambling to figure out what was next for me. My classics colleagues confirmed that I had no chance at my age with my non-existent publication record. I talked to people in academic publishing who said I'd start at the bottom and have to work my way up, working 80 hour weeks. Before I had a proper breakdown, I ended up getting my credentials nostrified in Austria, and with the nostrification came a job interview and job offer in the same day. I was going to teach English at a business college. I just had to move halfway around the world to do it. The education department would support my residency - it was now just paperwork.
Except that Austrian bureaucracy never runs smoothly. I had cleaned out my apartment, given away or auctioned off nearly everything I owned, and was sitting in my bare Baton Rouge apartment when I got an email: residency rejected. Naturally, I flipped out. But my friends in Austria helped put my application back on track (turns out, the education department had filled out the forms wrong) and I moved to Austria with literally two suitcases....
TO BE CONTINUED...
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