Gravel in my pockets

[austin_dern]

I'm not fired. Neither is anyone else. That's the most important point.

But -- and it seems like everyone knew this was coming without ever saying a word about it -- the department is being converted to a research program. The department was always a small one, with only a handful of tenure-track positions possible, with very few students, and a necessarily multidisciplinary focus so that we couldn't expand the courses offered or hire many people without stepping on a lot of toes, so we all more or less understand the decision, much as we don't like it.

As for the people, nobody's being fired; we'll just be over the coming year divided among the various larger, better-established departments where we seem to fit best, based on what we teach, research, and prefer. I imagine I'll end up in Mathematics, most likely (and I know in passing several of the people there), though Physics is a possibility. The major change, for right now, is when I seek a contract renewal/extension, the people doing the evaluation won't be from the same department who hired me to start with. I imagine I'll do well teaching and I always evaluate well, but it's still unnerving.

I'm doing all right, though. While I'm upset, we all expected it; the logic's been hard to resist for years. While I'm nervous about my future, it's essentially the same nerves I always have.

The meeting was pretty dry, the Dean explaining the decision and what would be done with everyone, academic and non-academic staff. He went around to ask each of us to say what was on our mind, and for the most part it was minor practical concerns or statements of sorrow. One of the graduate students launched into a long, stirring defense of the need for research that never got anywhere near a point nor addressed the economic and academic factors ... and kept discussing the need for the department, and kept discussing it, until finally a bit of tactful rudeness had to be applied to move on to other people.

Trivia: Each command message for the Pioneer 10/11 computers was 22 bits long. Source: Pioneer Odyssey, Richard O Fimmel, William Swindell, Eric Burgess. NASA SP-396.

Currently Reading: Charlie Chaplin And His Times, Kenneth S Lynn.

Comments

[reptilemammal.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear that, wish you the best had you made any friends in the other departments?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I have some friends, yeah. Oddly the strongest is in Mechanical Engineering, in which I'm wholly unqualified. But as I say I've been to a fair number of seminars in other departments, and I'm always memorable on sight, and I tend to give a good impression.

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

I'm always memorable on sight, and I tend to give a good impression.

Wow. You're the exact opposite of me! ;^>

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The thing is I never believe I'm noticed, much less remembered, so I get unnerving situations where I walk into a used-book-store I was last in three years ago, and the clerk greets me warmly and mentions the obscure Pogo book I bought then. I'm glad people do seem to remember and like me, but it's unnerving to my sense of anonymity.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

This would seem an awkward time to ask what your department was, exactly.

I'm sorry to hear that this sort of distribution will be taking place.. I hope it will affect your tenure possibilities positively, and I'm certain that you'll have some chances to research as you choose. Glad that it wasn't a real surprise.. admittedly, one I'm sure you'd hope was forestalled a while longer. Good luck in the Dispersion Draft, I'm certain you'll go first-round.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, it can't avoid improving my tenure chances, since I'm at the moment not on the tenure track, and the department as it is/was only had five possible slots, and they're filled.

My department's one in computational science, that is, not so much how to program computers as to how to efficiently solve mathematics or physics or biochemistry problems on computers. Sometimes that's by straightforward numerical problem-solving, but often it's by simulation and numerical experiment. As you can see, it's necessarily multidisciplinary (it even, here, branches across two faculties of the school). It also, maybe, was a more obviously needed department 20 years ago, when numerical experimentation was rarer and more skeptically viewed. These days only a handful of people doubt the need for numerical experimentation.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, tenure possibilities are good, indeed.

Yes, that does sound quite multidisciplinary, and I can see it being disperesed to other departments rather reasonably. I'm sure you'll do just fine, and knowing universities and their roles as Agencies Resistant To Change, it'll be a slow, smooth transition.

If it's not, well, that gives you more journal entries.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, thanks. All things considered I'd rather be in a tenure-track position. Happily as large bureaucratic organizations go the university is surprisingly non-pathological, so I expect things will go all right anyway.

My whole life isn't basically raw fodder for journal entries ... it just feels like that, particularly around 5:30 pm when I'm trying to decide what to do today ..