Put your glad rags on and join me hon'

[austin_dern]

Good news: I won't be nominated for the best-teacher award this term.

That needs some context. The department chair asked me if it was all right if the department didn't nominate me as Best Teacher this term. While my students' evaluations for last term's course were fantastic, the committee reviewing nominations would look at the student evaluations for the previous term -- January-April 2003 -- as well. I only got here the last weeks of that term, and my class was taught by whoever didn't have a good excuse while I waited for silly green card glitches to resolve; the students evaluated the course accordingly. But I'm the instructor of record and their comments would count against me. So we'll let this term's evaluations come in, on the assumption they'll be similarly good, and let the greater bulk of classes I really taught outweigh those.

That's fine by me; the important thing is I'm appreciated for my teaching skills. My willingness to teach the huge programming course was also appreciated. Since my contract expires in a year and it's time I start poking around for a new position, I'm really happy to hear my current employer likes me. While I get lonely being on the far side of the world and 12 hours (now that you're on Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. and Canada) out of synch with everyone, I'd like having a sure job for as far into the future as possible. Also I hate moving, so staying here would be great.

Trivia: The MIT Instrumentation Lab's first order for microchips for the Apollo Guidance Computer was placed January 4, 1962, ordering four microchips from Texas Instruments at US$115.00 each. The order was delivered late. Source: Journey To The Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer, Eldon C. Hall.

Currently Reading: Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain.

Comments

[blither.livejournal.com]

*beams proudly at you*

I still think you should look for a job in California (if there were any)...I'm just saying.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Aw, I'm not averse to working in California, or most any state, and it'd be great working somewhere near my real-life friends. But I do have to work where I can find it, and who knows if the U.S. will have recovered from the Bush administration as early as next April? It's just the time zones and lack of great used book stores that really frustrate me, anyway.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

Three cheers and coati for you! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! *hands over coati*. I think, rarely but I'm making an exception this time, that you should stay in Singapore (if invited too) for the next several years then think about coming home. This way you build up a solid reputation for reliability rather than someone who dashes about like a coati with a nose cold. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Stability is one of my great traits, yeah. It's a tough balance; I don't want to move too often, but I also don't want to look like I can't get a job anywhere else. Still, I'm quite happy here and almost certainly would stick around as long as they'll have me. The only problem is explaining to my mother why I'm not working somewhere closer to home. (Which is a fair objection: her alma mater is expanding from college to university, and is likely going to be hiring mathematics and science professors soon; if they have a burst of tenure-track positions available it'd be hard to see why not to try them out.)

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

In that case; I'd try for your Mum's Alma Mater IF you can get a tenure track position.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted, mightily, if it does turn out to be an option. I'd have reservations about plunging in to what would (ideally) be a lifetime job without having ever worked at the place -- who knows what the working conditions are really like? -- but it'd be a great place to go looking from. The only challenges would be finding a livable apartment in a part of the state that's overpriced suburban developments and explaining to my parents why I'd rather not live with them. (My parents asked if I really needed to live in Troy my last terms at RPI, when I wasn't taking or teaching any courses ... and they had a point.)

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

Yeah; that part of NY is $$$$$ expensive. I had a friend move to White Plains(?) and talked about how expensive it was.

[oliver-otter.livejournal.com]

I grew up in that general area (just over the CT border from White Plains, in Greenwich), which is one reason I didn't just upchuck when I found out what CA housing prices were. Greenwich was actually more expensive. But it always has been, so people are just used to it. One other difference is roots: a big chunk of Greenwich's population have been in those homes for generations (my cousins' family goes back to the 1620s there), so they have had a long time to watch the houses grow in value. That's very different from CA's real estate speculation climate, where people expect the houses to grow because they just moved there, overspent, and need the money.

I'm so glad to be kissing off CA and moving somewhere sensible. I just wish I could take Oakland Zoo and Coyote Point with me.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

I know. But there will be zoos in Arizona needing your services.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I know from your perspective it's all the same dot on the map, but this isn't really the White Plains area. It's actually the Monmouth-Ocean border -- right along where the former colonies of East New Jersey and West New Jersey were divided; more, based on development, right along the border of where South Jersey is becoming Central Jersey. Still more expensive than upstate (Albany/Troy) New York. In practical measures (food, transportation expenses, non-subsidized houses) I'd spend more on day-to-day stuff than I do in Singapore. But it wouldn't be as expensive as it would be closer to New York City. And, of course, there's the Book Garden on 537.

[gafennec.livejournal.com]

It's all Yankee land to me. :D

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

In academics you don't "look for a job near X," you just look for a job. And pray.

Or maybe I'm extrapolating too much from my own experience, since I applied to 61 positions (tenure-track and otherwise) this year and didn't get an interview.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

No, no, that's pretty much everyone's experience. I got lucky in that my adviser was able to talk the chair of the department here first into letting his grant pay for my presence for two summers (so I got to play at being T.A. with even lower expectations from me) and then talked him into creating a new Visiting Fellow position and filling it with me. So I was able to look for other jobs without imminent panic. Even at that the only other nibble I got was an Albany college willing to give me two or three adjunct courses, which would be almost enough to starve on.

[oliver-otter.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the average now is a 5 year postdoctoral rotation before you're considered ready for today's competetive faculty slots. They also expect you to come with grants already approved and in hand. The 5-year wait isn't that bad, really, when you consider how hard it is to get grants nowadays.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Quite true, yes. What might make for an exceptional case is that my mother's school is expanding in a hurry and so will have more slots than normal, if all goes well, and I have an in -- my mother's teaching there as slightly more than adjunct, and she left an awesome impression when she was a student. I am not making this up: her chemistry teachers were, 30 years after she graduated, still showing her old lab reports as examples of what students should be turning in. Nothing is ever guaranteed, of course, but I don't think I could be in a better position if a spot becomes available.