February Sucks

I basically lost my job yesterday. I can't find it, but I thought I'd written something on here somewhere about possibly teaching this summer because the school is making a push for core requirement classes, like the survey classes I teach, to be available during the summer and that adjuncts can teach them, if full-time faculty don't want to, despite the fact that they are trying to cut back on adjunct hours, which has something, I suspect, to do with this new trend of cutting adjunct hours to prepare for the Affordable Care Act, in addition to enrolment concerns, which they claim is the reason, yet all the numbers are in line with at least the last three years, so to say I'm skeptical about this is putting it mildly. The point of that terrible run-on sentence was supposed to be that I was trying not to get my hopes up about those summer classes actually happening, but I sort of did, and yesterday I met with my chair to, basically, plead my case as to why they should give me a contract for next year, rather than use me as an adjunct and risk losing me, the British history I can teach because the department doesn't offer British history currently, and my digital humanities training, which would be very useful because the school is trying to get on the online class bus and I at least am familiar with best practices in digital pedagogy and am the only person there who has experience with teaching online classes, which the other professors have no interest in learning about or starting because they are all hoping to retire in the next few years. Seriously. The three full-time professors in the department all want to retire within five years at the most. There is one visiting professor, who they want to hire TT for the next semester, but that's questionable right now with the current state of things. There are also three adjuncts, including one who is moving to Georgia this summer, one who teaches Museum Studies and World Civ only, and me. So, the department is...in trouble.

Anyways, his response was that he was sorry they had misled me since our very first meeting, but they won't be able to offer me a contract because the school is cutting back so drastically on adjuncts and on visiting professors, etc. Of course, if the numbers improve, I'd be the first person they offer classes to, but only on adjunct pay and they wouldn't know until July. As for the summer classes, the department has decided not to offer them, despite the push by the school, because the department does not think students will enroll in them. 

Basically, the department is resisting all changes the school is trying to make (and don't get me wrong - I don't agree with all of the changes, but some of the changes do seem sensible, from both a financial and an academic standpoint) and actively trying to recruit people to stand in resistance with them. Instead of going along with ideas that might even help the department, like offering more classes to attract more students, they have decided to defy ALL the changes/mandates and jump on a sinking ship. Am I bitter? Yes. Did I think all of this prior to yesterday? Absolutely.

I left the meeting in a weird mood. It was quite disheartening to hear that I most likely will not return to a school that I actually like, but, at the same time, it was kind of freeing. At least now I know. That's why I set up the meeting. I was tired of the promises and half-promises they were making and all of the rumors swirling around the school. So, now I know.

I went home after the meeting, which was the plan all along, not a reaction to the meeting, because one of our dogs, Winnie, had lymphoma and this weekend she really deteriorated, hardly being able to walk to go outside and only with help standing up because she had a massive tumor, by her left rear leg, that tripled in size the past few days. I wanted to go home and make sure she was ok and spend some time with her because it was time to put her to sleep and we did that last night, which is an entirely different kind of horrendous experience and one that I am tired of going through and never want to go through again and would never wish anyone to have to make that decision for their pet.

Winnie just turned twelve last month. She was so sweet. She was also my beloved Dewey's girlfriend. Dewey was only seven or eight months old when we brought Winnie home; they grew up together and were, honestly, insane together. They even had puppies together eventually. (That still creeps me out because I thought of them as besties, but besties don't matter in dog show world, where good genes rule and those two have excellent genes.) My parents kept the two most adorable puppies, who I adore almost as much as Dewey. They are, after all, his babies. He might hate them because they fight him for my attention (please, 99% of the time, he wins), but I love them.

This is Winnie, being obnoxious to my mother, who bought a throw rug for Winnie to sleep on and be able to stand up on because the linoleum was very difficult. Winnie, as you can see, thumbed her nose at the rug, despite it being placed exactly where she liked to lay, and decided to lay down next to it instead. I have no doubt she learned the obnoxiousness from Dewey, the master. 

So, goodbye, Winnie, and thank you so much for making us all happy and loving Dewey and giving me Princess (if you think that's a ridiculous name, you should hear her full name, though I take full responsibility for both and, trust me, she more than lives up to her obnoxious name) and Tank. We will all miss you. We already do.