Ten years at BU

I began teaching at Bloomsburg University in August 2004 as an Assistant Professor in a tenure track position and by August 2008 I was a tenured Associate Professor. When we were dating we had agreed that I would be a stay-at-home mom once we had our first baby, but since Paul started pursuing his PhD at Penn State in August 2008, I went back to work (FT) when Nadia was eight weeks old. I continued to teach at Bloomsburg University through the summer of 2012. The last class I taught that year I taught while I was in the hospital in Harrisburg during

Oliver's pregnancy. Paul was scheduled defend his dissertation in early January 2013 (and officially graduate in May 2013) so he began interviewing for teaching positions that would have begun in January 2013. I thought we would be moving to another state (ex. Indiana) and didn't want to leave my department in a lurch at the last minute, so I resigned in late December. My resignation was official around January 21, 2013. In hindsight, I wish I had not done that, but there's no point in dwelling on that now. At that point I had been at the

university for 8.5 years, which was the longest I had ever worked at one particular school because my longest stint prior to that was being the principal of a Christian school for 7 years. In August 2017 I returned to BU as a FT temporary faculty member, which means that as of this week I have now completed ten years of service at the university.

Faculty are typically honored for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. years of service. Unfortunately, no matter how many years you are an adjunct they don't honor you for your service so my

last 1.5 years of service don't count toward any recognition. At the commencement service in May I was talking to a professor who has been an adjunct at BU for ten straight years. Adjuncts are definitely second class citizens to be sure; this is just one of many examples. When I came to BU in 2004 if someone retired or died, it was pretty much automatic to grant that department a tenure line (typically with a one year delay due to the time the search process takes). I was the chair of our department's search committee for several years,

and I remember at one point we were conducting four tenure track searches at one time. It's been more than five years since our department has been given a tenure line. We had three faculty retire just this past summer. The special education department finally was given two tenure lines (they searched last year and the individuals were hired effective August 2018), but that was only after literally more than HALF of their department was filled by adjuncts. The interim Provost who is retiring in June 2019 has already announced he is going to reject our

tenure line requests (they are due in May). Our department is still going to request a few, but we have already been told the answer will be NO. I am not the only adjunct in the department, and I am not the only professor who is on overload. If I continue FT as an adjunct, I would be promoted and tenured again in August 2022 even if the new Provost doesn't approve any tenure line requests in the spring of 2020 or 2021, but at this point I am planning to be PT the next academic year, which would mean I wouldn't then be eligible to be tenured and

promoted in 2022 because that only would happen if I was a FT temp for five straight years.

I planned to participate in one of the graduation ceremonies today, but in light of the fact I can barely talk and am frequently coughing, I emailed my student teachers and also the woman in charge of organizing commencement ceremonies yesterday to let them know I wouldn't be able to attend. It seems there was more drama than anticipated in the ceremony as police showed up, talked to the

President (after asking him to step off the platform), and then it was announced that the first ceremony was being moved to another building because of a bomb threat. They checked the building thoroughly and didn't find anything so the second ceremony was held in the usual auditorium in the afternoon. The last time I recall having a bomb threat associated with a school where I was a student or on the staff was when I was in high school in the late 80's. So it's been about 30 years. I'm grateful I've never had to deal with a school

shooting as a teacher, student, principal or professor. Because of my respiratory bug, I've cancelled a lot of plans this week - the kids and I didn't go caroling on Sunday night, I didn't go caroling with the kids on Wednesday night, we skipped the homeschool Christmas party at the bowling alley on Thursday, didn't go to commencement today, and didn't go to the Christmas service at church last night. Because I didn't go to commencement today it meant Paul was able to go to work, and I was the one who took the kids to the library to make gingerbread houses. The day I really wanted to cancel everything was Tuesday. When I woke up my head hurt so badly I honestly wasn't sure it was safe for me to drive. I took 3 Advil and that did little to ease the pain. I just wanted to stay in bed, but moms don't get sick days. So I did my last student teacher visit (which involved a little more than 90 minutes of driving time round trip), switched to homeschooling the kids when I got home, did some grading for the university, and then took the kids to gymnastics (which is a 3.5 hour total time commitment between driving time and all three kids' classes). That was a very long day for someone who felt as lousy as I did that day.

Yesterday I focused on ordering some things on Shutterfly. It takes time to create a 100+ page photobook! Today I worked on making the calendar and a mug for one of my aunts. Shutterfly didn't give out free shipping codes this year (bummer!), but I traded Coke caps with some people on Facebook to get some other codes so that all I was paying was the shipping. Today I did a reliability/ validity study for the university on three different assessments, and I also finished the last few rubrics for accreditation. I also finished emailing students who were asking me to bump up their grades. Usually this is in the form of students who have earned an A- who are telling me my class is the only one keeping them from earning a 4.0 this semester.

So I think at this point I can turn my attention to non-school related things on my to do list like sewing a tear in my winter coat, upholstering a few dining room chairs, painting the basement floor, etc. By the time May rolls around, I will have been a professor for 12 years total as I taught at another university for 1.5 years before I came to Bloomsburg. That will mean that more than half of my time as an educator will have been spent as a professor as my time as a teacher plus principal totals eleven years. Now if you count my years as a homeschooling mom that will alter the balance, but I am just counting jobs that involve a paycheck. Sometimes I still cannot fathom the notion that Paul and I are trying to homeschool three kids while we both are employed FT. It sounds insane, and sometimes it feels that way to me. Hopefully next semester will be more manageable as I won't be on overload and will only have five student teachers (who are a LOT closer to my home than the ten I had this semester). As much as I love my time teaching (meaning when I am actually in the classroom) at BU, there are still definitely moments when I just want to return to being a SAHM. I am willing to try being PT for one year first.

The first four pictures are of our "dining" room table (really a Lego table). I snapped the fifth picture yesterday when I saw Ian chose to write his sentence for spelling in cursive. He only started to learn cursive the end of August. I think he's doing a great job! The last four pictures are from when my students did a Family Math Night on November 29.