TENURED!

I wasn't on campus yesterday, but evidently if I had been I would have received a letter from the President stating that I had earned tenure. I say this because last night I received an email from the Dean congratulating me on earning tenure. :-) I was fully expecting this result ever since I started the application process last fall, but still it's really nice knowing it's now official! I've actually only been here for 4 years, but I was allowed to count one year of my time at Kutztown towards my probationary period. Since my experience from 1992-2002 was all in private schools who don't give tenure, this is actually my first time ever earning tenure. There's no pay raise involved with tenure; it just means I don't have to be evaluated so often (the past 5 years I've had to do student evaluations in every class, an evaluation by my dept chair once a year, and peer evaluations twice a semester), and I don't have to submit another performance review for 5 years (whereas I've done 6 since 2003). It also means my job is very secure - maybe too secure. I say that because people joke that unless you commit murder you can't be fired. I think that's tenure gone too far!

Yesterday I finished grading those projects I had been grading for 8 days. What a relief! I also graded 16 of the exams from Tuesday night which means I've now graded 83 exams this week. This morning I have a meeting at a school district at 8:30 and then am giving my last final exam for the semester at 10:30. Including the exams that will be taken then, I have 36 left to grade. I really feel I can grade those today. I also hope to grade the projects and exams from a grad student who was taking 9 credits of independent study coursework with me. She sent me most of her work over the past week. Once I grade her work, I will be done grading (at least until the summer class starts in 11 days, LOL). I have to admit grading papers is not my favorite part of my job, but I must say I am also very grateful that I have a Graduate Assistant who helps me with grading so I usually don't do it all on my own (although I have been on my own last week and this week).

Paul turned in his paper yesterday, and his grade for Inorganic (in which he had his final exam on Monday) was already posted (another A for my dh). He also scheduled his comprehensive exam with his advisor yesterday (last week of May). Now he needs to start writing his thesis! I was thinking about his PhD applications, and we never heard one way or the other from Duquesne or Carnegie Mellon. I guess some schools only send acceptance letters and not also rejection letters? I am proud of him though that he was accepted at 4 of the 6 places he applied! The other ironic thing is that of the 6 schools, the 2 that are ranked the lowest nationally (as in not even in the top 100) are Duquesne and Lehigh. I think it's rather odd that he would be accepted at schools ranked rather high on the list (Pitt and PSU for example) and not accepted by those not even ON the list. PSU was our first choice; so we are just very grateful that he was accepted there. Now if we could only have someone make an offer on our house so we could move somewhat closer!

I think that the iron supplements must be raising my iron level as I have definitely noticed an improvement in my energy level the last few days. The bloodwork which showed I was anemic was drawn on 3/31, and I wasn't told about the anemia until 4/28. I wish they had told me sooner. I now am only needing 8 hours of sleep at night and haven't had a nap in a few days either. Better late than never I guess! Only 5 more days til we get to see our little sweetheart again! Yesterday she was quite the little gymnast. It felt like she was moving nonstop All Day Long. She's definitely positioned parallel with my spine. As of tomorrow, I'll be officially 3/4 of the way through this pgcy! I hope the last few weeks just fly right by!