#ooc

kinda tired

work has been really stressful this week

Okay. No worries. And I know you were stressed earlier

Wish I could help.

be the universe's storyteller

make it so it doesn't feel like my school is going to eliminate the department

Hard order.

But I'll try in my own way

we're losing a faculty line at end of academic year

he was in his second year of tenure track

can fire without cause in first two years - I'm past that mark, have to be for cause, until I go up for tenure in two years

we were ALREADY losing a faculty line to retirement

and a TT line that was denied tenure was replaced by a non-TT term instructor

so we went from 6 tenured or tenure-track to 2.

I can see why you'd be worried.

Yikes.

Yeah

Tenure is incredibly reassuring, but only to a point.

All you can do is be ready for the worst but hope for the best...

and demand Zara gets a chance to kick ass

This summer, we were incredibly optimistic

then our position requests got denied

now Chris is being eliminated

and the dane degree

dance

only 10 majors, bit 20 minors

we have 60 theater majors, up from 40 three years ago

So tons of adjuncts, but almost no tenured positions.

yup

which seems to be happening in other places in the school, too

provost only approved 16 hires from a list of 90

so

stressed and unhappy here and kind of trying to not have a meltdown

But you are still standing. Still there. For now, you hold fast. You're a bad ass and you will make your stand as long as you can stand. They can not take your awesomeness

What he said. Keep Breathing.

I do know that if I job-hunt and take another position, it would be absolutely devastating - to the dept, to the kids, to the coworkers I'd be leaving

Maybe folks higher up realize that more than you think?

dean & chair keep swearing I'm "safe"

Mm. The thing about the job-hunting? If you do it while you're still early in your tenure, the pay cut you'll have to take by going to a new school will be relatively minimal. If I tried to leave my district now and start as a new teacher in a new district, I'd have to take a cut of over $40,000. We call that the golden handcuffs.

Good term for it

Chair might not know, but dean probably does.

Dean done right by you so far?

Yeah, especially since our raises have been tiny - I'm making about 2k more since I started, and that's because the new contract raised the minimum pay.

the base minima hadn't been touched in 15 years and was the lowest in the state

That might oddly work for you

I'd suggest poking around and sending feelers out for new positions. I'd even apply to places that haven't posted yet -- they'll probably be making new hire decisions over the summer, so your resume would already be on file. So you could finish out the year before moving on.

yeah. there's an ad for near here

it is not as cushy a position - no support staff, I would be designing AND building

argh

sorry