Last updated on November 26, 2023
Many times since 2010 I have thought my quest for a professorship was over, only to find myself looking through job listing and hoping against hope for the elusive post. Hundreds of applications later, sometimes 70 or more in a year, the impossible quest needs to end.
I finished the doctorate in May 2010 and it is now approaching May 2018. Eight years is a long, long time to be searching for a job in any field.
Along the way, I had three teaching posts, and I had hoped they would become permanent, full-time, tenure-track posts. They didn’t, and that’s the reality faced by many other doctorates. One of the posts was potentially tenure-track, but many factors suggested it wasn’t going to last… and it did not. The other two posts were never permanent.
What I have learned from this experience has more to do with my degree choices than autism or disability. There are simply too many people attending graduate programs in the humanities. My autistic traits never helped, and I was told this blog was a problem for some hiring committees, but if there had been a tighter labor market things might have ended better.
The last, final, end of this journey, but extremely polite, emails were received this week. And, in keeping with my promise to my wife, the higher-education academic job search has concluded.
I might substitute somewhere, someday (K12), but Professor was not meant to be my title.
Tonight, I’m editing another podcast episode and released a half-dozen blog posts. I’ll be updating some old book manuscripts, some plays, and who knows what else. I’m going to take the cameras out for some photo safari days, and I promised the little ones some Art with Daddy days during the summer.
Today I met with two former students at different times, and another emailed me. So, there’s that bit of affirmation that teaching wasn’t so bad — simply not a viable career path.
Now, on to those other things I could have been doing and now will be doing.