Saturday, July 10, 2010

Yeah, they still want me

So you may remember that just a year ago I had an interview at a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere. The interview I had there went, I thought, very well, but alas I did not get the job. I was somewhat bitter about it for a while, and while Laurie and Rick were here, the topic of the school came up. Not thirty minutes after we were talking about the school, I received an email from them.

Apparently one of their faculty members is not returning in the fall and they offered me a visiting professor position for the upcoming year. He also said that while this was not a tenure-track position, they would have a search next year and he implied that I would have a good shot at it. Luckily I got to tell them that I had a job at a school in a real city (of course I didn't say it that way).

What a great feeling this was because of several things. First, I got to reject them this time. Secondly, it means that I wasn't imagining things last year and the interview did go really well, well enough that sixteen months after the fact, they thought of me as an excellent choice to be able to hire me on the spot.

After I told him no, I also mentioned I thought of the school because we're driving right through the tiny town next week, and he said I should stop by for lunch. Of course he was just being polite, and there is no way I would, but in the end, a very uplifting moment.

by Topher at 10:37 PM |