even when you kind of wanted to. Holding my tongue is not always my forte. I try to be diplomatic and compassionate, but I also want to be assertive. I found it a bit galling when I received a personal invitation to an event at a different campus of my college -- one where I applied twice this year for a permanent position and never got an interview. Rather than reaming the dean for not interviewing me (which is what I wanted to do, at least a little bit), I graciously accepted the invitation and mentioned that I might offer my students a few incentive bonus points for attending. (It's a writers' festival with local authors.) That was earlier this week.
This morning as I was scoring essays online, I heard the "ding" of my work email; the only reason I had Outlook open was that I was waiting (and hoping) for news of my contract being ready. Tomorrow will be the seventh week of one class I'm teaching, and Monday will be the fourth week of the other one -- and I don't have a contract yet. So I did what I rarely do: I switched screens to read my work email during scoring. What I saw was very exciting and made me very glad I hadn't been nasty to (or even especially assertive with) the dean who had emailed me earlier in the week. He was offering me a new class -- on the recommendation of the dean for whom I'm already teaching. And did I mention that the offered class in at the campus that's five minutes from my house? Oh, yeah!
Of course I said yes. The class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, days on which I teach now; my current classes are 3:30-5:30; the new one will be 8:30-11:20. It's longer because it meets for only eight weeks. I am ecstatic to have the chance to pick up a class at the closer campus. The way adjunct teaching usually works is once you get your foot in the door -- and if you do a good job -- you're asked to return for more classes. Not only is teaching at this campus more convenient, but also getting this class at least doubles the number of classes I'll be offered in the future. When I emailed a note of appreciation to my current dean, this was his reply: "You are most welcome, Professor [my last name]. You have done well by our students, so I was more than happy to recommend you to [the dean]." That makes me feel pretty good.
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