I had had a busy weekend, which was probably a good thing. My elder daughter’s soccer team was in provincial finals. Thankfully, the games were held in Edmonton this year, not Calgary. Shuttling her to four games over three days kept my mind off anything to do with the job, my presentation, and everything else. Mostly. (BTW, her team didn’t get a medal this time.)
First thing on my agenda was a breakfast meeting with the Chair of the Department at 8:30 a.m. No problem, right? I left extra early, allowing myself an extra 20 minutes “just in case.” On my way to the University, I heard the traffic reporter on the radio mentioning something about “the Groat Road problem.” Huh? What problem? I knew they closed Groat Road to work on the 102 Avenue bridge overnight, but Groat Road was supposed to be open again. Was it...still closed? Since I was now one block away from Groat Road, this was a pressing concern.
Yup, I could see the taillights of all the vehicles backed up. My mind raced. How else--where else--could I cross the river to get to North Campus? If Groat bridge was still open, I could...maybe...swing through downtown. This was the same idea that hundreds of my fellow Monday-morning commuters had. Argh. I sweated through every centimeter of progress, every minutes that ticked off the clock. I got to my breakfast meeting 15 minutes late, and very stressed out. I gulped my coffee and choked down a muffin.
Next up was my “guest lecture.” This is so that the hiring committee can see for themselves what I do in a classroom and how I do it. Hilariously, I was offered the opportunity to lecture in someone else’s class, if I chose. Naw, I just went ahead and invited people to come to one of my PSYCO 104 classes. I didn’t do much different, although I spiffed my lectures up a bit and made sure to run some clicker questions at the end. Of course, I ran into technical difficulties: one video wouldn’t run so I had to fire it up manually, and then I somehow put the clicker system into numerical mode and couldn’t change it back. Argh! (Just a typical lecture for me, eh?) I don’t think my colleagues learned anything new or interesting about Pavlov, either. (Did you know that he didn’t use a bell at first? He took the metronome from his wife’s piano.)
Next: more meetings--including a lunch meeting with graduate and undergraduate students. It was very instructive to hear their concerns. Unfortunately, I didn’t spend a lot of time eating. By the time my actual interview with the hiring committee was to start, I was exhausted and hypoglycemic. I think that’s why I got a bit emotional, recounting the story of a student who chastised me a few years ago. She missed an exam because her father had died. I told her the procedure to follow, what paperwork she had to fill out, blah blah blah, so that I could transfer the weight of the midterm to her final exam--all stuff that’s in the syllabus. A few weeks later, she approached me at the end of class. She was visibly upset. When I had rattled off all the information, I had neglected to say one important thing: “I’m sorry for your loss.” She told me how disappointed she was in me that I was so unfeeling. Since that time, I have always made an effort to be sympathetic to the situations that students find themselves in.
One more meeting, and then I was able to relax in my office and process a midterm. Yup, that’s right. Instead of going home and pouring myself a nice, stiff drink, I sat in my office and worked on an exam. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as uploading marks to eClass. Of course, I had made an error in coding one question. Of course, I had to go through and manually fix everyone’s mark. THEN I went home a poured myself a nice, stiff drink.
The next day was the wrap-up dinner, with two profs and an undergraduate student. This dinner was originally scheduled for Monday, but had to be moved to Tuesday. (This, after me going through three of the choices given to me, and finding out that none of them were open on Mondays.) I was grateful for the respite, even if it did extend my “interview” by another day. And I got to go to my first choice of restaurant!
It’s a bit strange to go through this process. I’ve had the same job for 15 years, and the interview process back then was a lot less involved. There have been jobs I’ve applied for over the years, but obviously didn’t get. Even though I’ve been kicking around the Department of Psychology for so long, I finally had the opportunity to talk to some people who I’ve never talked to before. It was also intimidating to hear all the things they expect from the new FSO Teaching and Learning.
Well, whatever happens, happens. If I get this new position, my life will change--at lot. If I don’t get it, I’ve still got a great job that I love to do. (Unfortunately, I ended up catching my daughter's cold, which also turned into a sinus infection, bronchitis, and now laryngitis. Stress will do that.)
BTW, if you ever apply for a tenure-track position, here's a great primer from University Affairs.
Why aren’t you studying?
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