good news on the job front
It’s Plan E for 2008-09!
After about ten first-round interviews, during my last day on campus at Washburn, I received – and accepted – a telephone offer for a one-year visiting professorship at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin. The university needed someone who can teach both U.S. and Asian history. Based on other applications that netted interviews, it seems that this combination may be my niche. Besides getting “real” pay for teaching next year, I will have better-than-average chance in the competition for a tenure-track version of the same position for the following year. I will be teaching two sections of the first half of the US history survey, one section of Asian Civilization, and one section of the first third of Western Civilization. I am looking forward to them all, although I took on the early Western Civ course mainly to be as helpful as possible in meeting departmental needs.
The further good news is that Terry’s employer has agreed to let her work from home. We’ve rented a house in Joplin near the university, and we will move at the end of July. Joplin seems to be a good place to live. We’ve even found a great older neighborhood in which we would likely live if I get invited to stay. The only two problems are LOTS of regional passing-through traffic and too many tornados. – Norty