I always wanted to be a college professor. In my child’s mind, I thought teachers were the smartest people on earth. Logically, college professors were the smartest teachers, and therefore, must have answers to the most important questions, such as life’s meaning and who makes the best soft-serve ice cream.
Unfortunately, I came from an era and locale where education for women was seen as unnecessary and undesirable after high school.
Like the Dixie Chicks song, I ended up taking the long way around to earning my doctorate. I was, by then, 45, married and in the throes of raising 3 sons. My husband and I built a successful business and there was no chance we could move for my career. But it was the thought that counts. I loved the process. I had, in truth, learned much about making meaning in life, if not the answer to the soft-serve conundrum. I had achieved, in large part, a childhood dream. What I did not know, what we never discussed in any course work, was the Tenure Trap.
Not long after I was awarded my degree, I was asked to adjunct for a semester. I had vacation plans the college could work around. Perfect scenario. Eventually, and I am fuzzy on the details, my position morphed into full-time, but not tenure-track.
With the naivety of Boxer, the loyal, dedicated harness horse of Animal Farm, I worked hard, earned good student evaluations, was collegial, served my institution, researched and published beyond expectations. Something, if not tenure, resembling job security and faculty equity surely would be awarded.
Fast forward 10 years. I still love students and teaching but have developed learned helplessness — the psychological condition where the individual comes to believe no personal action will effect change. Theoretically, if after endless faculty evaluations and one-year contracts, I have managed to stay employed, I must be an extraordinary employee and teacher. But, as it turns out, in a catch-22 logic trap, my persistence in an unalterable environment provides evidence administrators could do better, if a TT line opened, (which it won’t because I am doing the job for less), by conducting a national search, in which, I have been told, I could not compete.
Perhaps I have Stockholm syndrome.
