Not Making the Cut
by Shari Dinkins
For months I was afraid. I had sent in my application materials to the campus and now I waited. And waited. And waited. Truth was I was in love with that campus. I had worked there for three, almost four years. I had worked on committees. Two of them. Sitting in meetings, with full-timers and other part-timers, we tried to patch up curriculum and see how the courses fit together. Meetings, phone calls, drafting documents—on my own unpaid time.
I had read the job announcement carefully, and put my materials together on a Saturday afternoon—a time when most of my friends were picnicking, playing with their dogs, painting their houses. I had sat and written answers to supplemental questions. Finally I put everything into an envelope, stamped it with “first class” and put six ounces of postage on it. The next day, the application was gone, off to the human resources department.
I received the letter today in my post office box. A simple, flat folded note from the campus, informing me that I had not been selected for interview at the campus where I had invested almost four years of my career.
I had known this somehow; I had known I had not made the cut. Weeks ago, I had asked colleagues, “Hey, do you know if they’ve set up interviews yet?” Confused, concerned stares, no definite answers. Finally, a fresh-faced colleague had said, “I’m so excited.” Yes, this 32-year-old adjunct, with seven years teaching part-time and a doctorate, had scored an interview. I told her I was excited for her. I meant it. As I drove home that day, I felt the drop in my belly. I knew I was not among the chosen few.
In a long-winded conversation about 156 applicants and qualifications, the Head of my department apologized. I walked away, my attaché tugging at my right shoulder. As I swung it into the trunk of my car, I wondered—if I were autopsied that day, would the pathologist figure that I had been a teacher? The pink-hard flesh on the backs of my ankles from discount twenty-one dollar leather flats. The broken down muscles of my right shoulder and shoulder blade; the stress on my back from carrying forty pounds every day. The chalky residue on my right hand—even the dust of it on my clothes. Unmistakable. A teacher.
The next day, my colleague, the fresh-faced 32-year old, asked if I could do some extra work on a committee. I took a breath, but I already knew what I would answer. “Oh, I wish I could, but I’m so overloaded right now—” I said, glancing at her sweet face, “got sixty papers of my own to grade.” Walking down the hallway to my office, I thought of the hours invested there. Unpaid hours. Time spent working with students long after my office hour was done. I realize that I have been married to this job. I have been in love with this campus.
No more.
Yes, I will work there. I will teach my classes; I will give the students my time and attention. I will work on one committee; but I will no longer invest my heart. The day my colleague excitedly confessed to her upcoming interview, I went home and cried. Four friends heard about my disappointment.
One couldn’t control her emotion, “You’re kidding! They’re not even going to interview you?”
It was amazing how this one bit of news could affect me so deeply. I felt abandoned. Unimportant. The next day I applied to six out-of-state teaching jobs. It’s true, I had leisurely applied to the ones that had sounded most interesting, but now I more than doubled my efforts. Frustrated, I cranked out a few applications a day during the next week. Stacks of student papers awaited my attention. I started to gauge my attention, to weigh my efforts. Every day I checked sites on-line—The Chronicle of Higher Education was a favorite bookmark. I started to check individual Web sites of community colleges in the Northwest.
It’s a strange freedom, somehow, not being so engaged. I spread my time around more equitably. A few hours on this campus, a few hours on that. Maybe I am a better teacher; I’m not sure. I am getting down to the business at hand: teaching. The application season is almost over; applications and expectations will take a back seat until next spring.
