Seven Years!

This month's post is a personal one, as today my husband Wade and I are celebrating seven years of marriage! As I said in my last post, this summer has been tough, and there isn't really any part of it that has gone to plan. In addition to the difficulties mentioned, I also had to cancel a trip to Denver for a girl cousin's weekend because I hadn't recovered enough from my gallbladder surgery to make the trip. All that being said, I'm excited to celebrate this milestone in my marriage and reflect a little over the past several years, specifically on our amazing wedding weekend. Get ready for lots of photos and a walk down memory lane! 

Engagement photo by Michael Anderson & invite design by Jerry Scheller

Wade and I met for the first time in the fall of 2001 at a youth group meeting. I was wearing a black, pleather jacket and Wade was wearing a red, Adidas sweatshirt. Our middle school selves were not super impressed with the other. We were in the same class of 30 students starting our freshman year of high school, and we actually became friends through a mutual friend group in the fall of 2004, our sophomore year. The beginning of our dating relationship started about a year later when Wade asked me to be his date for our junior year homecoming in November of 2005. He officially asked me to be his girlfriend on January 2nd, 2006. Aside from one short break, we dated throughout high school at Abundant Life Christian School and college at Olivet Nazarene University, and he proposed to me the spring semester of our senior year of college on February 11th, 2011. We had been dating just over five years at that point, and then just over five months later (about ten years after we met), we were married!

Our first homecoming, first date as a couple, and engagement were all documented in my parents' front living room:

Homecoming 2005

First Date 2006

Engagement 2011

As this is our seventh wedding anniversary; though, I want to recap and remember our amazing wedding weekend! For almost the entire summer prior to our wedding Wade was in Washington for his LDAC training. That meant that not only could we not see each other for about six weeks prior to getting married, but we also couldn't talk on the phone, text, or email, either. We did send letters through the mail to one another, updating each other on our daily lives and details leading up to the wedding. In some ways it was sweet and old fashioned feeling, but in many ways it was quite difficult to be apart through that time period. The good news, though, is that he got home in time to get his suit tailored, choose our vows, and prepare for the weekend!

We chose to get married on a Friday night, and I wanted the wedding to have an "Old Time Madison" feel. I wanted black satin dresses, butler passed hors d'oeuvres, and a night of dancing. I think we and our 175 guests enjoyed all of that and more! Because of Wade's summer schedule, when we were getting married, and the fact that many family and friends came in from out of town, we decided to make a whole weekend out of our nuptials. Here's our wedding weekend! 

To make you feel a bit more like you were there, check out this playlist of songs played at our ceremony and reception. 

We began the festivities on Wednesday, August 3rd with all day bachelor/ bachelorette parties. The bachelor party actually lasted overnight as they ate, hung out, and camped at Lake Wisconsin together. My bachelorette party was thrown by my sister and a dear friend, and we had a phenomenal day. We got our nails done at 007 Nails, took a Betty Lou dinner boat cruise, had desserts and opened lingerie gifts at Brocach Irish Pub, did karaoke in a private room, then hung out downtown. It was so much fun!

The day following the parties was the day of the rehearsal. We spent the day preparing wedding favors and other details, and then we rehearsed and lived it up that night! We rehearsed the wedding ceremony at Ridgeway Church (then called Bethesda), then Wade's parents threw an awesome luau party in my parents' backyard. The luau was complete with tiki torches, leis, and a full Hawaiian spread. They hosted about 50 people at the rehearsal dinner, and it was a wonderful night. 

The next day, of course, was the wedding day!! Friday, August 5th, 2011 dawned bright, clear, and hot. Our wedding started at 6:00 PM, so we had the day to sleep in a little, get ready, and take photos with our bridal party. Before photos, Wade and I met in the sanctuary of the church for a private first look. It was just us and our wedding photographer, Lukas Keapproth. I walked up behind Wade, he turned around and saw me in my dress for the first time, and we hugged. It was the only moment in the whole day when I cried, and it was my very favorite.

Wade and I each had eight members of the bridal party on stage with us in the ceremony. In addition, we had two ushers, two bridal attendants, a flower girl, and a ring bearer. Our total party of 22 was big, but we wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Coordinated by our amazing wedding coordinator, Conni, we had the ceremony at Bethesda, then we hosted the reception at the Madison Club, the perfect venue for the theme and feel we wanted for our day. We laughed, we toasted, we ate, and we danced-- our first dance was to "Hold On" by Michael Buble. That day will forever be one of my very favorite days. Enjoy these photos from Red Wave Weddings that expertly captured some of the most special details and moments. 

The day honestly went perfectly. Though we were a bit disappointed that we didn't do a receiving line so we missed getting to say hello some guests, there is almost nothing about our wedding day that I would change. It was sweet and special and so much fun.

Both of our parents hosted a brunch for our friends and family the next morning, Saturday, August 6th, at Lake View Bakery & Deli connected to Hotel Ruby Marie where we and many of the guests stayed the night before. We opened our presents, and it was great to have the chance to spend more time with some of our guests. This was our final wedding weekend event, and it was a wonderful culmination to the festivities. We enjoyed every moment of our wedding weekend-- so much so that I want to reminisce all about it seven years later! 

We spent the next week on our honeymoon in Panama City Beach, FL enjoying the second half of our fifth year together and the beginning of our forever. 

In our seven years married, Wade and I have adopted two dogs, lived in three different states, five different houses, traveled to five different countries, and worked at least eight different jobs. To summarize a very wise (& handsome) contestant on the Bachelorette, it's not the falling in love but the staying in love that is truly the best part of life. I'm glad that 17 years ago I found someone that I could fall and stay in love with... even if I had no idea then. 

In our vows we promised this to each other: "I take you to be mine, secure in the knowledge that you will be my constant friend, my faithful partner in life, and my one true love. On this day, I affirm to you in the presence of God and these witnesses my promise to stay by your side in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, as well as through the good times and bad. I promise to love you without reservation, comfort you in times of distress, encourage you to achieve your goals, laugh with you and cry with you, grow with you in mind and spirit, always be open and honest with you, and cherish you for as long as we both shall live."

Seven years later, I'm so glad to attest that every word was true.  

Thailand, Briefly

While the end of the spring 2018 semester was smooth sailing, the summer of 2018 has started out on some rocky waters. Most recently, I had an unexpected gallbladder removal surgery and am now working towards recovery. Previously, I spent a good portion of time in between the end of the semester and the beginning of June preparing to head to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand. I got my long, linen pants, bug repellent, and airplane pillow all set to go. On May, 31st, 2018 I flew from the Chicago O'Hare Airport to the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. We landed there on June 2nd, somehow losing a day in transit. I was the co-leader of the team with Dr. Kristy Ingram from Olivet Nazarene University, and we had a team of 14 students. Twelve students were from Olivet, and two students joined us from two different universities in Michigan.

Unfortunately, for me, the trip ended fairly quickly as some unexpectedly difficult circumstances arose with my husband's family, and I felt like I needed to come home to support him and his family. I was so disappointed and really sad to leave the team in Thailand, but Kristy and I both felt that I needed to be at home. I left Thailand on June 5th, and then miraculously, landed back in O'Hare just 12 hours later-- on June 5th. Timing in travel is so interesting.

While my time in Thailand was very short-- a total of about three days-- I do feel like I got a taste of the vibrant, dynamic city of Bangkok. Bangkok is the capital city in the Kingdom of Thailand, and in 2018 there are close to 10 million people who live there. Also, in 2017 it was listed as the most visited city in the world, with Business Insider citing an estimate of 20.2 million international visitors. It was colorful, noisy, crowded, inviting, diverse, and welcoming. Some of the students on the team had never traveled outside of the United States prior to this trip, but I know for all of us, the arrival into this bustling hub was a bit overwhelming. I didn't get a chance to go to Chiang Mai with the team, but I hear that that has a pretty different feel than the hustling city of Bangkok. 

Though I only spent three days in the country, I did get to experience some pretty special things. Namely, I got to tour, I got to eat, and I got the chance to help support the team. 

TOUR

While in Bangkok, we stayed at the Bangkok Christian Guest House. The staff was very welcoming, and the guest house was large and well cared for. It was also a convenient hub from which to go out and visit the city. With the guest house as our base, we had the opportunity to tour the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok, the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Exhibition, and the grounds of the Grand Palace. Of those three tours, I enjoyed the market the most. It was loud, colorful, and busy. We spent the day wandering the aisles of goods and testing a lot of delicious delicacies (more on that in the next section).




One note about our day at the market, and really every moment in Thailand, was that it was hot. And this kind of heat is no joke. I lived in the dry hot of the Arizona desert for two years, and I've grown up in the humid hot of midwestern summers, but the combination of those two kinds of heat was not for the faint of heart. The almost suffocating inhales of air that seemed to almost immediately transform to a layer of water dripping down my back was a lot to take. We had a six hour day at the market, and there was very little relief from the day. At one point I asked one of the students if she wanted to get a foot massage done at one of the many stands advertising. We sat down in a small stall with a large plastic sheet separating the six seats from the main mall, and the air conditioner blew down on us. It was lovely, and a welcome respite from the heat outside.


The Grand Palace area was also, just that, very grand. After touring the memorial exhibition we had received a lot of information about Thai culture, religion, government, and even architecture. That made walking around the palace area interesting and gave some good context to what we were seeing, even as the grand buildings stood tall above us. The Thai people greatly venerate their king, as they see him as a dynasty in the line of the gods. Their practice of removing shoes before entering any sacred place shows their devotion and respect for these spaces. These buildings are also set against the large, long skyline of Bangkok in an accurate representation of the way that the old and new, traditional and modern, and quaint and vast seemingly coexist simultaneously in this city, at once inviting the visitor to stand in awe and to feel at home in this vibrant place.

EAT

Another thing that I got to do in Thailand was eat. And as I said on my Instagram, when I say eat, I really mean consume rice and fruit. Before I left, a friend who had visited Thailand told me to be prepared to eat a lot of rice. I figured I do eat rice pretty regularly, but I really had no idea. When she meant eat rice, she meant at every.single.meal. Luckily, I really like rice, and it was paired with a lot of delicious sauces and sides. In addition, my cousins kept telling me about all of the delicious, ripe, varying fruit. I had visited Burkina Faso, Africa in May of 2010, and I still remember the taste of the fresh, sweet mango. I was so looking forward to tasting the fruit in Bangkok, and I was not disappointed.


Many of the students had never tasted a lot of the food that we were presented with and many of the fruits were new to me as well! We tried durian, which can be horrendous, but we caught it right in the ripe season, and it was soft, sweet, and light in taste and texture. The Thai people call it the King of Fruit. Paired with this fruit, we then tried the Queen of Fruit, and I loved it. It has a thick, deep purple shell, but the fruit inside is white, and it is both sweet and tangy, and so lovely. Really good. We also tried rambutan, which has a beautiful, pink, spiky shell. It is almost as much fun to look at as it was to eat. Then, of course, we ate lots of delicious mango, and I was in no way disappointed. Fresh mango eaten in tropical climates is one of my all time favorite foods/ eating experiences. I had it fresh, with sticky rice, in smoothies, in candy, pretty much anyway I could consume it. I probably ate at least a mango a day, and in reality probably more, during my short stint there. Other than maybe fresh Anago sashimi, I don't know that there is any better food in the world.

The students were brave in their eating! They tried the fruit, octopus legs, and all the various rice dishes placed in front of us. We ate at the guest house, at the market under tents in the pouring rain, in a long entry way at a church, and at street side stands on plastic tables and chairs. The food was as much about the kindness and welcoming nature of the people and places where we ate than the food itself. At the street side stand dinner, we were hot and tired, and I waited probably close to an hour to eat. I was ready to just head back and go to bed, but then a plate of Pad Thai was placed in front of me, and oh, man, I devoured the whole thing. I don't know why it came as such a surprise to me that Pad Thai would be so delicious in Thailand, but I loved it. It was sweet, spicy, peanuty, soft, and fragrant at the same time. At the church, we had rice and fruit with a delicious, spicy shrimp sauce. The community had come together to cook us a meal and welcome us to their church. Their kindness and willingness to serve us was so appreciated. 

SUPPORT

The reason that this team of 16 left our homes and flew 24 hours (not quite, but ya know) around the world was to offer support to the missionaries and staff in Thailand. The life that these people live is one of service and sacrifice. Kristy and I were very clear with the team prior to leaving that we were not going to this place to go on vacation, or even to help the Thai people for a week or two and then peace out. Our goal in this trip was to be a support and a hope to the people who are working day in and day out to better the lives of those around them. The fact that we got to interact and be invited into these spaces to get to know these Thai people was really wonderful, but it wasn't our goal. We were both so conscious, as is MIA at Olivet, of the damage of "voluntourism" trips can have on spaces and people groups that they often intend to help. Instead, we went to Bangkok and then the team continued on to ask those who minister in these contexts everyday what we could do to help them. That meant bringing a lot of supplies from the United States, being ready to step up at a minutes notice to lead a service or group, or to simply offer a word of encouragement for the work they were doing.

The team stepped up to do this. While I was there, I got the opportunity to help lead them in preparing for a church service. Four students readily volunteered to share their testimonies, and then as a team we prepared and sang a worship song in service. The students were ready to jump into these roles and honor the people of the church through their service. Once I left, the team went to the Maetang Tribal Children's Home and served there for a week. They cleaned, painted a mural, played with the kids, and led a game night with the community. I know it was very hot and probably often uncomfortable, but they did this work with gratitude for the opportunity to be there.

Even from the United States, I was so proud of them and the work they were doing there. I was sad, of course, to not be a part, but I too felt honored to have had the opportunity to get to know these students, travel with this team, and support the work and effort they were making. I gave the students beaded bracelets before we left, as as symbol of the unity of our team and a reminder of our mission to be a support to the team members were were joining in Thailand. I was especially glad to have my bracelet once I returned home. I kept wearing it, and it helped me to keep the team in my heart and my mind and to feel a little less far away from them. There were a lot of different personalities on team. We learned that by doing the Hartman Color Code Personality Test before we left. On the team we had six blues, four whites, three yellows, and three reds. I made these color coded candy bags for them before we left to remind them that even though we are all very different, we each have value to add and a story to tell. I hope they remembered that throughout the trip and now as they are home.

The last month has been rocky, as I said, and more than ever I have begun to understand that life is short. It really is. We don't know what is coming next or what obstacles or hurdles we will need to face, but as I encouraged the students, approaching any and every situation with gratitude and an attitude of giving is one of the best ways to cope. Instead of asking, "why is this happening to me?" we can learn to ask, "how can I give of myself in this situation?" An attitude of gratitude for the little things and then one of giving of oneself or resources is so important. I learned that through my brother-in-law's life. I learned that through my time with team in Thailand. I hope I keep learning it my whole life.

The Market, Part Three

Yay! It's part three of my posts about my experience on the job market. In Part One I discussed the realities of the academic job market in the humanities. In Part Two I discussed more specifics: the job sites I used, the types of positions I applied for, and the materials I used in my application. In this third part, I am going to talk about my specific search-- my application tracking processes and the three takeaways that I've grasped onto.

In the second half of this post I summarize my spring semester at Madison College.

Job Market Discussion

One of the smartest things that my friend and job market guru Dr. Kat O'Meara told me at the beginning of this process was to record everything. And so I did. The two documents that I used to keep track of my job applications were a Google Spreadsheet and a Pinterest board. These two trackers kept my information organized and also gave me visuals of the places that I applied, which I liked.

The job market spreadsheet was something that I went to back to time and time again. I color-coded the spreadsheet so that I could see, at a glance, where I was at with each application. On the spreadsheet I tracked details like, where the schools are, what they required in the applications, and most importantly, when I needed to submit the applications. In the fall of 2017, I applied to 21 schools and had a total of five interviews. The amount of interviews to jobs that I applied for may seem small, but I was actually very happy to get the interviews that I did, and I do feel like they were all good experiences. On the MLA JIL site that I discussed in the previous job market post, there were roughly 300 jobs posted this year. I would assume that probably at least 50 of them I was not eligible to apply for. So, as a very rough estimate, I applied to about 8% of the available jobs. I will discuss more about how I chose the jobs to apply for below. 

The Pinterest board served much less of a practical purpose, but I used it almost like the closing of the application. Once everything was submitted for a particular job application, I would pin the website of the school to board and try to find a pretty picture to represent it. That simple practice took me away from the minute and worrisome details of the application process and gave me something to celebrate-- another job done and added to the board! Even now, I like to go back to the board and take a look over the images collected and remember the effort put into the search. 

At the end of the process, just for fun, I also mapped out the places that I had applied to geographically. It is interesting for me to see the different places (literally) that my life could have gone based on these applications: 

As I reflect back on this process and remember the highs and lows of the experience, there are three characteristics that I think are worth making note of to hold onto during trying processes like these: 

1. Individuality: This item is both a strength and a weakness. One way that I think individuality must be valued is that each person must do what is right for them. I've heard of all sorts of stories of people on the job market. I've heard of people applying for one job and getting it! I've heard of people applying for 70, 80, 100 jobs to receive one or two offers. I've heard of people applying for maybe, three or four jobs, and getting offers from all four. There is no right or wrong way to apply for jobs; the job market must be approached based on the way that each person feels is appropriate. For me, my husband and I chose places that were either close to home or places to which we wouldn't mind moving. That eliminated some portions of the country just on that standard alone. In addition, I didn't apply for any jobs that I didn't think I would like. This may have been a mistake, but I felt like I needed to be comfortable with knowing I could do the job described in the ad in order to apply. 

On the negative side, individuality can also mean that a person becomes quite self-consumed. For a period of time, all I thought about was how to market myself in the best way possible, and that can be quite self-consuming. I just knew that once my applications were in I had to shake off that mindset. 

2. Tenacity: This is probably not a surprise to anyone, but this process was tiring. From the months of August to December 2016 I was, I felt like, constantly researching, writing, editing, or submitting applications. I don't think there were two applications that were the same. That meant that for every single application I had to research the job ad, the school, and the department and adjust all my materials accordingly. Though, I did spend more time on this process for some schools than for others. There is no one application to submit, and the constant changing was wearing. 

In addition, this process can be draining self-esteem wise. Like I said above, this is a very self-consuming act where a person tries to position themselves as the best version of themselves on a few sheets of paper. Because of that, this process can take a good hit on a person's self-esteem. While the job site wiki is helpful, as are job market groups like one I joined on Facebook, it can be disheartening seeing other people get a lot of interviews or jobs get taken that I may have really wanted. For me, sometimes seeing those things made me less motivated to work on my materials and get stuff out. Often I had to grit my teeth, push through, and just summon the tenacity to get it done. 

3. Perspective: The last item that was worth noting through this process was that of perspective. I've alluded to this point in the previous two, but I feel like it was very easy to get swept up into this world of "what will happen" and "where will we live" and "what if this is all for nothing." Even getting interviews was nerve wracking, as I'd research the school, try to brainstorm questions that they might ask me, prepare an outfit, and make sure my technology was working properly. There was a lot of energy put towards these steps, and it was easy to get lost in that. I'm grateful that I have my husband, dogs, and supportive community to help me take moments to enjoy the everyday, but I would say that during the fall semester the job market applications were never far from my mind. Keeping perspective is really important. Getting or not getting a job didn't mean that I succeeded or failed. Sending out just one more application didn't mean that I was any better or worse of a person. It was important to keep that perspective. 

This articulation of these three characteristics brought to mind one of my all time favorite quotes, which I may have shared before, from author J.K. Rowling in her book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This is the attitude that both myself and my husband tried to exhibit throughout all the work and stress and unknowns and possibilities of the job search, and I think it's what got me through: 

Semester Discussion

On that note, I'd like to wrap up this post by giving an overview of my past semester at Madison College. I taught a 7:00 AM Technical Reporting class to five engineering students, and I taught an 8:30 AM English 2 class. I also worked about 10 hours/week through the Madison College Writing Center, in person at two different campuses and online. I enjoyed my time in each capacity of this past semester. 

My time in the Writing Center was rewarding in ways that teaching isn't always rewarding. I felt like in that time I was able to give students concrete feedback on a draft or an idea and then turn them loose to take that feedback or not. During that time, I was invested in the students and in helping them succeed, but I didn't have the added responsibility of ensuring that the changes or updates were implemented. I enjoyed that portion of the work, as well getting to interact with a variety of students and colleagues and get to see some pretty cool assignment prompts.

My Technical Reporting class was great. I was concerned prior to the semester about having a class at 7:00 AM, especially one with so few students; however, the class couldn't have been better. Four of the students were peers in the same program, and the fifth student was also a science/ engineering student, so I was glad that they had some commonalities. We worked through four projects throughout the semester. The two main projects were a research report and a proposal. Two of the students liked the report best, and one liked the proposal best. We also did presentations for the proposals, which was the other two students' favorite project of the course. The students commented on learning about the intricacy of professional documents, and they also talked about learning how to differentiate between informative and persuasive communication styles. I enjoyed working with these students this semester. 

The English 2 class was the portion of the semester that was the most surprising. I've taught English 2 at three different institutions before teaching it at Madison College this semester, but I used a different course sequence than I ever had previously, and my students responded really positively to it. I still had the students complete five projects, but instead of having the projects connect via a theme or a text, the projects all built upon each other. In the end, the students wrote manuscripts for academic journals based on research both about the journals and the topic of their choice. Over half the class said they liked this project best, and over one third of the class said it was the most informative project. 

The final compositions showed the students interest in the project as well. The research, formatting, depth of knowledge, and personal engagement that the students showed was really exceptional. I was also genuinely interested in reading almost all of the manuscripts, which again points to the time and effort the students put into writing them. I read about the "Pacific Garbage Patch," the plight of sharks around the world, Middle Eastern architecture, and sexism in America, to name just a few topics.

Throughout the course we read the textbook Habits of the Creative Mind, which I really liked. Towards the the end of the class we watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TEDTalk, "Your Elusive Genius," and I asked the students: what does creativity look like or mean to you? The students came up with these answers, and I was glad to see them stretching themselves and thinking about the content that we had been discussing: 

So, at the end of all this, I'll leave you with this same question: What does creativity mean to you? May it take you wonderful places. 

What a difference...

... a year makes!

Today, I am reflecting on the difference that one year has made. My husband, dogs, and I are still planted in Madison, WI and loving our sweet ranch house. But a lot of other things have changed!

Last year, on May 7th, 2017, I was preparing to graduate. I graduated from Arizona State University with my Ph.D. in English: Writing, Rhetorics, and Literacies on May 8th, 2017!

My husband sent me this photo montage from Google Photos this morning.

It was a warm Monday in Tempe, and my parents, sister, and husband were with me in Wells Fargo Arena. They cheered me on when Dr. Maureen Goggin hooded me, when my name was called, and when I shook President Michael Crow's hand on stage. That night we went to dinner with two ONU (and now AZ) friends at Cibo Urban Pizzeria in downtown Phoenix to celebrate. Graduating with my doctorate was a great feeling, and the support from my community near and far made it that much better!

Today, on May 7th, 2018, I finished my final semester as an adjunct English instructor at Madison College. I finished by teaching my last 7:00AM Technical Reporting class and working as a professional tutor in the Writing Center.

Photo taken from the Madison College Instagram account @madisoncollege

I will write a recap about my last semester at Madison College in my next post along with my third and final installment of my job market posts. The really exciting news, though, is why this is my last semester at Madison College. The reason is...

I have accepted a job as an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English at Olivet Nazarene University! 

The name of this school might sound familiar, and that's because it is! Olivet is my undergraduate alma mater, and I graduated from there on May 7th, 2011-- exactly seven years ago today. I will join the English faculty there in August of this year, and I'm really excited about this opportunity! The English department is housed in the Burke Administration building with a climb to the fourth floor that I am well familiar with! I will be commuting from Madison to Bourbonnais, IL for the week and then making the reverse trip for the weekend. I'm looking forward to spending time on campus as a faculty member and bringing the foundation of knowledge that I built at Olivet along with the knowledge and experience that I've gained since I've left back to the campus with me!

I will plan to update my blog on the fifth of each month throughout the summer and this next semester to detail my experiences. Please enter your email address on the left hand side of the page to subscribe! I look forward to writing about the opportunity and the new challenge of working at ONU!

Photo of campus from the Olivet Nazarene University website

The Market, Part Two

In February, I published the first in an intended series of three blogs about my experience on the academic job market. In that post, I discussed my journey through graduate school, and I outlined the general tiers of academic institutions. In this post, I will discuss the rankings of paid academic positions, and then provide templates for my own materials that I used on the job market. Again, I in no way claim to be an expert in these matters, and I explicitly say that not to devalue my own experience but to qualify it as just that-- experience. In many ways, the academic life can be somewhat bipolar in that it asks professors and students to choose areas of research and scholarship that interest them, but it also, often, pushes away personal time, agency, and care. I believe that scholars must and should work to claim and exercise their own agency through this journey, and that is grounded in experience.

So, this is my experience on the academic job market.

Academic jobs in English, rhetoric, and writing come out one time a year, and they mostly come out on one list. This is so opposite of what normal people experience in the job market, but it's the reality of our field (and, I believe, many other academic fields). This list is called the Modern Language Association of America Job Information List, or the MLA JIL. This list is published in mid-September, and it contains the majority of the job postings in the entire field for the upcoming (read one year away) academic year. Now, there are some pre-JIL postings that sometime come out prior to this date, and those are usually on individual listserves or on the Rhetoric/Composition Wiki. Jobs are also continuously posted on HigherEdJobs and ChronicleVitae. One other place where job ads are aggregated is on Rhet Map, which draws the adds from the MLA JIL and shows them according to location. Jim Ridolfo puts this together, and it is a great service to job seekers.

I used all of these resources to search for job postings. From about mid-August to mid-December I looked at one or more of these lists probably at least four days a week. The Rhet/Comp Wiki is especially helpful/problematic to check because it can be updated by community members who log on and update the individual adds with the status of their applications/ interviews, etc. To the right is one example of a post on the site from my alma mater, ASU.

These job lists come out and they list a variety of items that you can also see in this example. Items like, the title of the position, the focus of the position, a description of what the ideal candidate will focus on and/or do, the deadline for submission of materials, and sometimes (not in this case) a list of materials that the committee would like to see from the candidate. To find that information for this position the candidate would have to click on the actual link where the job is posted, in this case ChronicleVitae, in order to see what materials they need to submit for the job. I will discuss those materials coming up.

One of the most important items that these job ads list are the title of the position. In this case, the title of the position is "TT Asst. Professor." What that means is this position is listed for as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor position. Here is a list of the different kinds of teaching positions that one will generally encounter at American institutions of higher education:

Now, there are, of course, exceptions to these rankings, contract, and promotion systems, which I why I labeled them all starting with "generally." While adjuncting is by far the most tenuous and underpaid type of professorship, some institutions, like Madison College, have built in pay advancement systems. One of the main issues with being an adjunct, though, is that one only gets work if there are classes available that full time professors don't want or need. Instructors or lecturers still generally teach very heavy course loads (as many as 5/5), but their contracts are usually yearly, so there is a bit more stability; some of these positions also have internal ranking and promotion systems. Assistant, Associate, and Full professorships are the types of professorships that are most generally known to the public and considered "tenure track," although there are exceptions to this system as well. An Assistant Professor, despite the name, is a full-time professor who is part of whatever type of promotion system (tenure or non) that the institution uses. In a tenure-track system, by the time one is an Associate Professor and almost always by the time/ as one becomes a Full Professor, they are tenured and no longer tenure track.

Clicking over to Facebook just after writing the proceeding paragraph, I see that Dr. Karen Kelsky of The Professor Is In has shared this article published today (April 11, 2018) in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which asks in its title "How Much Did Professors Earn This Year?" To find specific earning statistics at any given university, take a look at Chronicle Data. The article answers that question with the following statements:

"Full-time faculty earned an average of 3 percent more than they did in the prior academic year. But the salary increase was cut by nearly two-thirds, to 1.1 percent, after adjusting for inflation. The average salary ranged widely, depending on rank: Full professors earned $104,820, associate professors made $81,274, and assistant professors took in $70,791. The average pay for lecturers was about $57,000 while, for instructors, it was $59,400. The AAUP's analysis also found salary compression at 892 institutions" (June). 

Some other troubling findings published in this article are the fact that "93 percent of all reporting institutions pay men more than women at the same rank... on average women made 90 cents on the dollar compared to men at the same rank this year" and with "the average age of a Ph.D. completion at 32," career trajectory starts much later "than most white-collar workers" (June). This is the state of the academic world that hopeful applicants, like myself, are currently entering.

In terms of what types of documents that job search committees actually want to see, there is also quite a range. Each committee wants to see something a little different, so each application takes quite a bit of time to gather and send the specific documents to the submission portal for that school. I was lucky enough to have friends and colleagues who shared their materials, so here are some of my material templates that I sent out in my job applications this past fall of 2017:

• Cover Letter
• Curriculum Vitae
• Teaching Portfolio 
• Teaching Philosophy, Statement of Research, Sample Syllabi, Teaching Evaluations
• Writing Sample
• Statement of Administrative Philosophy 
• Statement of Faith 

Like I said, I had many friends who supported me in this application process. One friend is Dr. Kat O'Meara, an Assistant Professor Rhetoric and Composition and Director of Composition at Emporia State University. During her application process, she wrote a blog post for 4Cs called "Managing PhDTSD." This article was very helpful to me as I jumped into my job application process.

That's it for my second market post! Now please enjoy these cute photos of my dogs because they are cute:

FINLEY

LACY

#PhDaversary

CCCC 2018, A Reflection

I'm putting a brief pause of my series of three job market posts, as the timing overlapped with my time spent at the 2018 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Kansas City, MO this year. I want to reflect on my time and conference experience here, and then my next post will continue the job market discussion. In addition to this post, I did document part of my conference time on my Instagram page.

This was my fifth CCCC conference, but it was a unique year. Even before the conference was held, the site of the meeting was highly contested due to the Travel Advisory for the State of Missouri put out by the NAACP-- the first ever of its kind. Despite the travel risks and concerns for many who would be traveling to the conference, the decision was made for the conference to be held in KC. With that foregrounding, there were a lot of conversations and expectations for this conference even before arriving. While the Program Chair, Asao Inoue, and the local arrangements committee did seem to put forth an effort to acknowledge these realities by having local activists come to speak and organizing a "cultural event" in the Marriott ballroom, the entire conference felt like it missed the mark on the kind of acknowledgement of social realities and activist work that it claims to do.

One effort that I was a part of was the NCTE CCCC Social Justice Task Force donation table for local organizations, spearheaded by my friend Casie Moreland. There were four of us on this particular extension of the task force, and we spent many days meeting over Skype and planning for the table prior to Cs, and then we helped staff the donation table throughout three of the four days at the conference. We were set up in the Action Hub of the conference, and we met and interacted with a lot of people walking by and at the tables around us. We raised money on laptops at the table for these six organizations:

• AdHoc Group Against Crime
• Black Archives of Mid-America
• Black Lives Matter Nat'l Organization
• Center for American Indian Community Health
• Literacy KC
• One Struggle KC

I enjoyed working on this task force, and one of the highlights of the conference was hearing some of the activists from these organizations speak. On Thursday afternoon there was an All-Convention Event held in the Kansas City Convention Center, where three community leaders spoke to the attendees. We heard from Gillian Helm, the Executive Director of Literacy KC, Alvin Brooks, the founder of the AdHoc Group Against Crime, and Glenn North, the Director of Education and Community at the Black Archives of Mid-America. Mr. North recited his poem "Lynch Family Blues." It was poignant, heartbreaking, and beautiful. Tears rolled down my cheeks. This was the kind of thing we needed to be hearing and discussing. 

I did enjoy my time at other parts of the conference as well. I stayed in the conference hotel this time, which allowed for easy access to panels and other events. I got to see a lot of wonderful friends from Arizona State and other schools, and I attended some really engaging panels. I attended a panel on Friday morning called "Feminist Rhetorics and Digital Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities." At this panel, I heard both Jaqueline Jones Royster and Gesa Kirsch, the authors of the book Feminist Rhetorical Practices, speak about their current projects and research. I based the majority of theoretical discussion in my dissertation on this book, so it is always really neat to see them in person and hear their ideas. I also attended panels on food literacies and food justice. 

I presented my own work based on my dissertation. This presentation was called "Student Language and Identity Pathways: Genre Choice in a Feminist Writing Classroom." I presented this as a poster presentation on Thursday, March 15th. I had several people stop by and ask me about my poster and dissertation work, and I got to chat with other women who were presenting posters near me. I presented a poster once before at Cs, and I enjoyed presenting my dissertation data visually in this format again. Here are some photos from my poster presentation:

Ready to present!

Friends "reading" my poster

My session in the program

My poster board setup

I attended Cs over my spring break, but now I am back home and back in the classroom. I've enjoyed getting to know my students this semester, both in Technical Reporting and English 2. I think my students are enjoying their semester as well, as even my 7:00AM class voted to meet when I told them they could have the day off! My in-person Writing Center tutoring has also been going very well. I met with a student yesterday who pushed back on some language I was suggesting in a personal narrative, and I loved our discussion that followed about how we represent ourselves in written work and how our writing needs to feel true to our experience. 

International Women's Day was on the 8th of this month, and I celebrated by expressing gratitude and appreciation to the women in my life, as well as by getting a cupcake at a local bakery co-owned by a woman. But, let's be real, I'll take any excuse to eat a cupcake! I posted this quote on my Instagram that day, as it is one of my very favorite quotes. Time with my wonderful academic community of women at the conference also reminded me how essential the support of women is in my life!