I'm Baaaack!

Seriously, it was like the surface of the sun in Austin! Yes, that is the dashboard of my car....in front of my friend Michelle's house! I nearly vaporized the first day. But, we had a fantastic time, it was wonderful to see my friends....AND....I got to catch up with a friend that I had excavated with in Syria and hadn't seen for WELL over 10 years.

One of the great things about catching up with my friend Sharon is that it reminded me what an amazing experience spending so much time overseas was. But also reminded me of everything that I left when I walked away from teaching full-time. We even compared notes on being "bitter adjuncts."

I talk every now and then about archaeology and my "past life," but thought that I would explain more fully. In 2003, I earned my PhD in Anthropology, specializing in zooarchaeology in the Near East. I worked for over a decade conducting research in Syria, Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. In 2004, I ended my search for a tenure-track position and permanently became a university administrator.

Why, you might ask?

While I was searching for a permanent teaching position, I became very disappointed. I was invited to give a few job talks, search committees were requesting my references, but I was getting no offers. A close friend of mine that had contacts at one of the universities where I had interviewed made a few calls...asking if they would be willing to provide feedback, that if I was doing something that was turning these search committees in another direction, what was it, so that I could rectify it.

The answer was both unexpected and also completely reasonable. The friend reported back that the committee had liked my experience, were impressed by my publication record, and felt that my teaching experience was extensive, but....I had no active research. The expectation was that if someone I were hired as a professor, that I should be able to take students with me into the field...and because all my experience, all my contacts, all my sites were in the Near East, that meant that I had no active research. So, the committee moved on to the next candidate.

I was devastated. The reason that I had no active research was because our country had gone to war with Iraq...therefore, all my excavation sites were closed to me. I couldn't understand how I had spent so many years working towards this, and just at the time that I was ready to take my PhD to work...an administration that I did not support instigated a war that I opposed (I don't often talk about politics here, as I have blog friends that fall all over the political spectrum, but my politics played heavily into my feelings about my predicament...although please do not take this as a condemnation of anyone's political leanings. It is just that my politics were key in my view of the situation).

Out of desperation (and a need to pay the bills), I went to work as a university administrator. I have worked in MBA admissions, grants and contracts, operations, and now I direct graduate advising at a large university here in St. Louis.

I have carved out a comfortable place for myself...I still teach at least one course per term, and as an adjunct, I only have to teach those things that interest me. I also put my academic background to work every day in the application of university policy and helping my students prepare themselves for graduate school.

I had always thought that I would only do this temporarily. That it was just a way of buying time until I was able to develop new research. I excavated one season in Macedonia...and just as I was ready to "get serious" about moving to a new research area....I found out that I had Hidradenitis Suppurativa, a fairly icky auto-immune disorder that causes large cysts to form in my armpits that can only be removed through surgery.

And while I am positive that doctors in other countries are just as capable of treating it as my doctors here....having a skin graft while overseas is not exactly on my "bucket list."

So...

Here I am. Here I remain. An adjunct and an administrator, making peace with my exit from traditional academics.

While seeing Sharon again made me miss excavating and researching so incredibly badly...it also made me understand that I really have made peace with my life. That I really like what I do. And that I enjoy being an adjunct, and most days I am happy that I am not running the "publish or perish" race but enjoy just being able to write what I want to write, and research what I want to research. Or not research anything at all.

But, enough of all this!! I promise the next post will be about sewing something!