Go, Me!

Remember way back when I said I thought something good might be happening to me?

Some of you might know about the project I've been working on with the classes I teach at the university. I've struggled to get it off the ground, my mentor dumped me, I retooled the program myself, picked out all my own readings, blah, blah, blah. When I finally went to get a little recognition for it within my own department, I hit a brick wall. The person who was my immediate superior just seemed incredibly negative about the whole thing. It was pretty discouraging, because there was even talk about yanking parts of the program away from me.

One phone call and a couple of letters away, and I won a damn university award for the project. The secretary of state came down and presented it. I was one of three instructors in the whole university to get the award. Departmental kudos have come officially flying my way. My brick wall crumbled yesterday at about 2:00--I would give glorious details, but I have no control anymore over who reads this blog from *there*, so I may present those a little later. Suffice it to say, the road was smoothed, every problem solved for me (even though the problems weren't really there to begin with, in my opinion), and it ended with some surprising results, which I may post later if I get brave enough. It helps to have people with a stake in the fight.

Here's a brief summary of the award. My picture and my real name are in this thing, yes. Do I care? No. They took my student i.d. picture from the files, so that's why I look rather...flat. My own pictures from the event still aren't back yet. When they are, I'll post them, too. Linky

It didn't hit me until I was sitting in the presentation about to walk up to get the award that I'd done such a good thing. When you're working, sometimes you don't really see the greater picture. Some of my students have gone on to regularly volunteer from the experience they had in their class with me. One of my students is the director of philanthropy at her sorority--it's the first time they've ever let a freshman hold the position--and she's in charge of 90 girls and gets them all off to volunteer projects. When the director who gave the awards was talking about what we'd done, it was just amazing to think, "Wow. I did that. And it really wasn't so hard after all." It was the first time I really felt proud of all the work I've done up to this point, instead of thinking, "Where's the next fight going to be, and what will it be over?"

I was "strongly encouraged" to apply for a new job that was just created for the fall. If I got the job, I'd have to quit my nonprofit job, and I'm not too sure how I feel about that yet. The person on the hiring committee who strongly encouraged me is also the one who dropped me like a hot potato the first time around; so I'm having some trust issues there. But the job itself sounds like it's right up my alley. It's a combination of working with a certain demographic of students and taking on their sections of University 101 to help them figure out how to study and get engaged in college (which also is now supposedly to include a service learning component, thanks to this recent award). I've been asked at least to sit in on the planning of the class, if I choose not to apply or somehow end up not getting the job.

I'm still bowled over by the whole thing; and truthfully, I'm trying not to be mistrustful of the offer. I'll throw my hat in the ring, but I'm not making any definite plans until I see what shakes down. In the meantime, WOOT!

-- Virgil