The job field was predictably tight as I wrapped up my degree. Fortunate to secure an interview for a position in my field in Southeastern Virginia, I apparently did well enough to impress those who mattered.
My wife Judy and I were soon driving south to a two-bedroom apartment located nearly 12 miles from my office; nothing within our budget was available any closer. Fortunately, Judy found a good job within three miles of our residence. It was a great way to begin our careers but not without peril.
I soon discovered that the special nature of my assignment (I didn’t even know it was special) generated considerable bitterness and envy among many of my departmental colleagues who had done their duty at the lower-division level for their first several years, or were still doing it.
Instead, as a new hire, I had skipped that entry-level work and was able to focus almost exclusively on my disciplinary specialty in natural-resources management. Although I tried to get along with my colleagues, some of them could not quite move beyond my special treatment, which they viewed as undeserved and which I saw as a manifestation of the skills and experience I brought to the position.
Mostly I was too busy to worry about it. So much to learn — about the institutional culture; about my department; and about the peculiar applications of my discipline in this part of the country, so different from where I had trained and studied.
I sought to understand how I could succeed professionally and assure myself of long-term employment and achievement in the field. It’s perhaps hard for some 21st-century academicians to believe, but in that long bygone time of 1973, I was actually required to be at work by 7 a.m. My charges observed schedules that began before any 8 a.m. class chime. Evenings provided time to complete the day’s work and prepare for the next.
Ultimately I made it past the requisite probationary period, earned promotion, and gained some professional recognition regionally. My wife and I garnered enough confidence and fiscal wherewithal to purchase our first home, actually located conveniently to both of our offices. Times were good; the place felt like home. Even the envious colleagues had either moved beyond their feelings or just plain moved on.
But increasingly, I found, I was being asked (told?) to accept new responsibilities and assignments beyond my comfort level and outside the close confines of my disciplinary expertise. I felt both exulted (at being asked) and pressured (at being “told”). However, I believed my long-term career aspirations left me with little choice but to accept those new duties. I decided to grow professionally, perhaps at the expense of my disciplinary passion. At one point, I even accepted an 11-month role at a remote location over near the Great Dismal Swamp — all for the cause of departmental happiness.
Next came an “opportunity” (could it be a side track?) to establish a new research project and move into a role in which I would be doing far more administrative oversight than actual scholarship. The project covered six states and required a fair amount of travel just as we were expecting our first child. Neither my employer nor my wife’s provided child-care assistance, so we decided to survive on one salary with a full-time mom. We simply could not afford for both of us to work.
Although my career was taking a nontraditional turn, we were still facing issues common to many academics today. Life and career demand tough decisions. With two kids, my career path diverged even more, taking me into a two-year, central administrative post, and then into a three-year stint leading a large department.
Over that 12-year period, I dealt with departmental and central politics; faced some less-than-pleasant colleagues; handled rejections and disappointments; suffered through budget crises; and, perhaps because of all that, grew immeasurably, both professionally and personally.
I loved the institution. I believed in its mission. I passionately embraced its core values. However, at the end of those years, Judy and I were ready to move into a new phase of life and work.
So I resigned from my job at Union Camp Corp., a then-Fortune 500, allied-paper products manufacturer, and entered the world of higher education.
My second career has taken me to multiple universities but began with a tenure-track faculty position in which I discovered that preparation, dedication, hard work, and passion for the cause can enable anyone to survive the office politics, the loathsome behavior of some co-workers, the realities of child care and family life, and the tenure process.
Funny how life in academe is a lot like what I experienced in the private sector. Success isn’t automatic in either setting. Gloom and disdain are too often self-imposed, regardless of the employer.
We in higher education are not well served believing erroneously that we have cornered the market on early-career perils. Nor should our friends in the private sector believe we have it made in the ivory tower.
It’s not easy succeeding anywhere, nor should it be. The grass, green or brown, is the color we choose it to be.