She Said: It was decision time. As we mentioned in our previous columns, my husband and I have been on the market in law this year, both searching for our first tenure-track positions.
D.B.'s interviews went very well at the faculty recruitment conference, and he had four callback interviews (almost five, but one law school required him to respond to a questionnaire about his religious beliefs and affiliations, and the resounding silence in response to his answers must have indicated its unhappiness with them).
For several weeks, he traveled madly around the country, delivering his job talk and surveying our possible new hometowns.
My one interview at the law conference had not gone as swimmingly, so I was not waiting by the phone for a callback. No bother; my sights were now set on D.B. brokering a package deal for us at one of the law schools that had shown an interest in him.
That had been a successful tactic for us in the past, and we hoped to employ it again. I had gotten my current visiting faculty position through D.B.'s almost accidental wooing of the powers-that-be to consider my candidacy for the same nontenure-track position he had been offered. The dance was a little more delicate this time because he was interviewing for tenure-track positions. The stakes were much higher.
Our plan was to wait to see if he received any offers before broaching the subject of, well, me, to the law schools he was considering. But many perceptive members of the various faculties used their powerful interviewing and deductive-reasoning skills to determine that I, too, would need a job wherever we moved and then took the logical next step to figure out that I would probably want to continue teaching.
Fortunately, that revelation did not seem to scare off any of D.B.'s suitors, and one law school in particular, quickly requested my CV and broached the idea of my teaching there in a nontenure-track capacity. I was thrilled. The inquiring professor was appropriately cautious when she made the request, stating that her colleagues would certainly find the possibility of hiring both of us "interesting."
Hmm. Isn't "interesting" the word people use when they don't have anything nice to say?
D.B. finished his interview tour, and then we waited. It wasn't long before the first offer arrived, from probably the least geographically desirable school (read: remote and cold) at which he had interviewed. But he loved the faculty there, loved the teaching package the school had offered, and loved the professional opportunities that would be available to him.
He raised the "Kelly" issue to the dean and was greeted with a tepid but slightly better-than-an-immediate-rejection-of-the-idea response. The dean gave D.B. two weeks to decide. We left town to visit family and tried to distract ourselves, lest every ring of D.B.'s cellphone give us both a jolt.
Then came a second offer, from a law school in an extremely desirable geographic location, but with less promising professional opportunities for D.B. Because the call came at a time when he was not expecting it, he did not raise the "Kelly" issue to the dean when he received his offer.
Soon after, D.B. received an e-mail from the law school that had found the possibility of hiring us both "interesting," but the news was not good. It would not be able to extend an offer to either of us. I'm convinced that the word "interesting" has no redeeming value; it has become a fairly obvious code word for "terrible," "boring," or "misguided."
And so we embarked on a fretful and somewhat lame attempt to choose between two almost totally different schools. I guessed that D.B. really preferred the geographically challenged school, but he would not admit it to me (or even to himself, I'm quite certain).
The geographically gifted school is located in a big city with endless opportunities for me, so it seemed to be the front-runner -- at least until D.B. told the dean from the remote school that he had received a second offer and that the deal breaker would be what either place could do for me. In very short order, I had an offer in hand to teach two courses a semester at the remote law school and to help revamp an academic-skills program that needed direction.
Twenty-four hours later, we were shocked to find ourselves giddily accepting the offers from the remote (and cold) school.
He Said: It was decision time. My interviews, both at the law conference and on the campuses, meant an opportunity to "teach" a group of people who knew a lot more than I did. It's an odd feeling to know that a series of 20-minute interviews at a recruitment conference will help determine my value as a faculty member "for life," but those sessions gave me the chance to present my current scholarship to the faculty with whom I hoped to work.
Frankly, there is little that is more intimidating, and gratifying, than presenting your work to a group of people who know more than you do. Well, maybe they don't know more about your research areas, but they certainly know how to poke holes in your work faster than you know how to fill them. I can safely say that two hours after every job talk, I had a good response to at least one question that, had I been able to think of it during the interview, would have "sealed the deal." I am sure of it.
At some point, though, you settle in and actually know that what you are saying has some value. It's a good feeling.
Of course, with two people's careers hanging in the balance, the pressure increases. On the flip side, I have the benefit of someone who believes in me, believes in what we are doing, and believes in the value of being part of academe. As lawyers, we both know how much we could be making in the private sector. But, fortunately, at no point did I find myself clashing with a partner who thinks I (or she) should be cashing in just because we can.
My interviews led to two -- two! -- opportunities to pursue my dream job. One position would put us near family, in a great city, and pay remarkably well. The other is, well, in a place that is cold and remote, and it is less lucrative. But the law school, the city, and the opportunity to pursue myriad professional paths that could really make a difference all seem wonderful. The position is, in many ways, a dream job. Not that everyone would agree. But it feels right, and that counts for a lot when you are skeptical.
We really are a good package, and through stealth negotiations (read: a request), the school was able to offer us both positions. We have always worked well together. We met working on a high-pressure political campaign, we went to graduate school together, and we were elected to serve on the senior board of a student-published journal together. Fortunately, our potential was recognized.
It is not clear that our next step will be our final step, but we hope so. We will both be teaching, and that was our first goal. Now we just need to continue on that path.
