"Do you want closure, or do you want options?"
Kathleen: How did my career path get so complicated? I had it all planned. I went to my first-choice college, a small science and engineering campus with a great reputation. The talented chemistry professors there inspired me to follow in their footsteps, and it became my goal to teach chemistry at a teaching-focused college. I was able to get into a highly ranked graduate school and work with a wonderful adviser who understood and supported my goals. After graduate school, I accepted a tenure-track position in chemistry at a regional state university in the West.
When I ordered my life, this was how it was supposed to go: college, graduate school, possible postdoc, tenure-track position. I was even ahead of the game. I was lucky enough to skip the years in a postdoc, a stage that's become so common for scientists. After finding a tenure-track position, I always thought I would find a wonderful man to spend my life with. That was the plan. The problem? I forgot to check the box labeled, "and he will live in the same town." I thought that would be clear from the waiting-until-after-I-got-the-tenure-track-job part. The result was five years of a long-distance courtship with another academic. In the two years since our marriage (and the one right before), Joshua and I have been searching for that perfect solution to our two-body problem.
As we chronicled in our last column, I'm currently on leave from a tenured position at the regional state university where I started my career as a faculty member. I took the leave to join a teaching center at a large Midwestern university, a job that enabled Josh and me to be together. Then, in a maneuver I knew would place my leave (and my tenured position) in jeopardy, I resigned from the teaching center and accepted a position in the chemistry department at a small liberal-arts college near Joshua's university. Now I had to inform my home institution about this development.
So, a few months ago, after some serious consideration, I bit the bullet and sent an e-mail message to the provost and the chairman of my department telling them it was unlikely I would be back in the fall.
Joshua: Kathleen's e-mail should have thrilled me. It meant we were done, right? We had solved our two-body problem! Instead, it filled me with misgivings.
Kathleen's e-mail could cost her her tenure, the rank of associate professor, and 25 percent of her former salary -- huge sacrifices for her to make for the benefit of me and my career.
I liked my tenure-track job, and, after five years apart, I cherished our time together. However, I was concerned that Kathleen would not be happy in her new teaching position. She had just finished 18 months at a job she disliked in order to be with me. What if her new job proved no better?
I was also uncomfortable with the idea that Kathleen was "following" me. I view our marriage as a partnership, and I reject the traditional roles of "man and wife." Yet the fates seemed determined to make us play out those traditional roles, despite our best efforts.
My immediate worry was how Kathleen was going to take giving up a job she loved.
Kathleen: Actually, I felt pretty good. The years in limbo had taken their toll, and closure held a strong appeal. Only one job to worry about. I'd be teaching chemistry again -- something I really enjoy doing. This year I got a holiday card from one of my former undergraduate research students, now in graduate school. I don't remember the exact wording, but it said something like, "Dr. Woods, thank you so much for everything. It means more to me than I can say." Nothing at the teaching center even came close to this.
I enjoyed many things about the teaching center, but Josh is right, I was fundamentally unhappy. Some of it was the endless meetings and lack of autonomy. A larger portion resulted from the tremendous drop in status I felt being a staff member instead of a faculty member, something Lucy Young wrote about on this site in a recent column. But primarily, it was the students I missed.
So, I was optimistic about my new job. I liked the small-college atmosphere, and my new colleagues were great. My new salary sucked, but you can't have everything, right?
As I prepared for these changes, I received a letter from the provost of my home institution: Would I be willing to work with him to try to find something for Josh in the area? Would I consider giving him some time before doing anything drastic?
So much for closure.
There it was calling again: My old job. My old salary. Tenure.
Coupled with this was our financial situation. My home institution is located in an area where you can still get a nice, modest-sized home for just over $100,000. Not so where we are now. I also missed my old colleagues and the other friends I'd made in my six years there. Primarily though, it was my fit in the department, and the university and its mission. I had inadvertently ended up somewhere perfect for me. I never would have predicted that a regional state university with a very diverse student body would be a perfect fit, but it was. It was a place where I felt like I made a difference.
So, what did I do? I wrote back to the provost and told him the truth: I really didn't want to resign, and nothing would make me happier than to be able to return. But, there was the issue of employment for Josh.
Nothing happened for several weeks. I started my new job and began to enjoy the benefits of a small college environment: free parking, small classes, a feeling of community, and lots of faculty meetings. (And I do mean lots.). As the days went by, I assumed that nothing would come of my recent e-mail exchange.
Then, we got a call from the provost asking for a copy of Josh's vita.
Joshua: For once, the request arrived at a perfect time. A week earlier, I had had a paper accepted at my field's flagship empirical journal (after three and a half years of battle with two editors -- but that's a different story). This acceptance strengthened my vita substantially, and it momentarily muted the incessant ticking of the tenure clock. Hopefully, it would be enough to garner some interest at whichever institutions the provost had contacts.
The next few months were exciting and unnerving. We fantasized about a return to the West Coast, even as we began to consider hunting for a house here. We daydreamed about the luxuries that Kathleen's original salary could buy, even as we enumerated the necessities our current, more-modest wages would have to accommodate.
Then a letter from the provost confirmed our musings as just that. Despite his best efforts, there were no opportunities for me in the area this year. Kathleen was faced, once again, with a difficult decision:
"Do you want closure, or do you want options?"
Kathleen: I was getting very tired of hearing Josh ask me this.
But I had to make a decision: return, resign, or request another leave. Nothing had turned up for Joshua this year, but the provost was optimistic about the possibilities on my campus or at a research university 60 miles away in the next year or two. Did I want to roll the dice and go back? A leave request was unlikely to succeed, as the dean had opposed my last one. So I was left with going back or resigning.
In the end, I decided I could not possibly go back next year. Josh and I have been talking about trying to have a child. I've never thought of myself as having some kind of internal, nagging, biological clock, but I am faced with the indisputable reality of being 34. I'd rather wait. Frankly, I wish I could insert about 10 years into my life right now. However, having a child is important to us, so spending next year apart, without a guaranteed reunion, is just not in the cards.
I wrote a letter stating that I could not come back next year. In the letter, I thanked the provost for his efforts, and I indicated that I might have asked for a year of personal leave, but it didn't seem appropriate for a variety reasons. Closure, not options.
Shortly after, I received back a very nice note filled with things you might expect: very sorry to lose me, wishes me the best, etc. And one final comment at the end:
"I would have approved a leave."
