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[Anonymous]

Six years ago, I came to a Midwestern city after teaching for 12 continuous years as a full-time university professor in the fine arts. The move was necessary, as there were faculty cutbacks at the university in which I taught (I was not yet tenured), and I had to seek a new position.

The professorship I landed looked promising -- it was at a "comprehensive university" that was growing, had beautiful new facilities, a fairly good academic profile, according to all the standard sources, and sought faculty members who were active in their fields.

This picture quite unfortunately was more of an illusion than a reality. The facilities were nice, but this comprehensive institution was anything but that -- I was expected to be on campus 40 plus hours a week, five days a week and sometimes more (it was as though I was an intern "on call" 24/7). It was virtually impossible to practice my craft as a visual artist because time in the studio was hard to come by, and I was given additional responsiblities beyond any reasonable standard. I even felt chided for attending one professional meeting a year, because the students would miss a class or two.

The department chair was a micromanager who completely alienated his entire department, whose members avoided him in ways that would be laughable if the situation weren't so pathetic. It became very clear that the department had no real interest in its faculty being practioners or researchers.

The most intolerable aspect of this Kafkaesque experience was that I was asked numerous times to pass students who were failing classes because they never showed up and dumb down tests -- "don't give students essay questions, they don't like them," "worry about the whiners; the good students will take care of themselves," "deal with students whose I.Q.'s put them in the 'retarded' category," (this was true) I was told.

The situation as I have described it might seem unlikely, owing to the extremes I have described.  However, this nightmarish situation was borne largely out of the institution's compulsive mantra, "This is a tuition-driven school, we can't afford to lose students."  While I had some excellent colleagues and students at this school, I could not continue living under such unacceptable and unethical conditions, so when a local art school with an excellent national reputation approached me with the offer of a one-year visiting professorship, I could not refuse. It seemed like a reasonable option, as I did not want to move my family again and uproot my wife from her job, which she loved.

The next year of teaching (at the art school I mentioned above) was the most wonderful year of teaching in my 17-year career. The students, for the most part, were very serious and industrious, and my colleagues were very supportive. The problem, however, was that my marriage of nearly two decades came to a grinding halt, to my total shock, and the only option for another full-time teaching position would require relocation. I am not about to leave my child nor would I attempt to remove him from his mother -- he needs regular contact with both parents.  

I have excellent credentials, a record of exhibitions, and reviews that far exceed those of most teaching-college faculty and I would probably be considered more than adequate in all but the more elite comprehensive universities. My references, student evaluations, peer reviews, etc. reveal me to be a most worthy instructor.  But how many full-time teaching positions in a particular field come open each year in one commutable area? Perhaps not even one every few years.

So far, I have tried to piece together a marginal income as an adjunct in area colleges. I teach more courses than a full-time professor at a small fraction of the income. It seems that the most logical strategy is to try and find a non-teaching position in a university (a decent number are advertised in my area), e.g., as an academic advisor, mid-level administrator, etc.  I have acquired numerous administrative skills and I am an excellent writer and communcator, skills that would seem to make a good foundation for another postion.

However, I have hit nothing but walls. Typically responses praise my credentials, accomplishments, and references, but I am told that I am overqualified or that they just don't know how happy a career professor would be in a "lesser" position.

I wonder if after being a professor for so many years I am typecast, or if I am just too old (at 47) to interest many employers. My point is that I want a job that will provide some level of security and the opportunity to retire sometime (maybe at 75!). I wonder how many others find themselves locked into such difficult positions because of obligations and other life circumstances and how they have managed to cope, and, hopefully, how they have overcome such situations?

[Anonymous Adjunct]

You are right that the terminal degree and exhibition record limit your opportunities in the real world.  Fortunately for us M.F.A.'s, most people in industry think an M.F.A. is just a funny-looking M.A., so we are just under the radar for overqualification discrimination. Ph.D.'s are far more likely to be targeted.

Have you thought about getting your teaching credential and going into secondary education? What about other schools in the Midwest? It seems like there's a university every 250 miles (or less). If you teach only a couple of days a week, you can commute for just those days.

In the Leaving Academe section of this board there are some interesting posts. I've been on the fence about it myself, so I kind of already know what the options are for artists:

If you want to teach, they are as follows:

• teacher in a secondary school
  
• adjunct or university-extension instructor
  
• museum-education curator, teacher or docent
  
• corporate trainer
  
• private tutor
  
• online instructor (this is the least geographically limited!)
  
• teacher of your own classes or workshops in your studio

If you want to practice your craft (well, sort of), your options are these:

• graphics designer, illustrator, or art director (these options also allow you to telecommute)
  
• arts administrator in a museum or arts council (e.g.,development, membership, registrar, curator, marketing/PR, etc.)
  
• designer, coordinator, or installer of museum and gallery exhibitions
  
• other arts-administration and production  jobs (in theatre, dance, music)
  
• art-gallery assistant
  
• art handler (for shipping companies)
  
• conservation assistant (museum or library)
  
• working in a city/county/state arts and culture department (including grants and public works)
  
• instructional lab technician (e.g., the resident expert in the university sculpture or ceramics shop)

Neither any type of teaching nor any type of art/theatre/dance/music administration pay particularly well unless you are high up in the organization.  Graphics can pay well, but usually the stress the accompanies the job increases with greater pay/responsibility. It sounds like you already have some experience in adminstration, so perhaps you can leverage it as you say. As for me, I would not want to be a division dean -- they get really trampled.

Thanks for your heartfelt message.  Good luck!  :)

Anonymous Adjunct

[Ramen noodles]

I have also built my academic career around family because that is my first priority. Recently I left a full-time position at a community college that was fantastic to relocate because of my husband's new job.

Sure it's a hassle, but I've developed a myriad of skills and interests that I never thought I had. Age may have something to do with it, but I am in my early thirties and have had little response to my applications. I really feel that getting a full-time job has a lot to do with networking and connections. You have to have someone who knows someone who knows someone ... and so on. Since I am new to the area, it will take a while to develop this network.

You have to be quick to pick up on conversations and rumors of possible openings in your department. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The way I see it, if people interpret your efforts as being pushy, then they need to stop being so darn mysterious. In every other field on this planet, job postings are advertised in bold letters and there are no secrets. You can ask about the progress of an interview without being seen as stupid.  Well, I treat this job search like one would in other fields. I ask lots of questions.
 
I also keep an open mind and am willing to work in unrelated fields. I have worked in libraries and craft supply stores. Those folks don't care whether you have a doctorate or not. Another way to cope is to avoid getting caught up in the chain of thinking (you know the one) that usually begins like this: "What if I don't find full-time work, then I'll be blacklisted and never get to teach full time ... then I'll have to be an adjunct forever ... then I'll starve ..." and so on. You will drive yourself crazy. Higher education it a field in which it's often customary for there to be 50 - 200 applications for one job. The odds are staggering.

However, when talking to others I never let on that I am eagerly searching for full-time work. Nothing is more boring (and frightening) to employed full-timers than tales of job-search woes, so keep it light!

[Anon]

Ah, life can really suck sometimes! My husband is an art professor, too, and has taught at the same type of school as your "comprehensive" university, only at a community college. The college did have great facilities, and his colleagues were good. He expected to work a lot, and did what he had never thought was ethical before -- he did his own work during open-studio time while his students did their work -- often demonstrations, where he could also pause to help them when needed.

Believe me, the idea of being creative and working things through in front of students didn't appeal to him, but he got used to it after a while and didn't even feel like anyone was watching or lurking around. No one at the community college thought this was a bad thing, as they might at a big university art department. As long as they didn't care, he didn't.

For those who doubt your story, I will attest that my husband's employers also "mainstreamed" mentally disabled students, without helpers or interpreters, because they thought that art was easy, that is, until he pointed out to administrators that sculpture (his area) requires welding, cutting, pouring molten metal, etc. and that when one of those unfortunate kids with a low I.Q. cuts his or her hand off with a plasma cutter, the school will probably get sued big-time. They got the message! Those kids disappeared from his classes soon after. (Unfortunately, this only meant that the poor clay teacher got them all! After all, throwing and firing clay is easy, right? Lots of luck. ...)

For many years, my husband worked on and off as a photographer and darkroom technician to earn money when he was between art jobs and set aside just two to three days a month to work nonstop on his art projects during non-working days when he was fresh and inspired. It still amazes me that he produced more work then than he does now with a reasonable teaching load in a good art department.

He submitted to gallaries and juried shows the whole time and always had something new on his vita every year so that when teaching jobs eventually came up (and they did!) he wouldn't look like he'd been "out of it." If people asked what he'd been doing, he didn't feel he had to fill them in on his day job. He told them he'd been taking a break from teaching to produce new work.

Of course, you want to stay near your child. So don't feel bad if you have to take a different kind of job to tide you over; just try (if possible) to find something vaguely interesting or creative and the next opportunity comes along. If you can't find something vaguely creative, take the Buddhist approach and remember that one should have right intentions no matter what one does, i.e., do whatever you do as well as you can so that the energy you send out comes back to you.

It may sound silly, but even though I don't believe in karma, I do feel that if you feel good about what you do, you project good feelings rather than bitterness onto the next search committee you meet with.

I teach in a different but also highly creative discipline, and I have also had to do this at one time or another. How about accounting? That was one gig. Agggh! I even bartended between teaching jobs. It feels much worse when you have to do it in mid-career than at the beginning of your career, but when it happened to me, it actually made me feel younger -- like I got sharpened up again after becoming middle-aged!

My husband and I have both been married and divorced before and remember well how catastrophic divorce is, especially for those with atypical jobs, such as academics and others who can't just find work at the drop of a hat. This is on top of the emotional horror that accompanies it, of course, and that colors everything a dreary hue. I'm sure that the heart of everyone who reads this column and has experienced something similar is with you on that one. Perhaps the only comfort is that time heals everything. I promise.