The interview itself was a grueling two days during which I met with faculty, the Dean, taught a class, and gave a research presentation. I was the first of three candidates, so I would not hear anything for several weeks. I returned home and tried to refocus on the dissertation but then received another job call, this time from an historically black institution. They figured if I was the type of person into VW vans, then I just might be interested in teaching minorities who had been to poor inner-city high schools. The teaching load was high and I would be sharing a computer with five other faculty members, which summarized the institution s resources.
Northern prejudices associate with tumbleweeds.
I asked about social life for single people since I would not be moving there with anyone, and was told there were a handful of junior female faculty, but a thousand or so female graduate students. Maybe the faculty member was being realistic about what tends to happen, but I wondered if the answer would have been different if I was black. Tumbleweed University called immediately to offer a job, and I still had a week before I would hear from San Francisco. The excitement of I could soon be anywhere in the United States now had a dark side that made it even more difficult to focus on the dissertation. Ultimately, the University of San Francisco offered me the job a one-year appointment, potentially renewable.