The Dossier

I have not blogged in ages and for that I am regretful. We've been living life, fully....in the fast lane....and while I am making the memories there is just not time to document those memories. There are pictures and come February there will be a retreat and I will scrap those memories appropriately. That makes it ok for me.

However, today is such a significant day in my professional life...anti-climatic in many ways....not something to pop a cork for (yet) but after 6 years of working on it, the final day deserves a blog, at least.

It takes 6 years of tenure-track teaching, hours of service, publications, peer reviews, classroom observations, chair evaluations, student evaluations, justification upon justification to even apply. Today I turned in my Tenure Dossier. All 762 pages. I should have taken a picture of it, huh?!?! I said a little prayer and placed (more like dropped) it on my Chair's desk. It is out of my hands now. It will travel its way through the Chair, Tenure Committee, Dean, Vice-President, President and finally the Board. Let's hope it's approved. I won't know until late summer/early fall if I have been granted tenure. For us in academia tenure is a big deal, huge in fact.

Wouldn't you know that the year I am up for tenure is the year the Board decides to review the worth of it. Yeah...fun! As an officer of the Faculty Senate, I have given that my best fight. We've stood strong on the issue and as of now, it remains in tact. Maybe I just got in under the wire?

So here we go, waiting on that decision that is months away.