I'll bet you thought I dropped off the face of the earth, huh? I apologize for my very prolonged absence. I have tried to come here and write a few times over the last year, but my life has been crazy busy. I've been working as a doctoral chair in addition to performing my Writing Center duties and working on a second master's degree for a year. I started out with 3 students last August and now I'm up to 16 in addition to being a committee member for seven student (although two of those are graduating in October). Of my 16 students, 11 are in classes right now and 5 are pre-dissertation, which thankfully means I do not have to do much with them at this point. Last year when I started working in DBA, my boss and the program director (PD) of the DBA program worked out a deal that permits me to work on my doctoral student stuff during the day after I finish reviewing the papers assigned to me. My supervisor assigns me fewer papers to review than she gives to the others and once I finish them, I do my doctoral stuff. It is a real blessing because it would be really difficult to keep up with everything if not for that concession.
Back in February, the PD asked me if I wanted to go full-time, and I said YES. Unfortunately, it didn't work out at that time. Our student enrollments started dropping because of covid, so the university implemented a hiring freeze. It was disappointing, but I knew that I just needed to be patient because the PD promised me should would continue to fight to get me transferred. Well, long story short, after months of fenagling, I finally got word last Wednesday that the transition had been finalized and I am starting full-time in DBA the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day in the Writing Center. Although I really enjoyed my job for a long time, I can't say I'm particularly sad about leaving the WC; to be honest, I sort of started disconnecting from my job back in February when the proposition of working full-time in DBA was presented. I have been a writing specialist for nearly four years and I confess that I am a little burned out.
Interestingly the same day I got my job offer, DBA posted a job for a dedicated doctoral writing coach (which is similar to the job I am leaving). The job was actually first created back in 2020 and I really wanted to apply for it, but the way the job posting is written, I was not qualified. The person they hired was in the position for about a year and a half and she did a terrible job. She was finally let go in June and they reposted the job. I applied for it this time because I was qualified and the PD told me she would give it to me, but she asked me if I really wanted it or if I wanted to be a chair. I told her there was no doubt that I want to be a chair but that I would be willing to take the writing coach job to get transferred to DBA and then wait out the chair opening. At that point, I had no idea how long it would be before they could get approval to open a position for me. She told me she wanted what I wanted and encouraged me to wait. I told her I would continue to be patient. Well, the writing coach job ended up being placed on long-term hold and I think it was because the PD wanted me to get the chair position but didn't want to fill the writing coach position in case the chair position didn't come through because it would have closed the door to me transitioning to DBA. So, after my chair job was secured, the writing coach job was posted, but then it was almost immediately taken off the public website and posted internally, which I thought was odd. But then the PD asked me if I could recommend any of my coworkers for the job. I told her I had someone in mind, so I contacted him and he applied. I feel kind of bad about the prospect of stealing another writing specialist, but we desperately need someone who can help our doctoral students with their writing. Since our student numbers were down, we did not replace the last writing specialist who left and the director of the Success Center was very eager for me to apply for the writing coach job in DBA when it opened because even being down a specialist, there is still not enough work to keep everyone busy. However, losing two writing specialists will hurt them a bit. I think he's a shoe in, so they may end up having to hire someone after all.
So, that is my life for the past year in a nutshell. It has been crazy, frustrating, and immensely rewarding. I am excited to start my new journey with just one job, at least for awhile. I might pick up a part-time teaching job down the road a bit, but for now, I will be content to just relax and maybe get to the beach a few times. It's been far too long since I last stuck my toes in the Gulf.
