JOB OFFER!!

About an hour ago, I got the call from the dept chair of this college that I interviewed at on Tuesday. They want to make me a job offer!!!!! :-O I again let her leave a message so that I could jump up and down (literally - I was doing this while listening to the message) before calling her back calmly and professionally. Now she is in a meeting though, so I don't know the details yet but will soon.

It is for an interim position for 1 year with the possibility of renewal for an additional 2 years. They want someone (and I would do this) who would really be a colleague though, and not just treat it as temporary. They suggested that **if** a tenure-track job came available after I was there a few years, they would want me to be qualified for it. So, I imagine that they are going to fight hard to make the teaching load equal to that of TT faculty (usually interim teaching load is more), so that I actually have time to advise undergraduates on honors theses, do research, submit papers for publication, and all of the other things (besides being a good teacher) that make one competitive for a TT job. (And also, even if I don't stay there longer than a few years, I would want to stay competitive for other jobs too.)

This is such a great opportunity. I am so so thrilled! It is a small liberal arts school with 1,600 undergraduates, which is the kind of environment I've always thought I would like to return to. However, they also want their people to be doing research, which is good cause I like research, and I will hopefully involve students so research itself becomes a way to teach. They also have a small grad program in clinical child development though (training people who will eventually be child/adolescent therapists, school assessment counselors, etc), so I might be doing some grad teaching too. That is sort of weird to think of at this point, since I am still so in the grad student mentality. I imagine after I have my degree in hand it will feel different.

I sent in application materials last Monday & Tuesday (e-mail vs. snail mail), got the call to come for an interview last Thursday, interviewed 2 days ago on Tuesday, and today I got they call about the offer. This is in stark contrast to the usual model in my field - job ads come out in September, you send applications by Nov or Dec, interview in Jan-March, and start the following Aug/Sept. My head is spinning a little from how fast this all moved. Whew!

Yay!!! And now I just have to keep going with that pesky little thing...right right, the dissertation. :-)