Unfortunately!
Just got a contact from someone denied around the new year. In my case it was right around Christmas (and also my wedding anniversary). So I know how it feels.
I'm back, in touch again, and still trying to keep an eye on this blog. Send me something or write a comment.
People are still viewing, even though there are no new posts. At least that is what Google's statistics are telling me. Very low numbers of course, but each year going up a bit more.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Hello, world
Once again, wondering if anyone is around. I am amazed that I was able to even re-connect with this thing. Suprisingly, when I looked at page views, from beginning of time till now, even though of course the numbers are very low, they clearly trend up. So I will keep it around for a while.
If you are going through a tenure denial, email me (not that I can do anything!). I promise total discretion, though you can also guarantee that by contacting through a burner email account
If you are going through a tenure denial, email me (not that I can do anything!). I promise total discretion, though you can also guarantee that by contacting through a burner email account
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Anybody around?
I said I would monitor the email for this blog but I have to admit I have neglected it. However, statistics show there are still a non-trivial amount of pageviews happening. Or maybe not, I don't know.
At any rate, I would love to hear from anyone, you can send email if you don't want to comment on the blog, dead_professor@hotmail.com.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Congressman's shooting and relationship (if any) to current political situation
It has been a while. I didn't know if I would ever come back to this blog. I have not received any emails or contacts so I assume no one has been reading. I made an effort to reach out to other people who have been denied tenure and while I am grateful for the few replies and comments I did receive, it appears that this it just not the platform for doing this.
But, I have a blog set up. And it is pseudo-anonymized. I'm sure that anyone who really wanted to find out my identity could but really, is it that important? Perhaps a more real issue is how I personally feel about anonymous content on the web. In general I'm against it. But I felt that in this case there was value to be gained, because tenure denial is such an enormous stigma, people who've been through it often never speak of it again.
Again, I have this blog set up. So I might post occasionally if things cross my mind that I find myself wanting to write about. Since the tenure-denial thing seems to be pretty much dead material now, I might post on other topics too.
Which brings me to the shootings this weekend, of whom the primary target apparently was Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, but there were many other victims as well. This event, and the political discussion around it, reminds me of the Amy Bishop story. Again, the same issues are being laboriously batted back and forth, in this case in the setting the current left-right political wars. And it surprises me how dense people are sometimes. Especially, right now, those on the left for, first, jumping too fast to try to make political gain out of this, and second, not being careful enough in their attacks.
We've been over this again and again. No reasonable person would EVER seriously think that something like Sarah Palin's crosshairs led directly to this shooting. Of COURSE NOT! (Yes, I'm yelling). Those of you on the right with your aggrieved victim poses I can see you all now. Or hear you, in advance, because I have listened to thousands of hours of right wing political talk radio.
BUT, to completely deny that the underlying rightwing political attacks had NO bearing, that is insane. What the left needs to attack, at a time like this, is not the event itself (the killings) but the things that the right is still now currently saying. They do say that we (the left) are borderline traitors, that we hate America, that our main aim is for bad things to happen to this country. They do say that we are implicitly murderers for supporting abortion. They do say that we are Godless and work to destroy Christianity. You need only turn on the radio to hear these things.
Those are the things that should be attacked at a time like this.
In fact, the best option, in terms or political warfare, at a time like this, is to publicly very scrupulously absolve the right from any direct, immediate blame. That kind of position, in the long run, gains you traction, especially since they would never do the same thing on their side. But, I still have a hard time convincing my liberal friends of this.
But, I have a blog set up. And it is pseudo-anonymized. I'm sure that anyone who really wanted to find out my identity could but really, is it that important? Perhaps a more real issue is how I personally feel about anonymous content on the web. In general I'm against it. But I felt that in this case there was value to be gained, because tenure denial is such an enormous stigma, people who've been through it often never speak of it again.
Again, I have this blog set up. So I might post occasionally if things cross my mind that I find myself wanting to write about. Since the tenure-denial thing seems to be pretty much dead material now, I might post on other topics too.
Which brings me to the shootings this weekend, of whom the primary target apparently was Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, but there were many other victims as well. This event, and the political discussion around it, reminds me of the Amy Bishop story. Again, the same issues are being laboriously batted back and forth, in this case in the setting the current left-right political wars. And it surprises me how dense people are sometimes. Especially, right now, those on the left for, first, jumping too fast to try to make political gain out of this, and second, not being careful enough in their attacks.
We've been over this again and again. No reasonable person would EVER seriously think that something like Sarah Palin's crosshairs led directly to this shooting. Of COURSE NOT! (Yes, I'm yelling). Those of you on the right with your aggrieved victim poses I can see you all now. Or hear you, in advance, because I have listened to thousands of hours of right wing political talk radio.
BUT, to completely deny that the underlying rightwing political attacks had NO bearing, that is insane. What the left needs to attack, at a time like this, is not the event itself (the killings) but the things that the right is still now currently saying. They do say that we (the left) are borderline traitors, that we hate America, that our main aim is for bad things to happen to this country. They do say that we are implicitly murderers for supporting abortion. They do say that we are Godless and work to destroy Christianity. You need only turn on the radio to hear these things.
Those are the things that should be attacked at a time like this.
In fact, the best option, in terms or political warfare, at a time like this, is to publicly very scrupulously absolve the right from any direct, immediate blame. That kind of position, in the long run, gains you traction, especially since they would never do the same thing on their side. But, I still have a hard time convincing my liberal friends of this.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Why do college tenure committees always attract such assholes?
It's been a while. Nice to hear from several of you. The whole Amy Bishop tenure-denial/shooting thing continues to burn, but now is simmering down. It's funny to read story after story about how oh no tenure had nothing to do with it, tenure needs to be abolished (the right-wing types there mainly), her research wasn't good enough anyhow, it all happened last year, etc. etc. She was a homicidal nut yes we all concede that. Not your normal kind of person. People everyday deal with far worse than tenure denial and never go off on shooting sprees. Of course, conceded, yes, I agree. But to pretend the denial was not a factor, I just don't get that. Everyone, even in the educational community (e.g. the blogs on Insidehighered, the Chronicle, etc.) seems to want to go to extremes to minimize the tenure-denial (possible) contribution. I keep adding links to my delicous tag related to this story--well up in the high 30s in links now--and most of those entries have a similar theme.
But let's move on for the time being at least. Blogger user mmusgrove writes in a comment on this blog:
Another corollary of this is that when you look at smaller colleges, then the department often does not have ANY official role, other than to help the candidate prepare the documents and write supporting letters. That was my situation. There was no actual vote in my department, it was not an actual official part of the process. As such, the college level committee came to have much more importance.
The thing is I can remember having this sense going way back, before I was even in a tenure-track position. You'd meet faculty members and the nice ones, the reasonable ones, you'd find out they were always on the library committee or the athletics committee, or something like that. The raging assholes always somehow find a home on the tenure committee.
This is part of a more general phenomenon, IMO. I've always said (humorously--mainly!) that you have to watch professors always when you deal with them. They can seem nice on the outside, but inside most professors is a hidden wellspring of bitterness and retribution that can come out at unexpected times. I don't know if I was that way when I was a professor. I hope not. But then again the system selected me out.
But let's move on for the time being at least. Blogger user mmusgrove writes in a comment on this blog:
I got through the process successfully at the new job, but I still can't look closely at the process. I can't read anyone else's dossier, for example.This is a statement I can very much agree with. Even though I did not make it through my second tenure application, I could see that if I had made it, it would have been very difficult to serve on a P&T committee. I imagine I'd be overly generous by way of compensation, knowing the living hell that awaits those flushed out of the system. But--therein lies the problem. There is a self-selection effect for college tenure committees. Those people who have actual human emotions and sympathy tend to select themselves out of the process. Or they are selected out by their peers. This then leads to a preponderance of assholes on the college committee. I don't think it happens as much at the department level. At that level there is a enough forced sharing around of responsibilities that there is at least a chance that you might get someone with actual humanity involved occasionally. At the college level, it is usually an elected position. Someone has to say to themselves "Ya, I WANT to do that."
Another corollary of this is that when you look at smaller colleges, then the department often does not have ANY official role, other than to help the candidate prepare the documents and write supporting letters. That was my situation. There was no actual vote in my department, it was not an actual official part of the process. As such, the college level committee came to have much more importance.
The thing is I can remember having this sense going way back, before I was even in a tenure-track position. You'd meet faculty members and the nice ones, the reasonable ones, you'd find out they were always on the library committee or the athletics committee, or something like that. The raging assholes always somehow find a home on the tenure committee.
This is part of a more general phenomenon, IMO. I've always said (humorously--mainly!) that you have to watch professors always when you deal with them. They can seem nice on the outside, but inside most professors is a hidden wellspring of bitterness and retribution that can come out at unexpected times. I don't know if I was that way when I was a professor. I hope not. But then again the system selected me out.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
A positive suggestion about tenure denial--not much, but better than nothing
Sorry, I had forgotten to post this. It came up in an email exchange....
There is not much that can be done to help the tenure system; it is what it is, but from my point of view, I would have appreciated some access to confidential, free, *independent* counseling. I have toyed with sending something to my most recent school's HR officer and suggesting that. The key is that it has to be set up so as to be clearly completely independent from the institution, free, and (very important) untraceable, so the candidates family etc. do not have to find out. It's pretty hard to arrange such a service--I know of no institution which does--but it might have helped me if I had that opportunity to at least unload my troubles with a neutral observer.
The biggest problem about it (being denied) ultimately, and this is why I started the blog, is that if you plan to get on with your life you learn that you have to stop talking about it, you have to do all you can to hide the whole event, or at least obscure it to the casual outside observer. It could have helped me (a little) if I had had access to clearly independent counseling. It's not much, I know, but better than nothing.
There is not much that can be done to help the tenure system; it is what it is, but from my point of view, I would have appreciated some access to confidential, free, *independent* counseling. I have toyed with sending something to my most recent school's HR officer and suggesting that. The key is that it has to be set up so as to be clearly completely independent from the institution, free, and (very important) untraceable, so the candidates family etc. do not have to find out. It's pretty hard to arrange such a service--I know of no institution which does--but it might have helped me if I had that opportunity to at least unload my troubles with a neutral observer.
The biggest problem about it (being denied) ultimately, and this is why I started the blog, is that if you plan to get on with your life you learn that you have to stop talking about it, you have to do all you can to hide the whole event, or at least obscure it to the casual outside observer. It could have helped me (a little) if I had had access to clearly independent counseling. It's not much, I know, but better than nothing.
Again: the voices of tenure denial
Thanks for the input in the last few days. I appreciate the comments and emails.
I am indebted to Glen McGhee for pointing out the 1952 essay by Erving Goffman, "On Cooling the Mark Out." I intend to post more in depth about this essay (and the many related essays it spawned) at a later date
I don't intend to just be a firebrand or encourage people to storm the barricades. I created this blog because I wanted a place for people to be able to TALK about tenure denial, theirs and others. I found it was very hard to find any avenue in my life to do this. But I'm way past fighting the battle over again at this point.
It is the nature of the Internet that people vie for exposure in a developing story. I certainly have seen this in the last few days with the UAH shooting story. Without (I hope) being gratuitous about it I'll admit that I was moved to post my comments, and right away, because I hoped that this blog might get picked up in the overall noise surrounding that story. That has to some extent happened, which is good as now I know that at least a few people have read some of the posts!
But I repeat my invitation---share your stories. I want to hear them. I will gladly post them here. I'm all about keeping anonymity (to the extent that that is possible nowadays on the Web). Send me more, either by email or comments. I'd like to see some multiple perspectives.
I am indebted to Glen McGhee for pointing out the 1952 essay by Erving Goffman, "On Cooling the Mark Out." I intend to post more in depth about this essay (and the many related essays it spawned) at a later date
I don't intend to just be a firebrand or encourage people to storm the barricades. I created this blog because I wanted a place for people to be able to TALK about tenure denial, theirs and others. I found it was very hard to find any avenue in my life to do this. But I'm way past fighting the battle over again at this point.
It is the nature of the Internet that people vie for exposure in a developing story. I certainly have seen this in the last few days with the UAH shooting story. Without (I hope) being gratuitous about it I'll admit that I was moved to post my comments, and right away, because I hoped that this blog might get picked up in the overall noise surrounding that story. That has to some extent happened, which is good as now I know that at least a few people have read some of the posts!
But I repeat my invitation---share your stories. I want to hear them. I will gladly post them here. I'm all about keeping anonymity (to the extent that that is possible nowadays on the Web). Send me more, either by email or comments. I'd like to see some multiple perspectives.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The end of the Amy Bishop story?
Well, the Amy Bishop story is apparently winding down now. Now all the stories are leading or featuring very prominently her previous killing of her brother, which now, at least in the press, is looking pretty bad. The NY Times has a statement from the Braintree Mass. police department indicating that the release of Bishop "did not sit well" with the police department.
So, it appears that the tenure denial aspect of this event will become of lesser interest, and this whole episode will just merge into all the other crazy mass killings, which is a shame. Of course, a bad event like a tenure denial doesn't lead a normal person to homicide. In these pathological multiple murder cases that is never the point. You need a confluence of multiple events to make them happen. In this case it looks like it was the combination of the instability of Bishop AND the tenure denial which was the ultimate trigger of what happened. OF COURSE a normal person would not go off killing people just because they were denied tenure. That's not the point at all.
But look at Bishop's situation. Sure, she was deranged, but not in a hugely major way (like say Fabrikant was). She was able to get through Harvard grad. school, get married, have four kids, land a faculty job, and start up a biotech company. She was unstable, but she was a high-functioning unstable person.
But it can't be denied that a tenure denial is a huge stressor. And I don't think this has been recognized enough. The length of time involved in the process--usually at least six years--and the fact that it is presented to the candidate as a deep, careful, reasoned judgement from one's peers, this makes it not like other common stress events in one's life, like death of a loved one, or losing a job or having a business fail. All those other events have elements of outside randomness to them. You can rationalize that there was (at least partially) nothing that could have been done about the situation. But I have been through two denials and I know that the committees always make their absolute best effort to present it to you as a careful, dispassionate, expert judgement of your entire career. And you are found wanting. The ENTIRE thing is all you, all your fault. I don't mean that that IS true, but that is how the administrators and faculty members make it out to you.
In such a situation, it takes an incredibe force of will and personality to NOT have fleeting thoughts of (at least) suicide, if not homicide. Of course--of course!--normal people do not act on such thoughts. But in my entire life, given all the events which have come down on me, it was only during the denials that these kinds of thoughts came to the fore in a way sufficient enough that I clearly remembered it happening.
So, it appears that the tenure denial aspect of this event will become of lesser interest, and this whole episode will just merge into all the other crazy mass killings, which is a shame. Of course, a bad event like a tenure denial doesn't lead a normal person to homicide. In these pathological multiple murder cases that is never the point. You need a confluence of multiple events to make them happen. In this case it looks like it was the combination of the instability of Bishop AND the tenure denial which was the ultimate trigger of what happened. OF COURSE a normal person would not go off killing people just because they were denied tenure. That's not the point at all.
But look at Bishop's situation. Sure, she was deranged, but not in a hugely major way (like say Fabrikant was). She was able to get through Harvard grad. school, get married, have four kids, land a faculty job, and start up a biotech company. She was unstable, but she was a high-functioning unstable person.
But it can't be denied that a tenure denial is a huge stressor. And I don't think this has been recognized enough. The length of time involved in the process--usually at least six years--and the fact that it is presented to the candidate as a deep, careful, reasoned judgement from one's peers, this makes it not like other common stress events in one's life, like death of a loved one, or losing a job or having a business fail. All those other events have elements of outside randomness to them. You can rationalize that there was (at least partially) nothing that could have been done about the situation. But I have been through two denials and I know that the committees always make their absolute best effort to present it to you as a careful, dispassionate, expert judgement of your entire career. And you are found wanting. The ENTIRE thing is all you, all your fault. I don't mean that that IS true, but that is how the administrators and faculty members make it out to you.
In such a situation, it takes an incredibe force of will and personality to NOT have fleeting thoughts of (at least) suicide, if not homicide. Of course--of course!--normal people do not act on such thoughts. But in my entire life, given all the events which have come down on me, it was only during the denials that these kinds of thoughts came to the fore in a way sufficient enough that I clearly remembered it happening.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Following the UAH shooting story
Again, I am putting links on my delicious page as the story develops. See
http://delicious.com/deadprofessor/UAH_shooting .
It has come out that apparently she shot her brother when she was younger,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html?
though apparently that was clearly an accident.
The most depressing thing about this is that now the press is downplaying the tenure denial aspect of it as a possible main motive for the murders, presumably led by Fox News's odious story:
From Fox News, here is their lead-in at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585682,00.html
Motive in Question as Professor Faces Murder Charge in Alabama Campus Shooting
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — There "may never be a clear answer" as to why a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville allegedlyvshot and killed three colleagues and wounded thre others, campus police said Saturday in a news conference.
If you read this article in detail, you see they have a few new interviews, but absolutely NO evidence of a motive other than the denial.
http://delicious.com/deadprofessor/UAH_shooting .
It has come out that apparently she shot her brother when she was younger,
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html?
though apparently that was clearly an accident.
The most depressing thing about this is that now the press is downplaying the tenure denial aspect of it as a possible main motive for the murders, presumably led by Fox News's odious story:
From Fox News, here is their lead-in at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585682,00.html
Motive in Question as Professor Faces Murder Charge in Alabama Campus Shooting
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — There "may never be a clear answer" as to why a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville allegedlyvshot and killed three colleagues and wounded thre others, campus police said Saturday in a news conference.
If you read this article in detail, you see they have a few new interviews, but absolutely NO evidence of a motive other than the denial.
University of Alabama shooting
See the NY Times article today, Professor Is Charged After 3 Are Killed in Alabama. This is an amazing and horrific case where a tenure denial has (apparently) led to violent retribution by the one who was denied. We don't know all the facts yet but the Times says that she was denied tenure recently and she went to a faculty meeting with a gun and killed and injured several people, all other faculty members.
I want to post about this more later, but as someone who is trying to reach out to others who have been denied tenure, let me just make clear--while I am interested in the issues this will raise related to tenure denials, this was an absolutely bloody and uncalled for murder. I have no sympathy for the perpetrator. My guess is that since this is a clear cut case with several witnesses, it was clearly premeditated, and is in the south, she will be executed.
One of the frustrating things about the NY Times article is that it does NOT mention the denial first as the possible spark for the killings. Instead it discusses the "pressure cooker" of biotech startups.
I am assembling links related to this story on my delicious site, see http://delicious.com/deadprofessor/UAH_shooting. Now I notice that the LA Times is saying one of the victims was a staff member.
I will be very interested to see just how random her victims were. Was she in there to get revenge on certain people? Or was she also just randomly killing people?
As I said, this is clearly a crazy act by a crazy person, but in both of my denials I'd be lying if I didn't say that I did have thoughts like this. In my case (and I suspect in most cases) they ran more to the just plain suicide bent. But I hope this case does raise some discussion about this important issue. A tenure denial was once described by someone on sci.research.careers as like having a nuclear bomb descend on your house. It does feel like that. It is like everything you worked for has been destroyed. And not by something out of your control, like being layed off or having a business fail. This is a long, reasoned judgement by your peers and they have decided you need to be out.
I want to post about this more later, but as someone who is trying to reach out to others who have been denied tenure, let me just make clear--while I am interested in the issues this will raise related to tenure denials, this was an absolutely bloody and uncalled for murder. I have no sympathy for the perpetrator. My guess is that since this is a clear cut case with several witnesses, it was clearly premeditated, and is in the south, she will be executed.
One of the frustrating things about the NY Times article is that it does NOT mention the denial first as the possible spark for the killings. Instead it discusses the "pressure cooker" of biotech startups.
I am assembling links related to this story on my delicious site, see http://delicious.com/deadprofessor/UAH_shooting. Now I notice that the LA Times is saying one of the victims was a staff member.
I will be very interested to see just how random her victims were. Was she in there to get revenge on certain people? Or was she also just randomly killing people?
As I said, this is clearly a crazy act by a crazy person, but in both of my denials I'd be lying if I didn't say that I did have thoughts like this. In my case (and I suspect in most cases) they ran more to the just plain suicide bent. But I hope this case does raise some discussion about this important issue. A tenure denial was once described by someone on sci.research.careers as like having a nuclear bomb descend on your house. It does feel like that. It is like everything you worked for has been destroyed. And not by something out of your control, like being layed off or having a business fail. This is a long, reasoned judgement by your peers and they have decided you need to be out.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Closure
So it is closing in on two years since this all went down, the second denial I mean. I am working on setting up a meeting with the two tenured professors who supported me, primarily for the purpose of making sure we are organized if some teaching opportunity should come up in the next year or so. I am not talking about anything full-time, but I am currently working in an IT support position at the main state university here, about an hours drive away from the small, church-related liberal arts college that flushed me out two years ago. So, I am hoping that some opportunity might present itself to teach a class here. That was the biggest frustration for me after the second denial; as it was all about teaching, and it was from an essentially unknown very small college, I saw it as just about driving a stake into the chance that I would ever be able to be in the classroom again.
These two people I am going to meet with, they were the two who supported me in my tenure application and in the appeal process. Recall, this liberal arts college has a small department and only in the range of 4-6 fulltime faculty. These two were the only tenured faculty members there during my tenure application. One was chair for the first part of my six years, the other chair during the second part. (Another tenured member retired a year before I put my dossier forward, and another member was on the same track as me and got tenure the same year I was denied.)
Excuse me--a digression; I promise I will get back to what I was going to say--I have not mentioned yet that one of the important details of my situation was that there was another faculty member in my department who came up for tenure the same year as I did. And this was a person who was killing all along the board--teaching, research, and service. Let's put it this way: they were using her in the fundraising letters before she even applied for tenure. So she was a lock; I knew that. But I had been led to believe that the denial rate was very small at this obscure, cash-strapped private school. It was--before we got the new president, dean, and division chair. So there is a whole world of hurt we could go over about the RYS (rising young star) situation and as it impacted me. For now, I will leave it at this: the salient part of that whole situation was that she was the kind of person who was very passive aggressive, always playing the victim. Cutting down colleagues in the department or the College but never to their face. Before this happened I thought I had her support (or at least that she was neutral), but now I am pretty sure that was not the case.
OK, back to this meeting with the two people who supported me. As I said, I want to try to plan out a strategy with them if a single-class teaching opportunity comes up. It will be an uphill battle as the tenure decision letter mentioned only teaching as the reason for the denial. It we are going to overcome that, even to convince a department chair that it makes sense to take a chance on me for even a single course, it will take some over-the-top kinds of things being said, not just in letters, but probably phone calls, etc.
Now, the question is, what else? I have pretty much avoided much contact with them since this all went down, it being just too painful and I wanted to get some distance from it. And the other point being it is pretty pointless from my point of view socializing with them without talking about it. I mean if we avoid it totally that seems artificial and if we do talk about it I can't imagine it being too enjoyable for them. OK. But now what I have been thinking about is should I make some effort (perhaps with their help) to try to get closure to some kind of closure on this?
There are a couple of options this might take. One is I write a letter to the editor of the paper or something and lay out everything, naming names, etc. and point out that in my opinion the revered church school is morally bankrupt. Again, not because of the decision but because of the complete abandoment by the community which portrays itself as so inclusive and compassionate. There is another possible option. My next-to-last year at the college there was a very divisive denial in the humanties division. That one was all about research. The people over there got so up in arms they had an article in the student newspaper and the chair came before the faculty at a monthly meeting and he laid out all of his beefs for everyone to hear. The admin. did not respond to this at all, they just allowed the presentation. And now, get this, it turns out they did NOT fire the guy! They found him a non-tenured instructor position! Fer crissakes! They get to rail before the whole faculty about their denial and the guy is still employed there.
My case, by contrast, I think there are people there who don't even realize I'm gone. Or if they do realize it, they might think it was my idea. I am constantly meeting people in the grocery store and amazed by the complete misconceptions they have about what happened. So I am contemplating asking the two faculty members who supported me if they would consider asking the admin. to make a similar presentation at a regular faculty meeting. The idea is that this presentation would say that the point of it is most emphatically NOT to address the denial, but to address the atrocious behavior of the college afterward. You could argue that this is a win-win. I could get some catharsis, knowing that at least my story got out to the faculty, and they (the admin.) could feel good that this story did not go out to the public at large.
But...what do you think? It probably is a mistake to do something like that. At this point, I'm just contemplating discussing it, not getting close to doing it. It will be interesting to see what my two former colleagues say.
These two people I am going to meet with, they were the two who supported me in my tenure application and in the appeal process. Recall, this liberal arts college has a small department and only in the range of 4-6 fulltime faculty. These two were the only tenured faculty members there during my tenure application. One was chair for the first part of my six years, the other chair during the second part. (Another tenured member retired a year before I put my dossier forward, and another member was on the same track as me and got tenure the same year I was denied.)
Excuse me--a digression; I promise I will get back to what I was going to say--I have not mentioned yet that one of the important details of my situation was that there was another faculty member in my department who came up for tenure the same year as I did. And this was a person who was killing all along the board--teaching, research, and service. Let's put it this way: they were using her in the fundraising letters before she even applied for tenure. So she was a lock; I knew that. But I had been led to believe that the denial rate was very small at this obscure, cash-strapped private school. It was--before we got the new president, dean, and division chair. So there is a whole world of hurt we could go over about the RYS (rising young star) situation and as it impacted me. For now, I will leave it at this: the salient part of that whole situation was that she was the kind of person who was very passive aggressive, always playing the victim. Cutting down colleagues in the department or the College but never to their face. Before this happened I thought I had her support (or at least that she was neutral), but now I am pretty sure that was not the case.
OK, back to this meeting with the two people who supported me. As I said, I want to try to plan out a strategy with them if a single-class teaching opportunity comes up. It will be an uphill battle as the tenure decision letter mentioned only teaching as the reason for the denial. It we are going to overcome that, even to convince a department chair that it makes sense to take a chance on me for even a single course, it will take some over-the-top kinds of things being said, not just in letters, but probably phone calls, etc.
Now, the question is, what else? I have pretty much avoided much contact with them since this all went down, it being just too painful and I wanted to get some distance from it. And the other point being it is pretty pointless from my point of view socializing with them without talking about it. I mean if we avoid it totally that seems artificial and if we do talk about it I can't imagine it being too enjoyable for them. OK. But now what I have been thinking about is should I make some effort (perhaps with their help) to try to get closure to some kind of closure on this?
There are a couple of options this might take. One is I write a letter to the editor of the paper or something and lay out everything, naming names, etc. and point out that in my opinion the revered church school is morally bankrupt. Again, not because of the decision but because of the complete abandoment by the community which portrays itself as so inclusive and compassionate. There is another possible option. My next-to-last year at the college there was a very divisive denial in the humanties division. That one was all about research. The people over there got so up in arms they had an article in the student newspaper and the chair came before the faculty at a monthly meeting and he laid out all of his beefs for everyone to hear. The admin. did not respond to this at all, they just allowed the presentation. And now, get this, it turns out they did NOT fire the guy! They found him a non-tenured instructor position! Fer crissakes! They get to rail before the whole faculty about their denial and the guy is still employed there.
My case, by contrast, I think there are people there who don't even realize I'm gone. Or if they do realize it, they might think it was my idea. I am constantly meeting people in the grocery store and amazed by the complete misconceptions they have about what happened. So I am contemplating asking the two faculty members who supported me if they would consider asking the admin. to make a similar presentation at a regular faculty meeting. The idea is that this presentation would say that the point of it is most emphatically NOT to address the denial, but to address the atrocious behavior of the college afterward. You could argue that this is a win-win. I could get some catharsis, knowing that at least my story got out to the faculty, and they (the admin.) could feel good that this story did not go out to the public at large.
But...what do you think? It probably is a mistake to do something like that. At this point, I'm just contemplating discussing it, not getting close to doing it. It will be interesting to see what my two former colleagues say.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The voices of tenure denial
I have been accumulating some links related to tenure denial; see the link to my delicious page on the right side of the blog. There is plenty of content on the web about cases related to discrimination (real or alleged), political and religious issues, etc. There is relatively less related to those who were just denied tenure period. By the way, one thing I have not mentioned is the legal work I did through my tenure denial--maybe that is a long enough story for a whole blog entry--but the conclusion I came to in that research was that civil suits challenging tenure denials that don't have any allegations of systematic class discrimination or political/religious bias probably have an extremely, extremely low chance of succeeding.
Please, if there is anyone out there reading this (and it is far from clear there is) send me anything you have related to this issue. Notable is Rob Knop's blogging about his tenure denial and what he has done since then. He has been one of the few to come out publicly about what has happened to him. It is all the more brave since, as I have noted several times before on this blog, one thing you learn about tenure denial is that basically the best thing you can do afterward is to as completely as possible hide or at least cloud what happened. That's why I started this blog, as a place to voice things that I felt were completely impossible otherwise. If there are others of you out there, please contact me. My whole aim is at anonymity here so one can speak candidly about the issues.
Please, if there is anyone out there reading this (and it is far from clear there is) send me anything you have related to this issue. Notable is Rob Knop's blogging about his tenure denial and what he has done since then. He has been one of the few to come out publicly about what has happened to him. It is all the more brave since, as I have noted several times before on this blog, one thing you learn about tenure denial is that basically the best thing you can do afterward is to as completely as possible hide or at least cloud what happened. That's why I started this blog, as a place to voice things that I felt were completely impossible otherwise. If there are others of you out there, please contact me. My whole aim is at anonymity here so one can speak candidly about the issues.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Randy Pausch is really dead
So I finally read Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture. It was last week, they were working in my office and I got kicked out for the afternoon; I went over the the library, found it on the shelves, went to a study carol amidst the students studying for their finals, put on the headphones and went through it in one sitting. It's not that long. Bottom line: for about the first 15 minutes I was skeptical, but after that I found myself actually feeling better. Obviously maybe just a simple "I'm not dead" kind of thing :) but it seemed more than that. I had not been expecting it.
It has been almost a year and a half since I looked at the "Last Lecture" either the video or the book. It had been very painful to me when I first encountered it. It was spring of 2008, I was in the middle of my appeal. For some reason I Googled the term "last lecture" or something like that. At that time, I was often thinking about my upcoming last lecture. All of that spring is kind of a blur to me, so perhaps it was after I had applied for the job I currently have, because I was definitely thinking that the end of the semester would be the last time I would be in the classroom.
Back then, it was very painful to look at. I was struggling with my own issues, and along comes the Last Lecture phenomena. Here I am brooding over my upcoming last lecture and this guy has it all over me. He's dying (making my pain seem stupid in comparison) and he's fabulously successful in the field in which I'm about to transition out of via failure mode. I didn't watch the whole thing back then, I probably got through about a third of it, just enough to discover what a tremendously successful guy he was and that his Last Lecture concept was completely unrelated to mine. My last lecture symbolized a final defeat. My last participation in the arena that I so desperately strived to succeed. And when it came to that, it was a complete anticlimax. Not that I expected or planned for otherwise. Having gone through the denial process once already, I knew that you have to hide it all, you can't broadcast any of it. I knew I could not attract attention to myself by announcing my last lecure or planning some unusual event. So the lower level class had the usual depressing last minute review for the final. The upper division class was a little better. I had saved a particularly pleasurable problem to work through, so at least I had some final memory of that wonderful experience of being in front of the class and getting to share with them some gem and try to get them into it.
But back to Randy Paush. He was a YouTube superstar, he was all over the net and he was dying. It was just umbearable. So I put it out of my mind. Now, about a year and a half later, I finally came back to it. So that was partly why I was surprised to actually feel good after reading the book. And it is so sobering to think, he was alive back then, in late spring of 2008. He's dead now. The real dead professor. [For the record, I meant that term--dead professor--to be ironic and humorous. Not dead in the real sense but dead in the sense of no longer a professor. An ex-professor, no longer to ever be again.] If you google "dead professor" you get "Dr. Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon CS professor, Dead at 47" from TechCrunch.
So, finally, what to think about the Last Lecture phenomena? Well, first, I feel nothing but gratitude for Randy Pausch. His book, which reads like a kind of a terminal version of "Surely You Must Be Joking" is not only entertaining but of real value. It certainly helped ME, when I finally read it. He makes clear--and I would have understood this if I had made it to the end of the YouTube lecture the first time--his main motivation for doing it was for his kids. And he clearly did not seek the notoriety that came his way.
But let's think about it. The guy was absolutely fabulously successful. (As an aside, I think viewing the Last Lecture one should remember just how incredibly competitive faculty positions are, especially at large, well respected universities. You have to be hitting home runs across the board to succeed in a position like that.) While I can unequivocally agree that being alive is infinitely better than being dead, he at least had the experience of feeling professionally satisfied before he died. Is having your career die--and not being able to talk about it to anyone--worse than actual death? We all are going to die. What kind of place do we want to get to before we die? I firmly believe that the old adage: "No man on his deathbed ever regretted not working at the office more," is NOT true. Lot's of us pursue careers that are a big chunk of our hopes and dreams, and a lot of us, maybe most of us, don't succeed, or don't get to terms where we feel satisfied with our satisfaction.
I don't know. The one strong feeling I had after my second denial (after I had a few months to reflect upon it) was that I felt bad that I was not more generous personally to my colleagues. I knew what it felt like to be in horrible pain emotionally and have no one at your workplace even think to ask how you are doing. One thing that I have tried to do going forward is to be a better colleague to my coworkers. Being a science/tech. nerd it is easy to get absorbed into one's own technical problems. But the real life's problems of those around you (and your family of course) are more important.
So I don't know. It is horrible that Randy Pausch never got to see his kids grow up, I know that for sure.
It has been almost a year and a half since I looked at the "Last Lecture" either the video or the book. It had been very painful to me when I first encountered it. It was spring of 2008, I was in the middle of my appeal. For some reason I Googled the term "last lecture" or something like that. At that time, I was often thinking about my upcoming last lecture. All of that spring is kind of a blur to me, so perhaps it was after I had applied for the job I currently have, because I was definitely thinking that the end of the semester would be the last time I would be in the classroom.
Back then, it was very painful to look at. I was struggling with my own issues, and along comes the Last Lecture phenomena. Here I am brooding over my upcoming last lecture and this guy has it all over me. He's dying (making my pain seem stupid in comparison) and he's fabulously successful in the field in which I'm about to transition out of via failure mode. I didn't watch the whole thing back then, I probably got through about a third of it, just enough to discover what a tremendously successful guy he was and that his Last Lecture concept was completely unrelated to mine. My last lecture symbolized a final defeat. My last participation in the arena that I so desperately strived to succeed. And when it came to that, it was a complete anticlimax. Not that I expected or planned for otherwise. Having gone through the denial process once already, I knew that you have to hide it all, you can't broadcast any of it. I knew I could not attract attention to myself by announcing my last lecure or planning some unusual event. So the lower level class had the usual depressing last minute review for the final. The upper division class was a little better. I had saved a particularly pleasurable problem to work through, so at least I had some final memory of that wonderful experience of being in front of the class and getting to share with them some gem and try to get them into it.
But back to Randy Paush. He was a YouTube superstar, he was all over the net and he was dying. It was just umbearable. So I put it out of my mind. Now, about a year and a half later, I finally came back to it. So that was partly why I was surprised to actually feel good after reading the book. And it is so sobering to think, he was alive back then, in late spring of 2008. He's dead now. The real dead professor. [For the record, I meant that term--dead professor--to be ironic and humorous. Not dead in the real sense but dead in the sense of no longer a professor. An ex-professor, no longer to ever be again.] If you google "dead professor" you get "Dr. Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon CS professor, Dead at 47" from TechCrunch.
So, finally, what to think about the Last Lecture phenomena? Well, first, I feel nothing but gratitude for Randy Pausch. His book, which reads like a kind of a terminal version of "Surely You Must Be Joking" is not only entertaining but of real value. It certainly helped ME, when I finally read it. He makes clear--and I would have understood this if I had made it to the end of the YouTube lecture the first time--his main motivation for doing it was for his kids. And he clearly did not seek the notoriety that came his way.
But let's think about it. The guy was absolutely fabulously successful. (As an aside, I think viewing the Last Lecture one should remember just how incredibly competitive faculty positions are, especially at large, well respected universities. You have to be hitting home runs across the board to succeed in a position like that.) While I can unequivocally agree that being alive is infinitely better than being dead, he at least had the experience of feeling professionally satisfied before he died. Is having your career die--and not being able to talk about it to anyone--worse than actual death? We all are going to die. What kind of place do we want to get to before we die? I firmly believe that the old adage: "No man on his deathbed ever regretted not working at the office more," is NOT true. Lot's of us pursue careers that are a big chunk of our hopes and dreams, and a lot of us, maybe most of us, don't succeed, or don't get to terms where we feel satisfied with our satisfaction.
I don't know. The one strong feeling I had after my second denial (after I had a few months to reflect upon it) was that I felt bad that I was not more generous personally to my colleagues. I knew what it felt like to be in horrible pain emotionally and have no one at your workplace even think to ask how you are doing. One thing that I have tried to do going forward is to be a better colleague to my coworkers. Being a science/tech. nerd it is easy to get absorbed into one's own technical problems. But the real life's problems of those around you (and your family of course) are more important.
So I don't know. It is horrible that Randy Pausch never got to see his kids grow up, I know that for sure.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
It's not all whining!
I actually did not start this blog just to whine. Really! I did some googling yesterday and you should see some of the whining blogs that are out there. No, I'm not nearly that bad. And that really was not the main reason I started this blog. Really!
While I continue to maintain that I was completely abandoned by the supposedly supportive and nurturing Christian community I was in at my last college, I will say there are some upsides to what has happened to me. I would not have chosen it this way, but ....
Well, let me stop right there. One of the (kind of) beneficial things about where I am now is that I was forced out. In my mind, I fought as hard and as long as I could and was tossed out. So, I don't have any regrets I did not try harder. And I was forced to completely change what I was doing professionally, which at least in the short term, has had some advantages to it. The first, most obvious one--in retrospect--is that I got to take a break from teaching. Yes, I am massively pissed that the assholes at my last college decided that they had to craft their denial so as to make it in effect impossible for me to teach again at any level, but I will admit that it has been nice to take a break from teaching. I spent 16 years in a row teaching college science full-time. This is what sabbaticals are for. If you don't have a break from students and grading every 7 years of so you go absolutely nuts. To actually not have to grade papers for once has been a tremendously liberating experience. I realized that I was always, except maybe between terms, living with a nagging guilt that I had not finished the grading I should have gotten to earlier.
So that was good. But besides that, I'd say that college professors, especially those with significant teaching pressures, are some of the most over-committed people. I'm working on several different IT/HPC related projects now in my new job but the pressure seems almost non-existent. When people ask me what I'm doing, sometimes I now jokingly just say "nothing.. really nothing...OK well not exactly nothing but a lot less than I used to be." That's not to say that I'm idle in my new job, just that the evening/weekend pressures are much, much less.
Now, beyond that, I can see that there are some people who did get tenure that I would not want to be. And I mean good people too. One good acquaintance of mine who does have tenure at a small private college, he just seems somewhat self-indulgent, intellectually. It's hard to explain what I mean by that, but it has to do with being in a position where you have been there a long time, you know you will be there a long time in the future, and you have very good job security. It does not force you out of your rut very much. That and standing in front of students a few hours a day and they will listen to whatever you say (pretty much), tends you to a certain self-indulgence that is not healthy. You know the type I mean, the older professor who has been doing it for a long time and has certain... quirks.... that can be endearing or infuriating but once you are out of the system you can look at it and go--wow, you could not maintain that kind of approach outside of academia!
So I'm glad I did not go down that road. I was forced out of my rut, and while it was a horrible injustice perpetrated by fundamentally evil people it did have certain upsides to it.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Why paranoia has not been eliminated by natural selection
When something like this happens to you, you start to realize there is an upside to paranoia, or let's say borderline parnoia. Paranoic thoughts. Not clinical paranoia, that's another thing entirely. Let us just say tendencies to let one's mind dwell in that area.
"I was unjustly attacked by those lesser than me. I was engaged in a noble pursuit that they were too craven to comprehend. I was upholding higher professional standards than they were; they have a false sense of their own worth. They are hacks and they are too stupid to realize it. They conspired against me."
And so on. The strange thing is that when something like this happens to you, going down the paranoia road, at least a little bit, almost seems mentally healthy in a way. I mean, what's the alternative? You're going to wallow in your faults? After all they've just been laid out to you, chapter and verse, in detail and quantified to boot. In fact the unhealthy thought train seems to go down THAT one. You don't want to go there, because then what?
Trying to be more serious for a minute--I have seen this, and I don't think it is a delusion: tenure and promotion committees have to make binary decisions, at least when it is about tenure and it is up-or-out time. For whatever reason, once they get on the wrong side of that, then the rationalization sets in. They want this to be a clear-cut decision, so they can have no qualms of their own consciences. So they convince themselves that you really were profoundly incompetent. It was a no-brainer. They did the college a service keeping you out. Lost in this is how they could have lived, worked and socialized with a profoundly incompetent person for six years and only now come to realize it.
It goes even further than that. When I pursued my appeal, and finally, after several months, was able to force a face to face meeting with the appeal committee and a the chair of the P&T committee, their attitude was one of petulance. As if they were offended that I would have the temerity to try to work my hardest to save a career I had invested over half my life in. Such a profoundly incompetent professor and he has the gall to waste our time with these proceedings! There was one person on the appeal committee that acted humanly, thank God. But the other three representatives, the chair of the appeal committee, the chair of the P&T committee and the dean, were all just as if they had tasted something bad in their mouth. Not just that I was dead (as a professor) but that I had the horrible ungentlemanliness to actually try to defend my career.
Actually, I have to correct what I said: the dean was not petulant, he was just goofy. He sat there with a goofy grin on his face as he did everything. Yes, what's worse than having Darth Vader as a dean, it's a weak dean. Then the faculty rush to leap into the power void. And all that resentment of being pushed around for all those years, they finally get to wield some power.
If anyone in fact does ever read this, I will need to eventually get out some of the details and that last paragraph leads to one important fact of the most recent denial. In the year and a half leading up to my consideration our small college acquired a new president, dean, and college chair. The president was (is) a businessman, not even posessing of a Ph.D., completely unacquinted with academia. I don't fault the college for taking him--at the time they were on their last legs financially--but the result of taking him on was that he naturally absented himself from all important academic decisions like P&T. At least I assume so. If I were in that situation that is certainly what I would do. So that had been in place for about a year, while we searched for a new dean too. Everbody sort of wondered how that would shake out. They acquired the dean at the beginning of my final academic year. And he turned out to be a wishy-washy empty suit. A sort of goofy guy with a goofy grin on his face all the time.
As the fact of the new dean slowly dawned on the faculty, they (as I had described above) slowly reached out to grab whatever power they could in this vacuum. And all those old resentments then have a time to come to the surface. Now it's payback time!
Oh and finally the college chair. Let's just call him "Mr. Meticulous" for now. That was a blindside. I did not know what an utter asshole he was until this all happened. This is my fault, I should have seen that coming. But he is one of those kind who while wielding knives behind closed doors is overly friendly and nice in public.
Ok, enough for now. Like I said, sometimes a little paranoia is actually just a matter of self-preservation!
"I was unjustly attacked by those lesser than me. I was engaged in a noble pursuit that they were too craven to comprehend. I was upholding higher professional standards than they were; they have a false sense of their own worth. They are hacks and they are too stupid to realize it. They conspired against me."
And so on. The strange thing is that when something like this happens to you, going down the paranoia road, at least a little bit, almost seems mentally healthy in a way. I mean, what's the alternative? You're going to wallow in your faults? After all they've just been laid out to you, chapter and verse, in detail and quantified to boot. In fact the unhealthy thought train seems to go down THAT one. You don't want to go there, because then what?
Trying to be more serious for a minute--I have seen this, and I don't think it is a delusion: tenure and promotion committees have to make binary decisions, at least when it is about tenure and it is up-or-out time. For whatever reason, once they get on the wrong side of that, then the rationalization sets in. They want this to be a clear-cut decision, so they can have no qualms of their own consciences. So they convince themselves that you really were profoundly incompetent. It was a no-brainer. They did the college a service keeping you out. Lost in this is how they could have lived, worked and socialized with a profoundly incompetent person for six years and only now come to realize it.
It goes even further than that. When I pursued my appeal, and finally, after several months, was able to force a face to face meeting with the appeal committee and a the chair of the P&T committee, their attitude was one of petulance. As if they were offended that I would have the temerity to try to work my hardest to save a career I had invested over half my life in. Such a profoundly incompetent professor and he has the gall to waste our time with these proceedings! There was one person on the appeal committee that acted humanly, thank God. But the other three representatives, the chair of the appeal committee, the chair of the P&T committee and the dean, were all just as if they had tasted something bad in their mouth. Not just that I was dead (as a professor) but that I had the horrible ungentlemanliness to actually try to defend my career.
Actually, I have to correct what I said: the dean was not petulant, he was just goofy. He sat there with a goofy grin on his face as he did everything. Yes, what's worse than having Darth Vader as a dean, it's a weak dean. Then the faculty rush to leap into the power void. And all that resentment of being pushed around for all those years, they finally get to wield some power.
If anyone in fact does ever read this, I will need to eventually get out some of the details and that last paragraph leads to one important fact of the most recent denial. In the year and a half leading up to my consideration our small college acquired a new president, dean, and college chair. The president was (is) a businessman, not even posessing of a Ph.D., completely unacquinted with academia. I don't fault the college for taking him--at the time they were on their last legs financially--but the result of taking him on was that he naturally absented himself from all important academic decisions like P&T. At least I assume so. If I were in that situation that is certainly what I would do. So that had been in place for about a year, while we searched for a new dean too. Everbody sort of wondered how that would shake out. They acquired the dean at the beginning of my final academic year. And he turned out to be a wishy-washy empty suit. A sort of goofy guy with a goofy grin on his face all the time.
As the fact of the new dean slowly dawned on the faculty, they (as I had described above) slowly reached out to grab whatever power they could in this vacuum. And all those old resentments then have a time to come to the surface. Now it's payback time!
Oh and finally the college chair. Let's just call him "Mr. Meticulous" for now. That was a blindside. I did not know what an utter asshole he was until this all happened. This is my fault, I should have seen that coming. But he is one of those kind who while wielding knives behind closed doors is overly friendly and nice in public.
Ok, enough for now. Like I said, sometimes a little paranoia is actually just a matter of self-preservation!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Twice Denied
This blog is a place to put stuff that I think about a lot but basically nobody wants to hear.
The title is derived from an 2004 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled "Dead Professor Walking" by Maria Annunziata (a pseudonym) about her terminal year after being denied tenure at a midwestern research university (http://chronicle.com/article/Dead-Professor-Walking/44596/).
I've been there, done that. In fact, done it twice. Well, the second time I wised up and I decided not to take the terminal year, as something else came along. All in all with both positions included we're talking 13 years of full-time, assistant professorness, ending in bouncing completely out of academia at the end of that.
One thing I have learned about being denied tenure, and I've had a chance to learn it twice now, is that as much as you can stand it, you DON'T want to talk about it with other people afterward, not at all. As much as you want to scream to the heavens about the injustices which have been wrongly put down upon you, it only makes your situation worse. In terms of moving on with your career, whether in or out of academia, you want to have that be known as little as possible. Especially if you are continuing on in academia, or trying to.
But I can go into that in more detail later.
I have no high hopes for anyone reading this, but it will be helpful to at least have a place to get it out. One thing I DO wonder about, and this came to me immediately when it happened, was this: do you suppose there is anyone out there who has gone down this road *three* times? Is there a Guiness Book of Records for such things? Even if you are only twice denied, like me, or once denied, I'd be interested in hearing from you.
The title is derived from an 2004 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled "Dead Professor Walking" by Maria Annunziata (a pseudonym) about her terminal year after being denied tenure at a midwestern research university (http://chronicle.com/article/Dead-Professor-Walking/44596/).
I've been there, done that. In fact, done it twice. Well, the second time I wised up and I decided not to take the terminal year, as something else came along. All in all with both positions included we're talking 13 years of full-time, assistant professorness, ending in bouncing completely out of academia at the end of that.
One thing I have learned about being denied tenure, and I've had a chance to learn it twice now, is that as much as you can stand it, you DON'T want to talk about it with other people afterward, not at all. As much as you want to scream to the heavens about the injustices which have been wrongly put down upon you, it only makes your situation worse. In terms of moving on with your career, whether in or out of academia, you want to have that be known as little as possible. Especially if you are continuing on in academia, or trying to.
But I can go into that in more detail later.
I have no high hopes for anyone reading this, but it will be helpful to at least have a place to get it out. One thing I DO wonder about, and this came to me immediately when it happened, was this: do you suppose there is anyone out there who has gone down this road *three* times? Is there a Guiness Book of Records for such things? Even if you are only twice denied, like me, or once denied, I'd be interested in hearing from you.
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