Indulge me for a few moments, will you please? I realize that, in terms of remarkable achievements, gaining continuing contract status here (which I seem to have done) really amounts to not much more than showing up each day with a pulse. Well, okay, I exaggerate: Teaching here is by far the most demanding teaching I've ever done; the course load is heavy, many of the students are needy, and the expectations we put on them are high - but compared to navigating the viper pits I found myself in at four-year institutions, it's been a breeze. All I've had to do is . . . do a good job. No worries about who might be pissed off by what I say, no worries that something I do will come back to haunt me six years later, no treating senior faculty as if they were holding my and my family's future in their hands (which they were). Oh, yeah - and no research expectations (I have always thrived on low expectations!), a higher salary, and much much MUCH better health insurance. (I realize that not all 4-year institutions are viper pits; but I have noticed that if there's going to be a dysfunctional department on campus, it will likely be the English department . . . don't ask me why.)

And perhaps I was more affected by my experience at those four-year institutions than I wanted to realize, because even though it has seemed relatively easy to get the equivalent of tenure here, I'm taking an unaccountable delight in those five words that appear at the bottom of my annual evaluation this year. Next year will be the first year since 1990, when I started at Penn State-Erie, that I will teach without feeling like a sword is hanging over my head. I've noticed that I seem to be standing a little taller, breathing a little easier. What will life be like if survival isn't my first concern? I've always thought that the big benefit of tenure is that it allows individuals to think about the good of the college or university as a whole, since their interests are so closely entwined with the institution's interests. I wonder what that will feel like?

And what a concept, to think that I can't be let go unless I do something completely egregious! Actual JOB SECURITY! Job security not dependent on the "kindness of strangers" (which is how Pharmacy always felt to me, no matter how kind the boss was and what a good working relationship we had. In the back of my mind there was always the "he could be hit by a bus" factor . . . and I watched people around me, with many more years' experience, be laid off when times got hard).

Heh. And in three years, I'll be eligible for a sabbatical! My first sabbatical, at the age of 53 . . . I'm planning it already. Woo, hoo!

So, yes, I find myself smiling a lot today . . . I've waited a lo-ooong time for this good news.