Teaching in the fall

A bit of disappointment today. I had been expecting to get a job teaching at SMU in the fall: it looked like they would have four vacancies in their typical teaching roster, and the big question in my mind was whether I'd be able to land a full-time visitor's position, or just an adjunct slot. Alas, however, two of the four vacancies evaporated (people postponed their leaves), and they are planning to hire a visiting particle physicist (which I am not). (Particle physics is a small, close-knit community which makes this easier for them to do: there's even a website showing all the shortlists of the various job searches in high-energy physics. Once the tenure-track job season finishes at the end of April, SMU just has to look at the people left over, and invite them all to apply for this visiting position.) If they don't hire someone then they'll need two classes covered, but that seems unlikely.

It's not a really big deal, I suppose. Eastfield is always happy to have me teach, and they don't pay adjuncts that much less than SMU. I like teaching at SMU because there's the opportunity to work with a higher cut of student, including actual physics majors; teaching math-challenged students is rather tiring, like trying to teach people who don't speak English. (There are people who specialize in ESL and remedial mathematics, but I'm not one of those people.) I'm also worried about my credentials: I do not want to be a community-college teacher for the rest of my life, and I don't want to look like one to any hiring committees. (I was hoping to get at least one or two interviews this spring from the applications I sent out, but no bites yet. Very discouraging.)

Ah well. Not so bad; I'm certainly not considering running for office. :)