FIRST PERSON

Just Visiting Again

When his tenure-track search fell short, a Ph.D. faced a fundamental choice about dealing with the disappointment

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By NORMAN D. PLUMMER

This summer, for me, marked the conclusion of an unsuccessful year spent searching for tenure-track work in post-World War II American literature. The 2008 hiring season is over; the job listings have turned to 2009 appointments.

Writing that down for the first time, I feel like I'm making a proclamation at a support-group meeting: "Hi, I'm Norman, and I'm a failed job applicant."

There is no denying the disappointment. It feels as much an indictment of my intellect as anything else, despite a chorus of well-wishers insisting that it's not personal, things are just that competitive. The rejection hurts, plain and simple.

But I also know that I have a fundamental choice when it comes to dealing with this disappointment. Do I allow it to define my experience? Do I embrace the vitriol and carry that chip on my shoulder as a red badge of acrimony? In the company of graduate students, do I adopt the clichéd thousand-yard stare? "Yeah, I've been in the soup, man. … It'll change you. It'll break you down."

I did that for about a week. After classes let out, I looked ahead, but not forward, to another year outside the sphere of the tenured, telling graduate students I liked and cared about that they had to find someone else to advise them because I was not on the tenure track.

I watched former graduate colleagues with whom I had taken classes buy homes in research towns and in small liberal-arts enclaves, while I signed a one-year visiting contract on a rural satellite campus of a state-university system in the East. I looked back on bright new minds happily accepting tenure-track offers at my new institution — offers that were not extended to me.

I remembered the day I faxed my application for a deferral on my student loans, and the day I canceled cable — and thus my access to Yankee games — because I had to meet other financial obligations. I looked down at the tattered cuffs of the pants I could not afford to replace.

And I was bitter. I was tempted to quit the academic market, thinking that it's not worth the disappointment. I was determined to seek a job that would pay me what I thought my time was worth.

But then my wife and I finally got around to watching the Johnny Depp version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka decides to invite five lucky children to the mysterious headquarters of his global candy empire. Admission will be granted to the lucky recipients of "golden tickets" randomly hidden inside the wrappers of a few chocolate bars.

Our hero, the deeply impoverished Charlie Bucket, is dispirited when the fifth and final ticket is discovered. But his disappointment turns to optimism when, after that fifth ticket is proven counterfeit, he stumbles upon some money in the street. Incredibly, his mild good fortune becomes outlandishly good luck as the candy bar he purchases contains the final golden ticket.

Immediately the adults surrounding him in the candy store begin vying for the opportunity to buy the ticket from him. Its value, he realizes, is a tidy sum. When he returns to the decrepit home he shares with his parents and all four grandparents — the latter all share one bed — he announces his intent to sell the ticket, for the benefit of his entire family. One of his grandfathers, however, insists otherwise. After all, he points out, this was an opportunity not to be traded for something as common as money.

That remark gave me pause, as I looked back to some of the other things I had had occasion to witness this year. I saw my daughter's birth. I saw almost every waking moment of her first six weeks, through the great good fortune of Annabel's entering our lives on the first day of my winter recess.

During the semester, I was home every night to put her to bed, and there every morning when she awoke. I was right next to my wife as our child rolled over for the first time. This summer, as she turned six months old, we helped her drink water from her first cup. I was there to help feed her first solid meal. And I helped change that first solid meal's diaper.

I was afforded all of that because when my daughter was awake and alert, I was at home. I worked mostly during her naps and at night — because I was able to determine where and when most of my work got done. I cannot imagine anything better, and can scarcely imagine how heart-rending the opposite experience would be.

Moreover, I successfully defended my dissertation and even earned some praise for it. My contract was extended to a second year, based more on the institution's desire to keep me than on any real need. And I signed a book deal for material I had edited with a colleague.

In my classroom, I witnessed the face of a student who impressed herself with her own output. She had taken my course as a general-education requirement, certain that it would be difficult for her. And it was, but her effort turned out to be surprisingly satisfying — no more so for her than for me. I was thrilled that she was thrilled, proud of her because she was proud of herself.

I looked also to an article I had written and recently sent to a publisher. It was the record of time spent in the sun reading and discussing issues with friends and colleagues, and at the computer writing, all of which I had the tremendous privilege of labeling "work."

More such moments came to mind: the look of pride in my mother's eyes when, at my wedding, my wife and I were introduced to a group of my closest friends and relatives as "Dr. and Mrs."; my father's gentle handling of my daughter during the first of two weeks we spent together this summer.

Such recollections buoyed my spirits. They are not what time in this life is worth; they are what time is for. They are exponentially more meaningful than any Yankees game, more comfortable than any pair of properly hemmed pants.

So as I prepare to go on the academic market again, for the third consecutive year, my wife and I have no idea what our lives will be like at this time next summer. I do not have the certitude of a golden ticket in my palm — nothing quite like that exists in academe.

But I have an earned doctorate, which is about as close as one gets to something like Charlie's lucky find. And while that degree is no guarantee that I'll be able to continue living the academic life I look forward to every morning, it's the only thing that can make that happen. It's certainly not a dream I plan to forgo for something as common as money.

Norman D. Plummer is the pseudonym of a visiting assistant professor of English on a satellite campus of a state university in the East. He chronicled his search in 2007-8 for a tenure-track job. His previous columns are "Try, Try Again" and "Fallow, the Yellow Brick Road."