Disenchantment

I think I have a four or five year limit on a job before I get bored. Actually, I think it's more like two years. I've been at my current university for almost seven years and am becoming more and more disenchanted with the way decisions are made. Most things happen at a snail's pace, which is typical for a university. Everyone needs to have their say on every little detail. If this were a corporation, we would have fallen into bankruptcy ages ago. It seems that people at the top need to take more authority rather than letting people argue for five months over how one particular sentence should read. It's just inane. Then there are other decisions which are just made off the fly without any research. It just doesn't make sense.

My department hired a new Dean a couple years ago. No one thinks she does a very good job. Everyone seems to like her as a person, but there are a bunch of things lacking.

So, as things build up, I begin to lose motivation to really go out of my way around here. I am beginning to understand why people start to become more detached after tenure. It is not because they are lazy (although that is true quite often), but it is often because there is a feeling of lack of power....the feeling that no matter what I do, it's not really going to make that much of a difference, so why do it at all. Seems I can focus my energies on consulting and other things to make more money.

I have to also say that I've never really loved academia. I came back to the university life from the corporate world so that I could have a flexible lifestyle - which I thought was very important as a single parent. So, I left the big paycheck behind. I don't regret it, but also one of the reasons why I chose this university was because they did not have huge publishing requirements (I really do not enjoy the publishing process) and I could keep my fingers in the corporate pie. A lot of universities frown on professors doing a lot of consulting on the side. This one encourages it. Of course, you can only do so much since the primary goals are to teach and do research. There is only so much time in a day.

I have no plans to leave this place anytime soon. I live about a mile away from my office, and the kids' schools are within that mile, too. It's also a wonderful environment in which to raise them. Since we are in the middle of nowhere, there are not a lot of drugs and gangs and such to worry about. So, all that is really good. The academic lifestyle is also good. I don't think my job is very difficult, although it is very busy during the semester. I still have lots of time to spend with the kids and focus on what is important. I get to travel a lot with the kids which I think is also important. This summer, we will spend a month or two in Italy...I'm hoping to make that a regular thing. I'm sure they'll become fluent in Italian far before I do.

So, I'm just feeling like things aren't going anywhere here. I've already built a great entrepreneurship program for the University, received several grants totaling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and just got a $1M donation from someone to help build the program...it is hoped that that million will turn into several million over the next few years so that they can give me a chair. I just feel like I do and do and do and don't get a whole lot back. I think that's just the way of academia. The possibility of doing more consulting on the side is looking more and more attractive. I will be attempting to pursue more of that in the future.

I took the kids skiing for the first time this weekend. Saturday, they went tube sledding and had an absolutely blast. e was on the young side to go down, but I knew that once she went down the hill once, she'd want to go again and again...they both LOVED it. Yesterday, we played hooky from Sunday school and went back to the resort to go skiing. The kids did great. E still needs to master his snowplow a little better, but by the end of their one hour lesson, e was going down no problem. She was able to stop and even turn by the end of the day. I'll try putting her a little higher on the hill so she can practice her turns some more next time! I picked E's donor because of his athletic abilities (and my lack thereof), but it looks like e is going to be my athletic one and E is going to be my brainiac. Still not a bad combination!

Oh, and poor e is having growing pains. I read up on it and apparently doctors don't know what causes them. They are worse on days when the child is more active and the pain only occurs at night. All very descriptive of what e is experiencing. As soon as we lie down, she wants me to massage her legs. Then she starts crying because she hurts so much. Saturday night she woke up twice during the night crying. I've been giving her some Tylenol with does the trick, but I hate to see her in such pain! Poor baby. It's tough growing up!