The Last Day of My Employment...
This is the last day of my employment.
Oh, oh, oh
I’ll still have access to my old office
Oh, oh, oh
I’ll write but no teaching or committees
Oh, oh, oh
What becomes of my identity?
Oh, oh, oh
What becomes of my identity?
That’s right, I am taking a buyout from the University of Denver’s Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs. For some reason this Sinead O’Connor tune has been running through my head since I signed the buyout papers, so I penned some silly new lyrics. As of tomorrow, September 1st, I will no longer be employed. I am also 67 years old and will not be looking for a new job. In my first year as an Assistant Professor in a department populated by many who were, shall we say, past their prime, I committed to retire by the time I was 70. I was determined not to contribute to the “dead wood” problem – and I am glad to keep that commitment. But this feels very weird.
It is partly the rocky road to the decision. I returned from my sabbatical to a university in crisis with a new provost hell bent on radically remaking it. The financial strains on the Korbel School led me to explore whether I might make a deal to leave a year early – at 69 rather than 70. New demands by the provost, though, upended that deal and I was basically offered the choice between taking a very good buyout immediately or working quite a bit more for the same amount of money. Though always enveloped in words mourning the possibility of me leaving, I could feel the hunger for the savings my salary would provide. It was strange to feel like the best thing I could do for an institution I had loved was to leave.
It is not like the research and writing will stop – at least not for the next few years. I have a book under review and another in progress. I have agreed to a pile of book, article, and promotion reviews to be completed in the coming months. I also have articles in progress, an active grant, more research planned, and a budget to finish it. I am scheduled for several smaller conferences and have signed on to more than my share of panels at the International Studies Association meeting. I will maintain my affiliations with the Sie Center and the Scrivner Institute at the Korbel School as well as various other boards and initiatives.
For the first time since I was 4 years old, though, the start of the school year doesn’t mean the same thing this time. I keep telling myself how great it will be to have more flexibility to hike in the mountains as the Aspens turn, travel in the fall after the crowds, and spend more time on my writing and with my adorable grandchildren. But it is unnerving to miss the excitement of a new school year – the possibility of re-connecting with colleagues, meeting new students, and the fresh energy the start of the year always brings.
I am, probably unjustifiably, bothered by the reactions from some of the people I tell. “Congratulations!!” they say – and then am I imagining the shifted gaze, scrutiny of my hair and skin as they wonder how old I really am? The somewhat patronizing, “what will you do now?” or “a new chapter!” even as I have as long a to-do list as ever, am far from finishing my current chapter, and still have a lot of thoughts about the state of politics. As a friend who took a buyout a few years ago remarked – it feels like some begin to look at you as if “you are on your way to the happy hunting ground”.
The mix of ongoing work, nostalgia, and a feeling that “I’m not dead yet” has made me reluctant to embrace my status as “retired”. I may have said that in a fairly direct way when the provost congratulated me on my “retirement” in a note attached to my tenure relinquishment papers. I told her that a “thank you” for helping Korbel meet her stringent financial goals was more appropriate than “congratulations” on a retirement that was neither my plan nor on my timeline.
All this has made me reflect, though, on how much of my identity is wrapped up with my work – a bit of a surprise to me. I have often focused on how the various parts of my life affected my work rather than the other way around. The book I am working on now is a cookbook – structured around how cooking has interacted with events in my career to shift my philosophy of science. I have never felt like I could *only* be a professor and even considered other careers at times. I spent the year after I got tenure contemplating jobs in government or with an NGO. And I kept a file of recipes for the restaurant I imagined opening during a few years in a particularly tough department. But I find myself clinging more than I thought I would to my professor self. My writing, of course, but also what I learn from teaching and engaging with others. Our field’s collective endeavor to foster thinking, understanding of the world that might also improve it, is connected to almost everything I do.
This is not unusual for professor types. And it is probably the reason there are so many septuagenarians and octogenarians who are yet to “retire” unless they are required to. As I organized a panel for next year’s ISA, I realized that many of the participants were not emeritus even though they were 5, 10, or even 15 years older than me. And then there are all the emeritus faculty still working away despite their lack of “employment”.
What the future holds for me after I complete my ongoing commitments is thus a question. I feel exhausted by the current crisis in the academic world and don’t feel that I am the right person to address its problems. But I am not sure I will be ready to walk away from trying to understand the current state of politics, insane as it is. As I settle into my changed status and begin to think about another chapter, it may be that while this is the last day of my employment, my identity will be slower to change. I may hike, cycle, cook, and travel more but flexing my intellectual muscles in the hopes of nudging toward more productive political relations seems like it will be hard to retire from.
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