Mid-career, after I'd earned tenure at a civilian university, I chose to change schools. I accepted a faculty position at a joint professional military education institution (phase 2--that's what JPME2 is all about). And it was shocking. And perfect.
I started teaching when I was 14. I taught Confraternity of Catholic Doctrine classes for the kids in my parish who attended public schools and needed religious education on Saturdays. I had attended CCD classes myself as a young child when I was in public school--before I transferred to a Catholic school. I taught 4th graders. Imagine a 14 year old teaching 4th graders. I doubt I was the only teacher with those kids. I can hardly remember it now, but I always had warm fuzzy memories of it.
If I could teach Catholicism, surely I could teach dance.
When I got serious about dance class at 17, I knew I wanted to teach as well as do the dancing. By the end of high school I was helping in dance classes, and then started teaching dance at 19. I taught some form of movement or physical awareness class until my early 40s--ranging from serious dance classes at dance studios or colleges to exercise classes at gyms to coaching varsity football players in the yogic art of breathing for physical and spiritual calm. #specialteamscoach
English was obviously the next logical step
As I grew older, I could leap around less and less. My mind was therefore, clearly and obviously, going to have to be my next big investment. I happened to major in English while minoring in theater/dance, history, and math. English turned out to be the degree I could get the quickest and graduate so I could work and live and survive. I started out as a teaching assistant for basic writing classes and that was it. I knew I wanted to keep teaching, keep writing, help others with writing, speaking, understanding rhetorical context. I wanted to be a change agent through education though I would not have called myself that then (proudly self-define as that today). For 20+ years I taught and worked in educational publishing and was delighted with my life. Then after an arduous and wondrous PhD journey, I took a job at a civilian university as a director of composition and an assistant professor specializing in writing instruction and Victorian literature (seriously). #victorianlitlover
I got tenure and was ho-hum about it
As an assistant professor, you spend an inordinate amount of time striving for tenure and promotion to associate professor, and then you are exhausted for a year and don't remember who you are.
I had an incredible adventure at Auburn University at Montgomery. I loved rethinking and maintaining cutting edge pedagogy in the Honors program, reforming the writing program, teaching teachers, occasionally teaching a class like "Sex, Drugs, and the Victorians" or "A Century of Detective Fiction," but after I got tenure, I was worn too thin. It was like I'd been running a marathon. Then I crossed the finish line. Everything was in slow motion. And I couldn't hear the cheering. I was triumphant, but I was the last runner in the stadium, it was pretty dark, and there weren't too many people left to share in the glory. So I picked up my research agenda that I mainly left dormant for a year and thought: what do I do now? I had so many options before me. I began focusing on things I was passionate about again: writing consultation, public speaking, outreach, rhetoric, teaching creative thinking, higher education in general.
And then the US Air Force winked at me
I'd been working as a writing consultant part time for the Air War College for many years while I was at AUM, and then they had a position open up for a full-time professor of strategic communication in which it would be possible for me to stretch intellectually in ways I never dreamed possible. So I winked back and accepted the job offer. I now mostly teach colonels, lieutenant colonels, senior civilian leaders (as well as international officers) at a joint professional military education institution which offers a masters degree in security studies. #shockingandperfect I create digital rhetoric; I write every day; I consult with writers who will be shortly running the world; I teach creativity; I think about research; I think about how to make connections among scholars; I work with remarkable and successful professionals who are motivated to learn while they are at the highest and most senior level of their educational journeys. #changeagent #bestdecisionever
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