9.25 Courage - On the Market?

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twenty-fifth day of each month is "Courage."

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Wisconsin's governor is threatening a massive budget cut to the University of Wisconsin system.  It turns out that I am employed by the University of Wisconsin system, but not, it turns out, for long if this budget is passed.  There is hope that the state legislature will push back, but since it's overwhelmingly Republican, that hope is somewhat slim.

A week before the governor made this budget proposal, Dr. BB and I had decided that we would actually start looking at houses and maybe, just maybe, stop looking at job openings as they come up on the professional association websites.  Now we're having serious discussions about whether or not Dr. BB should put himself back on the academic job market.

It's not easy to be on the academic job market. Just like any job search, it's essentially a full-time job. It's also filled with sending out materials into the void, never getting any response at all, relying on the hope that your letter of recommendation writers make their deadlines, and disappointment after disappointment.

And even if he's successful, there are the days-long interviews with lots of angst-filled meals, days and days of travel, and even greater disappointment if he doesn't get the job. It's months not knowing where or if one or both of us will have a job or where we will live. It's sleepless nights, tear-filled conversations over tea, and watching my husband become more and more gaunt with worry and illness. 

But I think that's what we're going to have to do. There's too much anti-education in this state for us to feel confident that there is stability for the long-term. Neither of us spent our twenties in graduate school to spend the rest of our lives on tenterhooks each semester to see if our jobs will be funded.  I'm crossing my fingers that we won't need the courage to brush off our CVs, but it's definitely a possibility I'm bracing for.

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 To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.