After sticking around in my hometown for college, thus logging the first 22 years in one place, I became a rather nomadic person after that, in part due to curiosity or following job or schooling opportunities, in part due to failed endeavors, plus a little wanderlust. From age 23 through 38, I never lived in the same place for more than three consecutive years, and even some of those stints were broken up with extended absences of a couple months elsewhere. To say I never got settled may be an understatement. I assume I wanted to be “settled” (in some ways, and definitely not in others), but life just didn’t work out that way. During that 15-year period I lived in five states and moved about 10 times. But with time comes the need to “put away childish things” as the saying goes, and eventually, I found something resembling a career and have been settled into it now for about nine years. I would say I’m largely comfortable where I am. While I have a few complaints – I would have some inevitably wherever I lived – none are entirely disqualifying of the location or the job, so I really shouldn’t grumble. But I’ve found with comfort also comes restlessness. And being that I’m a routine-type person, I’ve started to become bored with my habits. I’ve been thinking whether I could do what I do on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis for the next 10 or 15 years, and the answer is “yes,” but that affirmation also comes with an accompanying sigh.

I guess this is not uncommon for many people, though. As we age, and especially while we’re in that transitory midlife bracket, we have a longing for other opportunities, a wish for something new and exciting to come along. I imagine most people are so consumed with their lives, though, especially if married and with kids, and possibly taking care of aging parents, that they don’t have much time to spend in that funk or irrepressible sense of wanderlust. Being that I’m unmarried and childless (thank god), and my parents are hundreds of miles away and not in need of my care, I have more time to allocate to the wandering eye of middle age.

I hope it doesn’t come to this. (Image retrieved from here and comes courtesy of Timur Weber.)

Over the last 3-4 years, I’ve applied for several jobs in my field, mostly as a “heat check” to see if anyone would want me. The first couple rounds yielded a series of distinct “no’s,” but the last few rounds I’ve gotten a little traction, with a handful of Zoom interviews, most of which didn’t lead to invites to the second stage of the onsite grilling, let alone an offer. I did have one invite for an onsite, but I turned it down. It was part pay, part rank, and part hesitancy; I couldn’t see past the short-term sacrifices to the long-term gain. I will openly admit I regret my decision to not see how far I could’ve gone, but regrets come at a dime a dozen in my life, so it goes…

But while I’ve mostly been looking because of my own curiosity and quest for something new, I’m starting to see the writing on the wall in that, eventually, I may have to start looking out of necessity. I work for a university, and as you may or may not know, the industry has been in freefall for a while, and that was only expedited by the pandemic. Add in a shrinking pool of traditional students, the coffers getting squeezed by state legislatures, and all sorts of financial and administrative mismanagement along the way, and you get dire straits for some colleges and universities, especially those small liberal arts colleges without much name recognition and the satellite campuses of flagship public universities, like the one I work at. We had an external auditor come in post-pandemic and that led to a cleaning of the shop resulting in the elimination or curtailment of 18 programs and departments, including many faculty, including those with tenure, something that until recent years would never have happened. But oh, how the times have changed…

Somehow, my department slipped through on those cuts, and I honestly can’t tell you why. Had I been in charge, I would’ve cut us, if for no other reason than we’ve been hemorrhaging students for years. My department’s enrollment is about 21% of its 2016 high – that’s a pretty nasty drop. I guess the fact that we didn’t get the axe is testament to how incompetent our administration is. Add in that they cut growing departments and those whose student credit hour generation was through the roof, and one can walk away from the situation thinking there was bias, ideological preferences, and a lack of capable leadership throughout the process. But I should be thankful, because here I sit, still with a job. For now…

I assume that will change soon, though. It has to if anyone is paying attention. I guess it’s possible we could turn things around, but I don’t think it’s likely. And this is not just my department – my field across the nation for decades has been in decline, losing upwards of 5-6 departments every year. We’re a dying dinosaur. I was hoping I could outrun it and make it to retirement, but I don’t think that’s realistic, hence why my curious job search really needs to quickly turn into one with intention of moving on. So be it. But I don’t want to move from one bad situation to another. Though, while you would think any department hiring new people would be in a good place, I don’t think it’s necessarily true. A few of the places I’ve interviewed for don’t have many more students than we have currently, though their numbers are going up – but they’re still small enough that they could easily be dissolved in the wrong political winds or due to the whims of a power-hungry administration. It’s also true even stable-in-terms-of-numbers departments aren’t always desirable. They could be in places one wouldn’t want to live, or their teaching load and other assigned duties could be backbreaking. With a shrinking field and a lot of competition, it’s slim pickings out there. Hence, why I’ve been silently kicking myself for the one golden opportunity I passed on largely due to arrogance: they’re busting at the seams with students. So it goes…

So, we’ll see what happens the next time the job mill starts churning come August. I may have ended up painting myself into a corner where I’ll just have to be happy with whatever I can get unless some sign from above comes in and sways my belief that the ship I’m currently sailing on won’t sink. But I’d rather get out to somewhere safe, even if not ideal, and be wrong about my reading of the tea leaves than be overzealous, and by necessity on the market, when the time has officially run out. It’s quite a conundrum. But hey, I’m just trying to read the writing on the wall.

Marco Esquandoles
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