My Background - Part 5

 The College Teaching Years 2001 -2014

After leaving the Georgia Geologic Survey, at the suggestion of a coworker, I applied to teach at a local junior college with multiple campuses.  I was accepted for a part-time adjunct position as an Instructor of Geology and Environmental Science courses, starting in January 2001.  

I enjoyed it and the various campuses I taught at had places suitable for on-campus field trips.  I applied for a full-time position opening after one semester.  I didn't get it, but I didn't expect that to that soon.  No problem.  As long as I was getting three classes per semester and my first wife was still healthy and teaching at a public school, we did OK.  

I applied again after 3 and 4 years but didn't even get an interview as I had in 2001.  No "home-field advantage" in being familiar with the different campuses, as far as using the outdoors as a teaching setting.  I was disheartened, but kept on teaching, thinking I was "paying my dues" towards a full-time position.  I thought that was how it went.

As time went by, I ran across an old (printed) email from another former coworker, warning me that this particular college used adjuncts with no intention of hiring them.  I foolishly kept thinking that another opportunity was "just around the corner".  After 8 years, I applied again for another opening with the same results, ... no interview.  

The status quo of three classes per semester (usually) continued until the Spring of 2013, when I managed to secure a total of five classes on two different campuses, about 20 miles apart on different days.  Perhaps I somehow knew this was my "last hurrah", as my first wife's health had been going downhill due to two bad knees and cervical spinal stenosis.  And I was needing to spend more time tending to her needs.  

It was my first semester in teaching Environmental Science Lab (which had more embedded Biology) and I had two Labs, one at each campus.  I was supposed to get some guidance from an older Biology prof, but it didn't come through and I struggled with both Labs.  And while shuttling between the two campuses, I was in an accident that totaled our only car (my first wife was unable to drive by then).

When the Geologist who had been the Science Department Chair at my primary campus left, he was replaced with the Biology prof with whom I had difficulties in the Spring.  I was told that "not enough students signed up" for the two Summer classes I had been offered.  

When I was offered three 2013 Fall classes, I declined the 2 daytime classes to spend helping my wife after her double knee surgeries but accepted the night class.  Again, I was told that "not enough students signed up" and my access to the college email system was promptly cut off.  I was "squeezed out".  With the help of the Lab supervisor, I was able to retrieve my rocks, maps, and books I had been stashing in the Geology Lab while donating a fair number of maps and some fossils.

The worst part of this was my misguided loyalty when I had been warned.  I should have had a "5-year plan", in which if I wasn't full-time within that time, I would have left and gone to the public school system (as I had grown to enjoy teaching Earth Science by then) - at age 52 - instead of 59 in 2013 when I was squeezed out.  And so it goes.