The Professor

Tomorrow, I stand in front of my last class at Central State.

After 14 years (2 of those adjunct) at Central State, and after 9 years teaching at the for-profits before that, I am at least temporarily done with being a college professor at this point. I’m leaving my role in front of my students at Central, through no desire of my own. Tomorrow, I end my teaching for this part of my career.

I’m still going to have a lot of papers to grade to finish out the term, around another week’s worth, and then I’ll be a free agent. I’ve only got to talk to my classes tomorrow about what their final paper looks like, and it won’t necessarily take long. But it’s my last day of it here.

I’ve worked hard for my time here. I’ve fought every step of the way to become a full professor and have become a senior faculty of the English faculty only to be laid off (“retrenched”) by the administration/state along with half the English faculty, half the music faculty, and more than half the art faculty. I’ve been packing up and moving out the stuff in my office, with late-night moments of “you’re going to forget the power strip” thoughts. That said, what do I say to my students tomorrow? Not a lot. I really had my last day teaching in front of them in the last week or two when we dug into logical fallacies. But there’s the last day tomorrow. It’s the end of the term, so faculty are blindingly busy.

It’s bittersweet. I’ve given more than a decade to these students, running classes, running poetry readings, teaching them during a pandemic. It feels important, this last day of class, but in the scheme of things, I guess it isn’t really. It’s big to me, at least.

I’m not sure what’s next, but it’s approaching the end of this chapter. Just a few more days.