when the line between faculty and staff gets blurry...

Despite the feeling of slowness brought on by the kind of weather that makes you feel like you're walking through a bowl of beef broth, things have been rather busy -- and rather interesting -- on campus lately. More and more, I find myself treading a very blurry line between faculty and staff. And while it's not at all unpleasant -- kind of nice, actually -- it does make me think a lot about where this job is headed and where I want it to be headed.

When I interviewed for my current job, almost all of the faculty members I met with asked something along the lines of "Are you going to continue your research?" To which I politely answered, "Well, I think this position will keep me more than busy with other things," while I tried not to look too wan as visions of sample vials danced menacingly in my mind.

People have continued to ask the research question since I arrived, except now it's usually followed by "Will you be teaching?" I suppose these are natural questions, given the fact that I work at a university and have my Ph.D. Admittedly, I was starting to think that these people were missing something when I introduced myself as a program coordinator rather than an assistant/associate/full/research professor. Didn't they realize that coordinating was a full-time job? Then after a conversation with X a few weeks ago, I realized that it was me who had been missing something.

I've seen the official, administrative description for my position. It lays out a wide range of duties and responsibilities, none of which mention the words "research" or "teaching." So imagine my surprise when X says to me "I'm teaching a class on [basically the research you did as a grad student] this fall. Do you want to co-teach it with me?" Before I could even think about it, I had agreed. On some gut level, I really want to teach, and I'm really psyched to have the opportunity to.

A week or so later, I was even more surprised when X said "Would you be interested in working on this little research project I've been thinking about?" To my amazement, my gut and heart (and mouth) said yes. Granted, X caught me at a weak moment -- I'd been on a journal reading binge for the first time in years, and scholarly research was looking kind of interesting again.

So here it is, mid-summer, and I'm looking at the September calendar wondering how I'm going to pull off co-teaching a course, spinning up a little research project, and putting together three (yes, three) proposals for our interdisciplinary initiative.

Before you know it, I'll be editing thesis proposals and telling concerned parents that their sophomores did actually earn those C minuses.