The Offer

So, true to their word, the private school called for me to meet with their headmaster two weeks to the day after my interview. I was prepared to regard the whole proceeding with disdain. And now I must eat tasty crow and pick my teeth with the quills.

Word must have gotten around about an inappropriate comment offered by one of the teachers when I was on the campus before, because the headmaster was prepared with a full-on demonstration, complete with charts (!), about how his school is progressive. Before he even showed me the contract or discussed the job offer in any detail, he gave me the full-court press. It was a private meeting, tete-a-tete, so it felt odd when he walked over to the easel and elaborated on their massive project ($5 million) to make the campus environmentally responsible. It was like sitting alone in the audience while a play is performed just for you.

Then came the vow that his school gives no merit-based scholarships (which I have always translated as affirmative action for white people)--only need-based financial aid, "because we have a responsibility to reflect the diversity of our city and open doors for the economically disadvantaged." I think that's an exact quote. They spend over $1 million a year on need-based aid, he told me. Holy crap, I thought at that point, now I can't just sneer and go home.

Next, we talked about my neighborhood on the West Side. He knew T's school. He knew it because his wife works with Somali immigrant women (some of whose children T teaches): she helps them to learn English and so become more independent in Buffalo. My head grew light; now I was taking the place seriously. We talked about other things, which I don't need to elaborate, but it was all extremely positive. Damn, he's a good administrator.

Then he showed me the offer, and I tried not to drool. The salary and benefits are as good as, and in some cases better than, the contracts for assistant professorships I've seen on other searches for college jobs. I mean, it's still a teaching job and not stock-brokering, but the numbers were a bit, well, startling. Somehow I managed not to sign it right then and there.

He said the Board wanted to "respect my Ph.D. and university teaching experience." Hell, the university didn't respect my Ph.D. and university teaching experience.

When I left that meeting, clutching the contract (which the headmaster had signed), two of the other teachers were there. They expressed their embarrassment over their colleague's remark at the previous interview and wished me a warm welcome.

Now the contract sits here beside me on the coffee table. T has joked that I should sign it before they take it back.

Yet, a passage from John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist keeps going through my mind. Gardner talks about a number of different jobs a novelist might take while writing--night clerk, forest watchtower-sitter, etc.--and then specifically names teaching as "too demanding" a profession and thus harmful to writing fiction. Hm. But then I recall that a very successful writer, some of whose work I admire very much, taught at this particular school once. Mm-hm.

Who am I kidding? I know I'm going to sign this thing. Crow is pretty tasty, and less filling than you might guess.