As I may have mentioned, I have moved, taking up a position as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. My duties in the position have me teaching four classes, two sections each of ENGL 1113: Composition I and ENGL 3323: Technical Writing. Each section has nineteen students enrolled, and I admit that I am looking forward to paying more individual attention to my students than my previous work, teaching six or more sections that began with an average of thirty students on the roster, allowed.
I am also looking forward to a return to the traditional American university experience. I have not had access to it since my graduate work, and even as an undergraduate attending a doctorate institution, I did not have quite so much of it as might be supposed. The school I went to for my BA is a relatively new creation, dating back no further than 1969. There are and have been many excellent scholars there, but less than forty years is not time for a great many traditions to develop--and as a medievalist and student of textual transmission and reception, I am interested in traditions.
The lower teaching load ought to allow me more time to work on my own scholarship, as well. While in my previous position, I did what I could to keep abreast of current research and to contribute to it in conference presentations, but there was only so much that I could do with the teaching load I carried. With less of that to handle, as well as less time spent in commuting (I was an hour home to office in New York, and now I am half that--and a nice walk, to boot!), I ought to be able to spend more time writing the kinds of things that will help me to find a permanent position in the academic world.
I am quite happy to begin in this new venture, therefore, and I look to make the most of it.
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