LY #61 Meals with My Hiring Committee

Since I was ripping on the dudes who interviewed for Bouknight's position, I suppose I should tell a couple of stories about the day I interviewed.

Lunch was held in the meeting room upstairs just off the cafeteria in Grandview.  Anyone on campus who wanted to meet the interviewee was invited.  I didn't know who all of the folks I met was important so I pretty much smiled at everyone.  I remember that Mike Smith asked me if I could play softball.  I'd been playing softball in Utah so of course I said "yes," assuming that anything I said could be a point for or against me.  And then I dropped some lettuce on my lap. 

Hal Gillespie 1991

Later that day I went to dinner at McGraths with my hiring committee which included Hal Gillespie and Mary Monaghan, both felled by cancer in the early 90s.  The other member of the dinner party was John Purdy, a specialist in Native American Literature who went on to teach at Western Washington U.  As I look back on it, I realize that the black and white dress I wore at dinner, purchased at the Happy Dragon Thrift Shop in Los Gatos, was far too short to wear in that professional setting.  But at the time it was the only dark dress I owned.  I was very careful at dinner to drink one glass of wine rather than none or two -- the same amount of alcohol as the other folks at the table. 

As I noted in an earlier blog post, I looked lesbian in those days which might have been the reason that one member of the committee, the late Ms. Monaghan, asked me sotto voce an illegal question about whether or not I was married.  I was a bit flummoxed, but said "yes." 

The other moments I remember from that day don't include either my teaching sample or the actual formal interview.  I do remember that the first person I met officially was Gene Zinkgraf, "personnel director" at the time.  And my last interview of the afternoon, before dinner, was a meeting with dean Bart Queary. I asked if there was anything he could tell me about why I shouldn't take the job.  He told me that many people in Bend were too obsessed with exercise.  (I don't remember whether it was he or Hal Gillespie who used the term "body nazis" to describe the exercise obsessed folks of Central Oregon.)

Between my interview with Bart and dinner with the English department folks, I went back to the Riverside Inn where the college had put me up and called a friend to let him know that I'd given an awesome interview.*

But perhaps not.  It took over a week for COCC to get back to me, during which time I flew off to interview at Augustana in Rock Island.   When I got back I took the call from Ward Tonsfeldt who intimated that COCC was close to both going to semesters and becoming a four-year school. 



* This friend was probably the most important person in my life to me to me at that time, as my spouse and I were separated.  For the purposes of this blog, I will call this friend, about whom I'll be writing more Zephod, a moderately legal spelling of Zaphod, as in Zaphod Beeblebrox - "He's just a guy, y'know?"