Teacher, teacher, I declare

In the fall I join the ranks of academia -- I have accepted a one-year contract to be full-time faculty at Texas State University. I will be teaching two classes of PR campaigns, one class of PR writing, and one section of Intro to PR (the class I've been teaching the last two semesters).

It was actually a somewhat difficult decision to make. I had planned that I would go back to work and then be an adjunct, teaching one or two classes a semester. However, one of the PR professors got a sudden urge to retire and gave notice two weeks ago. In academia, it tends to take a year to fill a tenure-track faculty position. Since they can't fill the position with a tenure-track (e.g. a PhD) candidate by fall, they offered the position to me.

I can see myself being a professor in 15-20 years, but I wasn't planning on making it my career yet. For one thing, it pays half of what I could make doing PR. That's a huge difference. But I haven't been seeing a lot of open positions at my level. I'm thinking a year of teaching would look good on my resume and will allow the market to come back. Plus, I'm getting to teach a couple of classes I haven't taught, and that's interesting to me. I may even be able to do freelance writing and PR work to make a little more money.

The big thing is that I have to get my thesis writing this summer so I can graduate. The research is done, I just have to focus on the writing. I plan to do it during the first summer session, as I will be teaching advertising the second summer session.

Until then, there are finals to give and grades to turn in. My last final is tomorrow at 8 a.m. All week I've been getting students begging for better grades, wondering how they can turn their F into a B. I hate to tell them that the best way to turn a F into a B is by intercepting the mail before their parents and using a really good ballpoint pen on their report card.