I crawl into my new office. My new office that really isn’t my office. It is the Department Chair’s office. A public hub of departmental activity. The people’s office.
A ding comes from my computer. And then another ding. And yet another. Email follows email. There’s a knock on the door. A smiling face appears in the window.
The smile glued to my face begins to crack. Flashing lights. Palpitating hearts. Dizzy feet. I am okay. I am not okay. Okay.
I crawl under the chair I am supposed to be sitting in. But the emails find me all the same.
Ding!
***
Last week, I told a group of 100 new elementary education majors that teaching was an impossible profession.
My therapist – thank God I have a therapist – later told me that Freud said there were three impossible jobs: Being a teacher, being a psychoanalyst, and being a political. Apparently, I’ve come to a similar conclusion.
I’ve been a teacher. I’ve been an amateur psychoanalyst for hundreds (if not billions) of young people. And now I’m a leader. Talk about impossible.
I’m tempted to go into the custodial profession. Cleaning toilets is not impossible.
The first week of the new semester nearly did me in. It didn’t, though. I told a friend that last week was like climbing onto a bull at a rodeo. I didn’t fall off, but whew.
“This job is hard,” I told the Dean during one of my many interactions with the Dean. He laughed and told me I should try being the Dean. I laughed.
I slept for 11 hours on Friday night. It may have been the 10mg of CBD I took before bed. I upped my dosage. Or it may have been the sheer exhaustion from trying my hand at another job.
***
I take back every bad thing I’ve said about administrators. This is tough work. There are roughly 800 students in the department. Nearly 50 faculty. Countless more adjuncts. Staff members and stakeholders. This is a big job. The previous chair – one of the best leaders I’ve ever met – has been with me every step of the way. Still, this gig is a doozy.
I’ve identified a pattern over my working life. I start something new. It is hard. I get frenetic. I freak out a little. And then I figure things out. And then things are fine. I’m comforted by that thought, but that doesn’t mean moving in this moment isn’t going to be hard. It is. This department chair job, much like teaching 9th grade English, is impossible. But I will do it to the best of my ability. In the words of Sufjan Stevens on his masterpiece Seven Swans: I will try, I will try, I will try.
I’ll keep moving. That’s the important thing. And all my moving has brought me here to this chair in an office at the University of Iowa. Go Hawks.
I taught a class called Drama in Education on Thursday night. I stood outside the classroom door on the second floor balcony in the theatre building to welcome students in. I watched the Iowa River outside the glass atrium. What a beautiful moment.
The dings are loud, but the work of trying to build something with others is louder. So I’ll keep building.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 