Turned in a really nice looking job application for a US Historian job at UND a couple of days ago. I think it came out looking good, and the job would be one I'd probably enjoy doing (US Historian of the "long 20th century"). It doesn't pay all that well -- actually the top of its range is slightly less than what I'm making now at BSU. But that hasn't ever really been my focus, or I would have stayed in sales.
Almost as if the universe was rewarding me for persevering, I received an email about an hour after I submitted that application. It was from my department Chair, asking if I'd be willing to cancel my two online courses in the spring to make time for a 50% appointment working for the system office. I haven't had a chance to completely hash out what this means with my friends at the system office yet, but it looks like the situation I had hoped for might be beginning to come together. If I can start evangelizing for university Z-Degree adoption half-time in the spring, I ought to be able to show enough progress that the system office will decide they need me full-time by summer. I'm going to treat this as a semester-long interview, or a "proof of concept" demonstration.
Although I was sorely tempted to just go ahead and blab about this on my blog yesterday, I managed to restrain myself until I had more details. But I could start imagining what the spring semester might be like. It had me out of bed in the middle of the night (3:30 AM), so I guess I was a bit excited. I would have two classes, both of which would be in person on MWF mornings (10 and 11 AM). US History II and History of World Religions. These would be relatively easy to handle, and I might be able occasionally to run a Monday or Friday meeting remotely, to give myself a 2-day block I could use to visit campuses. The University campuses especially. Marshall (Southwest State), Mankato (MNSU), and Winona are all five to six hours away. Metro State in the Cities is 4 hours. St. Cloud State and Moorhead are a bit closer. Ideally, it would be great to visit with some community colleges close to each of these universities, but that might be a step for phase two. I imagine the first thing would be to invite the universities to begin considering the "ZTP" (Z-Degree transfer pathway) opportunity and get workgroups together. Or, more accurately, identify the pockets of OER activity that already exist on these campuses and begin organizing them into Z-Degree oriented workgroups. That's what I've already planned to do at Mankato, as I mentioned yesterday (and yes, I was already thinking about this when I planned that).
Another thing I'm going to do, now that I know there's some interest in having me pursue Open Ed, is distill the things I learned at OE Global in Canada a couple of weeks ago. As I think through the notes I took and the discussions I had, I might get in touch with some of the people, to clarify some of the ideas. As I write up my thoughts, I'll probably put them up on Lifelong Learners, since I think of Open Ed as being immediately adjacent to adult education.