Our Journey, Day 60

The visit to Mankato and talks I presented about Textbook Affordability and Z-Degrees helped to solidify some ideas I've been developing about how to promote these ideas and move the system in the direction of reducing student expenses and improving educational quality in this way. I also had a chance to visit with my friend who is Dean of the Library and Learning at the university. He advised me (in the context of writing a tenure and promotion application) to write a narrative as if I was already an Associate Professor, showing how I was already working at that level. I decided to take his advice, but apply it to the job I really want to do, which is coordinate and evangelize Open Ed in the Minnesota State system. So that's what I've done.

I'm going with the theory that you never get what you want if you don't say what you want (there's an old Joe Jackson lyric that says something similar, which my sister once directed me to listen closely to). I'd like my next job to be in Higher Ed. But what I really want is to run around the state, getting people excited about reducing student textbook expense and helping them do something concrete to make that happen. So I wrote up a detailed proposal that describes the current situation and the problem, proposes a solution, and suggests why I am the best person to get it done.

I'm not sure whether what I'm proposing is what the people I'll be sending this proposal to, at the system office, have been planning to do. A new pile of money has just been allocated by the state legislature to create a Z-Degree transfer pathway from the community colleges that have implemented them at the AA level to universities that could continue them to the BA/BS. So I hope my assessment of the situation and suggestion comes at a good time and gets a conversation started about how I might participate. I feel a bit like I'm jamming my foot into a doorway and trying to force people to deal with this on my timetable. BUT that's what a salesman does, and I'm looking for work. Although I have a job until May at Bemidji State, I'm looking now and this is my first choice of a next job. So if this is something I might be able to help them with, we should talk before I lose hope and take something else.