In interviewed all last week for a tenured position at BYU. The interviews included meeting with Erin Holmes, our SFL director, an interview with Laura Walker and Makaela Dufur, Dean and Assistant Dean, and individual faculty who wanted to meet with me. I also had a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner with faculty. The schedule was like this:
Tuesday:
9:00 am Erin Holmes interview
10:00 am FHSS Dean and Assistant Dean interview
11:00 am work with Starlyn to make pizza and cream of cauliflower soup for our guests to taste
12:30 pm Teach 215 and 340
3:30 pm Practice my Thursday presentation
5:00 pm Dinner with colleagues
7:00 pm Attend special lecture
Wednesday:
7:00 am breakfast
9:30 am faculty came and observed me teach. I also got filmed for faculty who couldn't come
11:30 am lunch with some colleagues
12:30 pm teach
2:30 pm individual interviews with faculty
6:00 pm in charge of activity days activity
7:30 make changes to Thursday presentation based on feedback from colleagues and their questions about FCS
Thursday:
9:30 am get to work and continue to revise my presentation
11:00 am presentation
12:00 pm final interview with search committee
12:30 pm teach
Friday:
Sleep in, go on a walk, take a nap, do some work from home
I really get invigorated when I'm around people. I was really encouraged by all the interactions. I also got ideas and made some changes to my original plan. I totally cut out the part where I talked about my personal history and my kids. I replaced it with information about the history of FCS. I also added information on the relevance of FCS, why it should matter at BYU, and why my job matters. I also talked about my unique contributions and my plan moving forward. I'm really glad I already prepared a lot before I took my vacation to Disneyland because it left just some tweaks.
I hate practicing presentations, but I'm really glad I did. Starlyn let me practice on Monday. Then I made some changes and practiced again on Tuesday with Natalie. Then, after having had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with other faculty and hearing their questions, I made edits on Wednesday night. I was as prepared as I could be when Thursday came.
Tuesday went well. The interviews went well. I had read through the BYU mission and aims and the SFL mission. I feel like foods works perfectly into all missions and aims. I got word that some professors were looking forward to trying food on Wednesday, so Starlyn was kind enough to come in and help me make pizza and cream of cauliflower soup. Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant in the Riverwoods. Alan Hawkins, Chad Gibbs, and Ashley Frazier were there. It was a nice visit. I wished I had taken advantage of the opportunity to ask them if there was anything they wanted to learn from my Thursday presentation, so I made the point to ask at breakfast and lunch on Wednesday and got great suggestions. Jeff Hill's lecture that evening was excellent.
The only bad thing about interviews all that week was that I couldn't wear my Peanuts Halloween sweatshirt. My students asked me to wear it tomorrow, so I'll be wearing it on November 3. Haha.
When I got to work on Wednesday, Starlyn had a soda for me and she was dressed so nicely. The TA's and Starlyn worked so hard to make it a good day. I wasn't nervous at all about colleagues observing me on Wednesday. I feel like I'm a good teacher and that I have good rapport with my students. I got great feedback and many enjoyed the food we had to share with them. He heated the soup on the stove and heated the pizza using my favorite method - the air fryer. Lunch was with Loren Marks, Jeff Hill, and Ashley LeBaron-Black. Jeff and Loren are some of the nicest, most spiritual men you'd ever meet and Ashley is a new professor and has an office next to me. She is from AF and went to AF high school. She had given me some tips for my presentation and is a great gal. We got my favorite caterer, Beehive Catering, owned by Jon Bryner. Delicious. Individual faculty had signed up for one-on-one interviews. I got a chance to get to know others better, to ask them what they still wanted to know about my position and my qualifications, and to sell myself. Then I ran home and helped run a Halloween activity for our primary girls. I was pretty much in charge of everything because I had volunteered to bring cookies, frosting, bingo, and another game. It went well.
I got up early on Thursday and wet into my office to make final touches on my presentation before 11:00. Erin Holmes and Natalie stopped to wish me well. Natalie went 10 minutes early with me to help me get the technology ready. My presentation went very well. I was so blessed. I had prepared and prayed and gathered feedback, practiced, and made changes and prayed more. I asked my sisters and mom and Kim Cassetti to pray for me. It went really well. I was nervous at first, but I always am. Then I hit my stride, as Natalie put it. When I opened up for questions, there were NO questions. I guess I had done my job. After a couple of minutes, there were a couple of questions, but nothing tough. I was asked if I think we'll take labs back to pre-covid structure. I had an easy answer for that. NO. We love that the changes with covid brought about deeper learning. They may sample fewer foods, but the learning is deep and they can take the skills home to cook more. I was also asked how my position will free up Natalie to do more tasks. I was complimented and one faculty mentioned that it was mean to make them listen to a presentation about food right before lunch. On the way out, many complimented me. Whew.
I really took most of the weekend off. I did have to prepare for this week's classes, as I had no spare time last week to prepare. So, I did some work on Friday and Saturday, but not too much.
I'll be honest that Sunday I was quite emotional. I was feeling sad, a bit angry at Keenan, and alone. The weight of supporting myself and paying all my bills hits heavy sometimes. I had tithing settlement on Halloween. Don't get to do that often. Our bishop is so kind. I told him that I was having a bit of a sad day. he assured me that I am not alone and that I can reach out to him for help anytime. He and his wife are wonderful. Sunday afternoon I had my ministering brother and his wife over for lunch. Kurt Saville just retired from BYU as music education faculty. It was nice to talk shop and he gave me some encouragement in this interview process.
Yesterday I had an interview with Brad Neiger, Associate Academic VP over faculty. I'd met via zoom with him 18 months ago and he remembered having met before. It was a nice interview, but I felt that I didn't articulate well my stance on some controversial issues. I love all my students (color, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) no matter what. At the same time, I'm not an activist. I don't see that any good comes of sitting in an extreme end. I find that there is division and hate on the extremes and those serve no good. I wasn't able to articulate that very well. Hopefully he understands my message, although it was a bit rough. Oh well. I prayed and prepared. I can't do any more. I connected via text last night with one of my all-time favorite students, Ashton Burrows. He wanted advice on Disneyland. We texted for quite a while and I asked him to pray for me for today. He's practicing family law in Alpine now. I asked him to find a nice straight, employed man in his mid-50's for me. Haha. He said he'll look. He is a fantastic young man. He's Kamiko's age.
My zoom interview today with Elder Bassett, on the other hand, was wonderful. I was so nervous. I had been emotional on Sunday and I felt like today might be similar. At 10:57, I texted mom and my sisters and asked them to say a quick prayer for me that I could better articulate what I wanted to explain. Right off the bat, I told him I was quite emotional. He said "let's talk about it." He asked about my kids. I love talking about the kids. I even got to tell him about our Arkansas connection. I told him about the divorce and all that led to it. He was very kind. I finally figured out how to articulate what's in my heart about the gospel and inclusion and diversity. I read my favorite quote from Elder Holland's talk.
My takeaway from Elder Holland's talk was that if BYU has to choose between the gospel and the world, we will always choose the gospel. Elder Bassett said it's about the 2 great commandments: love God and love our neighbor. When we get them out of order and love our neighbor more than we love God, we find ourselves in trouble. We talked about the family and about marriage. I told him that I go to the temple and feel blessed to have a testimony of my covenants. I love the Family proclamation and I read my patriarchal blessing and see many blessings that the Lord has for me. I told Elder Bassett how grateful I am that the Lord knows me so well that He spoke to me in grammar I don't use to tell me the divorce was needed. I am so grateful that things have always worked out. I have no doubt this will all work out too. I really can't express how grateful I am that things went so well today. He said he takes the responsibility very seriously, that he is looking for people that he would feel comfortable entrusting his kids with. He said he'd give a glowing endorsement to the First Presidency and the Board. In the context of our interview, he also validated many things I've thought about the divorce and my marriage. I'm just so grateful. I also feel way more prepared for my interview with Shane Reese, Academic Vice President on Thursday. I'm finally figuring out how to articulate my love for BYU and for my students.
God is good.
Time for me to go to bed. I want to read scriptures and I'm working on reading a book entitled "The Coddling of the American Mind." I'm committed to 20 minutes/day.
