And Now the Name is Legit

Confession: I claimed the domain name for this blog, Asian Girl Professor, before I actually became a professor. I guess I took the "If you build it, they will come" strategy of willing myself into the title, even as I was mentally preparing for the possibility of never "making it" into the profession. But I suppose any hesitation to use the title also depends on what one means by the word "professor" in the first place.

I currently don't yet have my PhD. I've been working on it for the last 7 years and 5 months, and will be able to file my dissertation before year 8 finishes. For those who don't know, yes, it does take this long to complete a PhD in English. Some of my friends have completed in seven years; very rarely have I seen people complete them in six. In the 7+ years I have been in my graduate program, I've taught many classes, some of which professors do teach, some of which professors don't want to teach. Most graduate students in English at the university I attend, which is a large public university in Yuppie Cowtown. (I think I will refer it to Yuppie Cowtown U in this blog), teach the composition classes that all undergrads have to take if they didn't pass out of them with AP credits in high school. I also worked as a teaching assistant for the Asian American Studies department. Last year, I was given the opportunity to teach two classes that aren't typically given to graduate students: one lower division intro to Asian American Studies course, and one upper-division course, also for the Asian American Studies department. I'd like to think they gave me these courses because of my awesome teaching ability. But I sometimes wonder if I was a convenient way for them to fill a teaching need with cheap labor. (I've read somewhere that 70% of all university courses are taught by non-tenured and non-tenure-track faculty, which means that adjunct faculty and graduate students are doing most of the teaching. It's cheaper to hire adjuncts and grad students than to add more full-time faculty lines.) In any case, it was in these classes that students started calling me "professor" for the first time. It felt kind of weird, given that I didn't have my PhD and wasn't tenure-track faculty. But adjunct and visiting faculty get (rightfully) called "professor" all the time. And not all professors, even the tenured ones, have PhDs-- Creative writing professors, for example, often have MFAs. And dammit, I was doing the work of a professor, so I went ahead and let the students think that I was one.

But now I'm feeling more ready to claim that title without feeling like a poser. (Or, as my mother says, "a little girl pretending to be a professor.") I went out to the sadomasochistic rite of passage known as the Academic Job Market this year (more on that later), and as of two days ago, was fortunate enough to have gotten an offer for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position. So I have "made it," so to speak.

Now to wait for the contract, finally get the PhD in hand, and start planning my move to the small business college in New England, where I will be starting my post in the fall. (I still need a nickname for the place. Maybe it will come to me once I get out there.) In the meantime, I'll start settling into the title of "professor." It's feeling pretty good so far.