Monday, July 08, 2013

Moving to Missouri

As an update to the last posting, Dad resigned from Texas State University.  He was able to secure a tenure-track position at Northwest Missouri State in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.  We are all very excited about the upcoming move, but it has certainly interrupted our summer in New Mexico.  The silver lining is that it has provided some time for Magellan's paw to heal away from the incessant search for chipmunks. 

The ultimate decision to leave Texas State came down to the fact that I would not suggest any undergraduate enroll in that University.  I could not work for an institution in which I do not believe.  I mentioned to Julie that for every good day I spent at Texas State, there were about four days that were borderline miserable.  The President of the University is completely incompetent and runs the University like a Wal Mart-- high volume of student with very low interest in quality of life for students or faculty.  I am certainly looking forward to a change. 

The problems were not limited to the upper administration.  The department of Geography is an abusive department with no direction and no scruples.  Changes that were promised when I interviewed did not take place in terms of being an abusive department.  Older faculty who are not the least bit qualified to assess my research took pleasure in assessing everything I did.  The department chair never learned what I did after seven years and still believes that I am an urban planner.  This is tragic and shows how little they care about anything but themselves.  I am so glad to be gone and will only miss about 4 or 5 out of 30 colleagues.


Through facebook and this blog, we will chronicle our move and new position(s).  The attached photo is of the Administration Building at Northwest Missouri State.

Kevin