I was hired full time at NCCC in the summer of 1985. In July I was visiting my mom inSanborn and painting my Uncle Bill's house on Griffin Street. During lunch hourI rode my bike over to the college to see if anyone was around, and I ran into Mike Layman and Ken Raymond.
Mike and Ken mentioned that there was an open position in the math department for thefall. I told them I was not interested, since I had a tenure track position at Jamestown Community College.
After a half hour or so of visiting and a customary barrage of Ken's subtle and cerebral jokes, he mentioned that a few more members of the department would be in tomorrowif I was interested in catching up with them. I agreed that I would come back the next day during lunch.
The next day I showed up in my painter's clothes, as I had the day before. My outfit included old jeans, a t-shirt, a baseball cap and a pair of boat shoes with no socks. I was also wearing a pretty heavy coat of paint. And so it was that I came to my "job interview" wearing no socks.
There were 6 or 7 faculty in the conference room, all there to "say hello." We talked fora while and had a great time. As I got up to leave, Ken Raymond handed me a jobapplication. I reiterated that I was not interested in a job. Ken said I should fill it out "to have it on file in case there was another job opening in the future." So I did.
Three days later Mike called me up and offered me the job. I again mentioned that I was not interested.
Eventually I did relent and accepted the temporary full time job. Why? Well, one factor is that I knew and respected many of these people. Between Doc Kwitowski, Dr. Raymond,Ted Georgian, Meredith Kellogg and a few others, my perception was that NCCC wasa place to innovate and probably a great place to work.
Of course I faced the real prospect of looking for a job in a year, since the NCCCposition was temporary. That was no concern. Teaching jobs in math were easy to comeby. Previously I applied to JCC, Mohawk Valley and Herkimer and received callsfor an interview from all three. The JCC position had been vacant for 18 months.My brother Joel had relocated to Hawaii and I also considered following him there. I knew that being young and with a couple years of experience and solid referenceswould serve me well.
One drawback at JCC was that I was teaching at a satellite campus in Olean, and could lose my position if enrollment went down on either campus. Sometime in the mid 90's there was a huge layoff of staff at JCC. I think it was around 25% of tenured faculty. My position at JCC was cut and a skeleton crew remained. A handful of their best Math & Computer Science people bolted and went to Alfred.
Another drawback at JCC was that I had received a mediocre evaluation. My student evaluations were well above average - very high, actually - but my supervisor wrote that I was "deficient in computer science."
I was not sure how to take that criticism. I had worked as a programmer in college. On Saturdays I would get my own work done by 9 am, which meant I would get two or three programs debugged and running, and then I would walk around the room helping everyone else get theirs running. And while at JCC I wrote code for my own word processing program that I used togenerate worksheets and notes for class. There was not much on the market at the time. And, I had a better theoretical background than anyone on their faculty, including the main campus.One exception might have been Karl Klee.
I was pretty sure I could out-proof and out-program anyone on their faculty, yet somehow, I wasdeficient. I suppose there are politics in any workplace.
One vivid memory is from a meeting I attended on the main campus in Jamestown. A faculty member stood up and expressed concern with how many faculty members had died of cancer over the past several years, and also mentioned how much stress faculty were under with allthe responsibilities outside the classroom - including, I kid you not, a committee on committees. One of the deans responded with, "We will form a committee to study the problem." I thought the aggrieved faculty member was going to have a stroke.
Aside from that I worked with a great bunch of people at JCC-Olean. It is nice to have options.
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