The Canadas

Winter 1997 News A New Career Spring Baseball NCAA Women’s Basketball "Incunabula: The World of the Fifteenth Century" Updated August 8, 2002 © Canadas 2002

The Job Search Ends Five years of graduate school came to fruition this year when when I accepted a position as an English professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. I already was teaching four classes there, having accepted a temporary position the previous year. The new offer, made in the early months of this year, meant I would have a permanent position after I graduated with my Ph.D. from Carolina in May. In March, Lisa and I drove down to Columbia, South Carolina, to see the Carolina women’s basketball team play in the NCAA Tournament. I also went on a few excursions of my own, visiting an exhibit on incunabula in Chapel Hill and catching a baseball game at my new university.

A New Career

March: After six months of preparing a resume and a pile of other materials, scanning advertisements, reading dozens of rejections, interviewing with four schools at the MLA convention in Washington, D.C., going to four on-campus interviews thousands of miles apart, and finally considering job offers from three universities, I have accepted a job teaching writing and literature at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. About two hours south of Chapel Hill, UNC-Pembroke is one of the 16 campuses in the University of North Carolina system and serves about 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Last fall, I accepted a position as a visiting professor at Pembroke and have been teaching here this spring while I finish my dissertation. As a result, I have gotten a close look at the school, and I've liked what I've seen: an attractive campus, a new students' center, a comfortable office with a computer and Internet access, warm and dedicated colleagues, opportunities to develop professionally, a good weight room and pool, and a population of bright, motivated students. Several of those students have shared some very nice compliments with me, expressed their hope that I would stay, and asked what I would be teaching next fall.

In August, I will begin as an assistant professor of English, eligible for tenure in seven years. I generally will teach two writing courses, one sophomore literature course, and an advanced course in American literature. Next fall, for example, I'll teach Composition II, Introduction to Literature, and Major American Authors. I also will continue to do my research. Over the next year, I hope to find a publisher for my book, Poe in His Right Mind, in addition to compiling a bibliography of novelist Vardis Fisher and perhaps beginning a book on American journalist-authors, including Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and Stephen Crane.

Before deciding on the position here at Pembroke, I applied for about 80 jobs in more than 30 states from Hawaii to Maine, Minnesota to Florida. As every job seeker knows, looking for employment is a full-time job itself, and looking for employment in academia is particularly strenuous. Every college requires at least a curriculum vitae--which is an elaborate, 2-3 page resume--along with a cover letter, which usually runs about two pages. In addition. many employers request other materials, including graduate and undergraduate transcripts, a 20-page writing sample, a dissertation abstract, and a 40-page teaching portfolio. Beginning in September, Lisa and I spent scores of hours producing, editing, copying, and assembling all these materials.

In November, I made some connections at the SAMLA convention in Savannah, Georgia. Then, at the MLA convention in Washington, D.C., at the end of December, I interviewed with four schools. Early this year, I went to on-campus interviews at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut; McMurry University in Abilene, Texas; and UNC-Pembroke and had the good fortune of receiving job offers from the last three schools. While each school offered something special--the opportunity to advise a student newspaper, for example, or an appealing location--Lisa and I decided that we would be most satisfied with the Pembroke job, which will allow me to teach American literature and will allow both of us to remain in a part of the country we love.

Spring Baseball

March: Spring comes early in North Carolina--or at least earlier than it does in Indiana, where snow once fell in May on the day Lisa and I graduated from Indiana University. With spring comes baseball, and yesterday I enjoyed a delicious taste of both down here at Pembroke. When I walked out of the classroom building, the sky was deep blue, the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, and the temperature was in the 70s. It was the kind of day on which Cubs star Ernie Banks used to say, "Let's play two!" The UNC-Pembroke Braves were doing just that, and I arrived in time for the second half of the doubleheader. I caught about an hour of ball before leaving for dinner, but, as anyone who has watched it knows, a few innings of college baseball are worth a whole game of pro ball. In the four innings I watched, I saw a double play, a pickoff, an attempted double steal, a triple, and--my favorite moment in all of sports--a play at the plate. If that wasn't enough, the Braves' manager--whom I had seen recite "Casey at the Bat" earlier that day in a "Poetry & P.E." reading in the English department--had himself thrown out of the game.

NCAA Women's Basketball

March: Ten years ago, Lisa and I were students at Indiana University when the Hoosiers won the NCAA men's basketball championship. In 1993, we were living here in Chapel Hill when the University of North Carolina won the championship. The following year, while I was still in graduate school at Carolina and we were still living in Chapel Hill, Carolina's women's team won the NCAA women's basketball championship. Of course, it helps that we traveled from one basketball dynasty to another, but I still think the coincidence is eerie. Those of you who dabble in office pools may want to take a second look at UNC-Pembroke next year.

This year, of course, Dean Smith and his team are making another run at the championship. While we have been watching them and hoping, we have been paying even more attention to Sylvia Hatchell and her women's team, who played their first- and second-round games at Carmichael Auditorium in Chapel Hill. We went to those games and had so much fun that we followed the team down to Columbia, South Carolina, for the regional championships, where the Tar Heels lost to George Washington.

In that short span of a week, we became fans of college women's basketball for some of the same reasons we started watching college baseball. For a fraction of the cost and hassle of seeing a men's basketball or football game, we can enjoy an equal dose of competition, talent, and hoopla at a college women's basketball or men's baseball game. To see the women play in Chapel Hill, for example, we paid $10 and sat close enough to hear the coach and players shouting over the blare of the pep bands and the roar of the thousands of fans. Hatchell's team, led by Marion Jones and Tracy Reid, plays with amazing discipline and energy, especially on defense. Lisa especially likes the spirited play of Jessica Gaspar, who always puts on a show with her dazzling passes and her ability to play at maximum enthusiasm and toughness at all times. Then there is the hoopla, which alone is worth the price of admission. Our favorite spectacle is the Tar Heels' mascot, Rammy, who dances and struts up a storm throughout the game. The Heels' pep band and cheerleaders, all in Carolina blue, always put on a great show, as well. We also had a chance to witness the peculiar pep squads of Carolina's first opponent, Harvard. While the Harvard dancers performed well at halftime, the school's band was just plain weird. Wearing crimson blazers and dark ties, the musicians looked better outfitted for a debate than a basketball game. In fact, we had reason to believe that they actually were the debate or the glee club instead of a band because they kept gesturing and singing, their words inaudible below the din of the crowd. They looked like Up With People, tragically set down in the middle of a college sporting event.

In the most exciting of the three games--as well as one of the most exciting basketball games I have ever seen--the Tar Heels came back from a ten-point deficit against an excellent Michigan State team. Down three points with about five seconds to play, Carolina called a time-out and let all of us fans stand there and tingle for a minute or so. After putting the ball in play, the Heels quickly got the ball to expert outside shooter Chanelle Wright, who sank a three-point shot seconds before the buzzer. The Heels went on to pile up a huge lead in overtime and win the game easily. The loss to George Washington in Columbia, of course, was disappointing, particularly because the Heels did not play up to their potential, having lost the momentum of their win over Michigan State. The Carolina women won't take home a trophy this year, but they will remember that second game, just as Lisa and I will remember the look on Chanelle Wright's face after she made that three-pointer.

"Incunabula: The World of the Fifteenth Century"

March: A lover of books, I love the University of North Carolina's Wilson Library, which houses the school's special collections of books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs. In addition to making these and other items available to researchers, the librarians and curators regularly place many of their items on display for the general public to enjoy. At home from UNC-Pembroke, which is on spring break this week, I wandered into Wilson and discovered "Incunabula: The World of the Fifteenth Century," an exhibit featuring a few dozen samples from the library's collection of early books. Incunabula, a Latin word meaning "swaddling clothes," are books published before 1500. Because they come from the first half-century of publishing history, incunabula have a great deal of historical value. For example, I saw materials published by the most important of the early publishers, including Johann Gutenberg, William Caxton, and Aldus Manutius; examples of the early Gothic and Roman fonts, including the Bembo Roman one designed by Nicolaus Jensen for Manutius; and important early books, such as The Nuremberg Chronicle and Manutius's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, known for its woodcuts and printing. Signs accompanying the books explained several of their distinctive features. Most of the incunabula, for example, begin with an "incipit," an introduction that reads something like "Here begins ('Incipit') the work of Ovid . . . ." The last page usually contains the "colophon," where the name of the publisher and the publication date often appear, along with a prayer or some poetry.

Their historical interest aside, the incunabula on display here also are beautiful objects. The Nuremberg Chronicle, for example, contains some striking illustrations, including several done by the apprentice Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) before he became one of Germany's great artists. Many of the other books contain "rubrication," elaborate ornamentation that artists added in the margins of already printed pages and in spaces left for initial letters.