You're Fired!

By Gerald McGarry

"So we'll work out a plan for you to leave the college at the end of this coming academic year."

Wait, what did she say?

I did not see that coming at all.

I am the associate vice president for academic affairs at a small liberal-arts college. I was meeting with my boss, Ursula, to discuss a redistribution of my responsibilities. We had agreed for several months that I had too much to do, and also that I was better suited to some tasks than others. A variety of people were getting promotions, and it was an opportune time to move some of my assignments to those people.

I expected that the reshuffling would allow me to focus on the things I do well, to spend more time on assignments that I hadn't had enough time to do well, and to take on some new and interesting assignments.

But as the meeting went on Ursula turned down every one of my ideas for new initiatives, and didn't offer any ideas of her own. Then she unleashed the bombshell.

Apparently Ursula had decided that all of my jobs could be reassigned. I will spend this academic year working on special projects, and then ... well, that will be it. And since I don't have tenure, and there's no room in the budget to add another faculty line in my department, I'm going to have to leave the college entirely.

In other words, I'm fired. Only I'm not a contestant on Donald Trump's reality show, The Apprentice. I don't have any other job to fall back on.

My first reaction was shock, followed by anger and puzzlement. What could she be thinking?

Ursula has been careful to tell me how valuable I am, how much she likes me personally, and how much she has invested in me. But apparently she can't find a place for me anywhere on campus.

She once lent me a book about being a good supervisor, and one of the rules in that book was that when you find good people you should hold on to them and use their strengths, whatever they are, to advance the organization. Suddenly she can't seem to follow that advice.

Since I can't do exactly what she wants me to do, she's decided to get rid of me (and do without an associate dean altogether) rather than trying to adapt to my strengths. So either she doesn't really think I'm valuable, or she's not up to the task of figuring out how to use me where I can do the most good.

Based on what I've seen of Ursula in the years that I've worked for her, on how Ursula has dealt with other faculty and staff members, and on the positive feedback I get from other sources, I've decided that her firing me is more about her limits than my own.

To be sure, Ursula's motivations probably derive from some legitimate criticisms of my work. But I can't put any faith in the conclusion that I am completely unfit for this work. That runs contrary to the opinions of many other colleagues and students, and it doesn't result in any productive action. And productive action is what I need now.

That realization has led me to three important conclusions about my situation.

First, I'm not going to raise hell. When a vice president tells you that she's firing you, the only person to whom you can appeal is the president. While our president likes and respects me, I know him well enough to know that he won't overturn a decision by one of his vice presidents unless I can demonstrate gross incompetence on her part.

And even if he did, or even if there were massive rallies of support for me and everyone threatened to quit unless I were rehired, and Ursula backed down and rehired me, I would be ineffective because Ursula would (quite sensibly) refuse to support my actions or allow me the least autonomy.

So I'm not going to fight to keep my job, because there's no way I would be able to do it well. And to be fair to Ursula, if she doesn't want me working for her then there's no reason she should have to keep me.

Second, I'm keeping my mouth shut. I'm telling only two people on campus and two people off campus that I'm being let go, and I'm swearing them to secrecy. I know that a lot of people recommend the opposite course, which, in many cases, makes sense because people do help you find jobs if they know you're looking.

But I have several reasons for keeping quiet:

• Colleges are more likely to hire me if they think I still have a job.

• I can be more effective in my final year here if people think I'm sticking around; otherwise, when a dispute arises, they will think they can just wait me out.

• I don't want to spend the year telling colleagues that I'm leaving but I don't know where I'm going.

• If I told more than a few people in our little town, then everyone would know the news tomorrow, and I don't want my wife and kids to have to deal with those reactions either.

• If I am honest with myself, I have to admit yet another reason for keeping my mouth shut: If I can find a job in a hurry then no one will have to know that I've been fired.

My third, and final, realization about my predicament is that I'm not going to apply for jobs because of how they fit into a particular career path.

For a long time I aspired to be a vice president for academic affairs. But from my vantage point as an associate VP, I have seen aspects of the top job that I don't like. And as should be clear by now, when I made the effort in my current job to do things that I didn't like to do, I didn't do them well, so I was of no use to my boss -- which is why she's firing me.

So, rather than follow some prescribed career path, my plan is this: Do something I enjoy and do it well.

I hope my overall strategy works, but I'm just winging it because I don't know where to turn for advice on how to deal with being fired. In academe we are socialized to think that the normal career path goes like this: Find a job, win tenure (if you have that kind of position), and keep the job for life, unless you leave of your own volition for a better one. And if you are denied tenure by your first employer, go somewhere else to get it.

We in academe seem to believe that lifetime employment is both the mark of excellence and the reward for good service. We tend not to think about being fired, not least because most of us don't get fired. The long boom in higher education and the constant expansion of programs and services has protected the vast majority of people who land faculty and administrative jobs. Yes, getting the job is difficult, but once you find one, you're in.

Good people do get fired on occasion, especially now that retrenchment is an everyday reality in higher education. I'm confident that I am following the right course, but that does not make it an easy one.

Fortunately, the practical necessities of looking for a new job, and of doing my current job for one last year, usually keep me too busy to slide into despair. (I'm preoccupied by questions like, Should I use cream-colored paper for my CV, or white? I polled several friends casually. Those employed by private institutions universally recommended cream, while all those at public institutions preferred the white. There's probably a dissertation in that finding.)

I've seen many good career guides to help academics find that first job, but there are not many to help us find a new position after the old one gets yanked from our grasp. I guess I'm about to write that book.