A Christmas Miracle

Christmas has come early for me. After three years of graduate school at Regent College, three years of postgraduate study in Scotland, and nearly five years as an adjunct or non-tenured professor, I finally scored a tenure-track job.

Most recently, I have been a visiting assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. After a competitive search in 2011, and aided by financial support from the Maclellan Foundation, I was offered a three-year position at UTC to teach courses in religious history and thought. Last year, I was notified that the Maclellan Foundation agreed to offer financial assistance for a fourth year, (2014-2015). Because UTC did not seem optimistic about making my position tenure-track, I decided to apply to a select few faculty positions elsewhere. I was fortunate to have been invited to some interviews at the last AAR conference at Baltimore, which sparked a movement among the administrators at UTC to look into a tenure-track line for me. Thanks to the support of the Maclellan Foundation, the chair of my department, and the development office, UTC administrators agreed to make my position permanent, which allowed me to realize my dream of landing a tenure-track job teaching Christian studies.

I feel extremely fortunate to have landed a tenure-track job in this day and age. Now it's time to break open the Dom Perignon!