You never know where you might find yourself, but wherever it is it’ll cost you some money.Well, at least in this instance it did.Nashotah House sent me packing just as we were thinking about college for our daughter.It took several years to find any kind of full-time position again, and when university time began I had had a full salaried job for a total of one year of the last seven.Not ideal, of course.I remember sitting (again) in the financial aid office, explaining the situation and, as it often goes in higher education, receiving no mercy.As much as I remember the conversation, I don’t recall a photographer in the room. There must’ve been, though, since I recently showed up on the Binghamton University website.
I had, of course, applied for a job or two there.When out of state tuition is riding on such a deal, however, I doubt there’s any way to get considered.I actually like Binghamton University quite a lot.I appreciate the fact that it doesn’t pour its money into a football team and that it has the reputation of being a “Public Ivy” school.I even like the campus removed from city bounds—just like Nashotah House.I did end up paying them quite a bit of lucre through the years, even as my own alma maters were asking alms.Higher education is a funny world.Standing somewhere between a money-making venture and a site of education for its own sake.Many professors don’t realize just how privileged they are to have jobs like that.
Upstate New York, although I’ve never lived there, is one of my ancestral homes.My grandfather and his family had lived in the area at least as far back as the 1770s.I tried to convey that sense of connection in my application, many years ago now.Academia doesn’t put much stock in the idea of belonging, I guess.It has become far too businesslike for that.Binghamton was also the town in which Rod Serling, one of my childhood heroes, grew up.There seemed to be so many reasons to be in that area.Eventually I settled for life in my own native Pennsylvania.People sense, although academics less than others apparently, that they belong in a place.And if you can’t actually be there, you can still spend your money in any location.I’ve now got a picture to prove it.
