The above screenshot is from two days ago. I saved that screenshot because I knew that I would be erased from the university directory after the month ended.
Turns out that they didn't wait for the month to end. True to the letter that the layoff will take effect on the 31st, well, you won't find me anymore at Western Oregon University:
It is no April Fool joke! The layoff process has been completed.
A process that began with a meeting with three managers at 2:00 pm on March 30, 2021. A meeting that lasted less than five minutes, when I was given a year notice.
The layoff meeting was a remarkable sign of the progress that society has made: All three managers were female, and they were in the meeting to layoff a man. If that isn't progress, I don't know what is ;)
The fact that I got a one-year notice, in contrast to the two-week notice that we imagine, or the horrible immediate layoff, was only because I was a tenured professor. Such a courteous notice is never afforded to, say, an administrative assistant or an adjunct faculty. The one-year notice is evidence of the elite status that tenured faculty have in higher education in the US.
It was dumb luck that I got into that elite and enjoyable profession. But, that luck ran out.
I am now a retired professor.
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