New York and Back Again

My trip to Stony Brook went well, I think, and I thank you all very much for your prayers. There’s A LOT I could say about my trip but I’ll start out relatively brief and you can let me know what details you want me to fill in 🙂

The Whirlwind Trip to New York

I arrived in New York at about 11:00. All my travels went smoothly. I was picked-up by Martha Pavao and her husband (she’s the head of the language department at Stony Brook), and by 11:40 I was dropped off at the home of Michael and Marie Crandall. He teaches ESL to the international students and she teaches French. They are very nice and I ended up talking with them till about 1:00 AM!

The next day I had my first meeting at 8:30–with the head of the high school. Basically, he gave me a tour of the campus, and it’s quite nice. Then I basically had meetings every half-hour till about 2:30 (with a break for lunch and chapel–which we spent preparing for the class I would teach at 3:00). I met with the head of the middle school (7th through 8th grades), next year’s athletics director, the director of residence life, the director of student life, the assistant headmaster, and the headmaster.

I think the class I taught at 3:00 (for half an hour) went well. There were six upper-level Spanish students present together with the head of both the middle and high schools, Martha Pavao, the Spanish 2 and 3 teacher, and the current upper-level Spanish teacher. I conducted the class entirely in Spanish (at Mrs. Pavao’s request), introduced myself, had the students introduce themselves, and then we went over a short excerpt of a Spanish play. We decided later that the class might have been a little over the students’ heads, but they did participate.

After the class I was a lot more free. I called my parents and then took a nap before going to dinner with some of the younger faculty–particularly with one a former student currently teaching at the school whom Jeff Kyle (my friend from college) recommended I meet. I think we had some good conversations. One of them said that he thought Stony Brook was an excellent place for a single person to get started in their career.

After dinner, Michael Crandall (whom I was staying with) showed me around town (and some neighboring towns), then we went back to the apartment and talked for a while–probably several hours. I went to bed and left early the next morning to return to Chattanooga.

Thoughts and Impressions of the School

• The faculty all seem to be very nice. I felt very well received and particularly enjoyed interacting with the language department faculty
• Everyone is very busy–students and faculty. Classes go from 7:50 to 3:15, sports go from 3:30 to 5:30, dinner is from 5:30 to 7:00, homework starts at 7:45 and ends roughly around 10:00. I asked several people whether students and faculty where too busy and they all answered “yes,” but it’s pretty much accepted that that’s the way things are. Faculty are free during the periods they’re not teaching, about 4 evenings a week, Saturdays (except every fifth week), and Sundays (except for mandatory chapel and school lunch. Also, they have relatively long breaks: Thanksgiving, 1 week; Christmas, 2 weeks; Spring Break, 2 weeks; Easter break, not sure; all of Summer break.
• Stony brook requires faculty to attend chapel 6 days/week (Saturday is not necessarily required). It’s hard for faculty or students to be involved in a church body beyond merely attending another church on Sunday. Most students do not attend a church beside chapel and only some faculty do–to my knowledge–but it was recommended to me that it would be healthy to at least attend a church.
• I would probably be living in one of the dorms as an assistant dorm parent. My duties would include being available if students had any questions or needs and being on duty once a week (and every fifth Friday and Saturday) to ensure students do their home work and go to bed on time.
• I believe I could teach the Spanish classes they would hire me for and that I would enjoy it.
• I would be heavily involved/invested in the school which would provide me with great opportunities to be a blessing to the students. It would be very challenging but rewarding
• All faculty get excellent benefits, a good retirement plan, free housing, food, and utilities–all in addition to the salary–which sounds good to me 🙂
• I’ll probably be hearing from Stony Brook sometime next week (perhaps by the end of the week–I was told not to worry if they hadn’t gotten back to me in a week).

There’s probably a lot more I could say, but that’s what this is what comes to mind at the moment. Let me know what you think and what questions you have!