[The Letter]

After a long wait, I am excited to announce that I have accepted a visiting professorship at RIT’s School of Print Media for the 2006/2007 academic year. And the news gets better — barring no unforeseen circumstances, in September of 2007 I will automatically move into a tenure track position at RIT. And by automatically I mean without having to participate in another academic search cycle. From that point on, I have approximately six years to earn a PhD.

This has been in the works for quite a while. However, I’ve been afraid to blog about it until it was a done deal. If this had fallen through, I’d have been crushed. Thankfully, the letter finally arrived this morning, and I personally delivered the signed contract to the Dean this afternoon. I am on cloud nine about this.

Aspects of it will be tough. Seven years (counting this year) isn’t a lot of time to complete a PhD while still carrying a full course load. I’ll be diving into the application process this year and evaluating a number of programs in the Western NY area in the months to come. And RIT has promised to assist me with the PhD process, which is a huge help.

Thanks for being patient with the lack of updates. There are still some surprises to come, but I am relieved to finally be past this one.