Dossier

Well, I went to see what all these committees have had to say about me and I finally got to read the entire file. 

Mostly, it is lame.  They say in one instance that I don't let all my students talk about their interpretation and that I cut them off.  Then a few paragraphs later they say my classes don't have a beginning, middle and end.  Sometimes I do have to steer a class discussion in another direction specifically for the reason that I have a middle and an end and I have to get there.

I don't think they know I've been on the theocratic ministry school since 1972 and that I have a clear idea of having an effective conclusion. 

Anyhow, the best part is that there is a memo I should have gotten in 2010 and I never received it.  How they can expect me to do something when I didn't get the memo is pretty short sighted. 

I do have an external evaluator.  It's kind of interesting to me that all my recommendations from Arkansas, and all my students like the job I do.  It's just this committee I can't get along with.  Anyhow, the external evaluator is a professor at another university that I have never met.  She read my files and my published work and she gave her evaluation of my work too.  And she liked me.  I guess it will seem like bragging to only post her parts, but legally I can't post the other things (about 40 pages) so you can see how these few paragraphs gave me some faith in myself.  She wrote this:

I found much to admire in her work including consistent depth and complexity about gender and class.  Writing about class and motherhood, in particular, seems sadly unfashionable in some literary circles, and I am always delighted to read work by contemporary writers who deal with the real struggles of everyday life.  This aspect of Dr. Randall’s work stood out to me during the first round of evaluations and it stands out now. I admire Dr. Randall’s obvious work ethic, too.  Her dossier is filled with evidence of working hard to be published via traditional and online venues – it seems logical to seek publication online – Dr. Randall is correct that having a cyber-foot print as a writer can be important to a career.  Her individual print publication credits, reputable journals, good bylines with Jim Daniels and Katharine Ayars are all appropriate.  To pursue book-length publication at this point would be wise. Dr. Randall does what Hemingway said we should do.  She writes one true sentence.  Then she writes another one.  And she’s doing it across genres, with impressive publications in creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.  That she’s published so widely and well is remarkable given the teaching and service demands she faces.  I enthusiastically recommend Dr. Randall for renewal. Her writing is fresh and informed by deeply-felt experience.  It's writing that's gendered, of course.  Dr. Randall writes terrific women characters and speaks about her own life from an intimate, revelatory, relate-able place.  But hat's really unique is how Dr. Randall writes about class.  This is something that seems often to be missing in contemporary literature.  What a joy it is to see Dr. Randall addressing a single mother's struggles to pay for groceries and rent in her story "Drive-Thru Laundry."  How amazing it is to see a discussion about the cost of a ruined mattress and a bag of designer M&Ms in "Jaded Green."  What a revelation it is to see a paragraph like this from "First Silicone Church" where the writer/speaker is confronting the class differences between herself and a friend.  What reality she brings to the page!  (I use an exclamation point once ever seven years and then only when I mean it.  I mean it.)  As I was reading her work, I found myself writing in the margins.  This is what I do when I'm engaged and excited about what I'm reading.  Mostly, with Dr. Randall's work, I wrote the word "yes." Dr. Randall's voice and subject matter warrant a broader audience.  She echoes vital writers like Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, and Alice Munroe.  Dr. Randall shares these writers' ability to write from inside women's experiences.  Her balance of humor and pathos, and most especially her attention to class issues, make for essential reading.  I expect her success will be ongoing and I look forward to being able to teach a collection of her writing in my own classes soon.