The First Day of School

Thoughts on change, trauma, and toilet seat covers

I can only count about 4 or 5 years across my whole life when I didn’t have a First Day of School. For decades, late summer was a stew of anxiety and anticipation. Whether I was an adult gasping in the August heat or a child soaking up every last minute at the pool, when Labor Day rolled around, I was invariably planning my first-day outfit.

This year, my first day was very different.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you already know that I was laid off from my position as a tenured full professor at William Paterson University effective January 1, 2022. With a little luck and a lot of privilege, I’ve been able to take some time to figure out what’s next for me. Last August, I started to panic a little. My semester-long “sabbatical” was over, and the unemployment was running out. I had some good leads, but still hadn’t landed anything that would satisfy both my soul and my pocketbook. Not to mention allow me to be present for my family. So, I finally bit the bullet and took an adjunct gig.

Most academics adjunct early in their careers, some do it after retirement or alongside a day-job, and far, far too many get stuck in a permanent, second-class, contingent role where consistent employment is far from a guarantee. Adjunct faculty are paid for the hours they are IN CLASS, but all prep, grading, meetings, never mind research, goes uncompensated. They often don’t have healthcare coverage or retirement packages. Genuine horror stories abound.

Before now, I’d only taught one course as an adjunct faculty member, plus a bunch as a grad-student instructor. When I finished my doctorate, I made a choice to join the labor movement and fight rather than participate in a broken system. My tenure-track job at WPU basically dropped from the sky—I wasn’t even looking for academic jobs at the time. But it was perfect for me, and I did good work there for many years. I had a good run.

This fall, I was hired to teach two sections of Art History survey at FIT, as an adjunct. Decision made, I started planning my outfit.

When I got to campus on that first day, students with astonishing shoes and psychedelic haircuts were scuttling around, some with parents in tow, moving into their dorms. One of my own first days had been so like this, moving into NYU. This year’s First Day of School was one of those moments when time rubs up against itself, not linear at all but cyclical, echoing, reverberating.

I was energized and inspired by the atmosphere, and also by the way my life was threading back into itself, weaving new roads that would lead me in new directions. Doing what I loved with the added bonus of a subway commute reading novels?!!? Perfection! I proudly showed my ID and entered the building, marching off to the bathroom before my first class.

These days, there’s a lot of talk about being triggered, and I admit that it took me a while to really (personally) get what that means. As I’m learning that my current emotional state includes a hefty serving of CPTSD with a side of grief to compliment my usual low-level depression, I’m realizing that triggers are abundant, real, and frickin’ sneaky. Sometimes you just have a wave of nostalgia or whatever, other times you’re reduced to a sniveling mess by a single tweet.

When I got off the elevator at FIT, I found a bathroom and went into the stall. I looked at the toilet seat cover dispenser and I froze. I nearly wept. TBH, it was a miracle I was able to pull it together and teach.

I know, I know…that’s ummm…a lot. Here’s the deal:

The Ben Shahn Center for the Arts at William Paterson University (where my office, classrooms, and dear, dear colleagues were housed) was built in 1969, the year that the Lithuanian Jewish Activist Artist died. In one of the Ben Shahn faculty restrooms, there’s a toilet seat cover dispenser on the wall that was made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as proclaimed in bright bluish-green letters. Every time I saw it, it reminded me that there was something to look forward to: The International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, that I attended nearly every spring for more than 20 years.

When my 4/4 teaching load felt overwhelming, or when the malignant narcissist who ran my union felt unstoppable, I would see that little reminder that Kalamazoo would still be waiting for me in May, once we got closer to the Last Day of School

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Kalamazoo was (is?) an epic nerdfest. Like Comic-Con for academics, but without as much Cos Play. We listened to each other lecture about medieval topics all day, and gathered for giant feasts together in the evenings, talking about our passion projects. We danced (poorly) on Saturday night to a DJ lost in the ‘80s. It was like the weirdest Bar Mitzvah ever, and I fucking loved it.

I felt like I belonged when I was at Kalamazoo. Nearly everyone was a socially-anxious nerd and they all got my weird historical references—and jokes! (Did I ever tell you that one with the punchline in Latin? Gets ‘em every time.) Around 2018, I was disturbed to discover that the conference had some very real problems with diversity and inclusion practices which had been far too easy for me (a white woman) to ignore. So, I kept attending, but started organizing for institutional change: I stayed to fight again. I hope that the work I did had some small impact, but ultimately it was sidelined by COVID and then fully crushed by my layoff. Crushed because it’s unlikely I’ll go to Kalamazoo again. Without a salary and a university to reimburse me for travel, it doesn’t make any sense. Kalamazoo is one of the many things I’m mourning these days.

So, on my first day at FIT, I went into that bathroom stall, and was stopped in my tracks by the bleak, white toilet seat cover dispenser that hung there. Who could say whether it was made in Kalamazoo or Oshkosh or Newark??? It was homeless, unnamed, exiled--just like me.

I did manage to recover from the gut punch—the trigger—gather myself, and teach on that First Day. And now it’s getting easier each time, so I guess it’s better NOT to see the Kalamazoo reminder on the regular. Still, though, I miss it, and I bet the folks who work in the Sanitor Manufacturing plant there are super fun. It looks like they’re still going strong after 80 years, and they’re American manufacturers who use North American raw materials. They even have a blog! Man, I wish I could grab a beer with them at Bell’s, and I certainly do hope they have a strong union

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