VAP Support Thread

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Near and dear to my heart, and especially useful during my time as a VAP, was the VAP support thread on the old Chronicle forums, started by _normative in 2008. The first post is quoted below:

https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,50153.0.html is the link, for as long as it still functions.

Hi folks. Being a VAP isn't easy, at least from what I read. This morning it became clear that a support thread for VAPs might be a useful resource. They're popular in almost every other area.

And the concrete trigger is the following post. My heart went out to Porcupine.

I have had the worst day I have yet had in my current job. I am typing this vent because I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep because I cannot stop crying. This is somewhat embarrassing, yet unavoidably true. Ergo, vent.

Things that happened today, demonstrating that my life sucks:

1. My student emailed me to tell me that they have been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and wanted to know what I thought they should do about the final exam for my course;

2. My department chair humiliated me (I am a full-time VAP) by describing me, with no little sarcasm in their tone, as a tenured professor's 'assistant' at our student awards ceremony - in front of at least 30 students and colleagues. This was after the chair had congratulated my senior colleague on having run a successful conference, to which I had contributed at least 50% of the effort, and my colleague had immediately said that they wanted to share these congratulations with me in acknowledgement of my work;

3. An assistant professor embarrassed me by interrupting my conversation with her partner (who shares my research interests and who seemed, at least at face value, to be genuinely interested in speaking with me on that topic) three times, the latter time audibly remarking to her partner that she "was trying to get him away from me";

4. (2) & (3) suggest to me that no matter how hard I work for my current department dealing with situations like (1) sensitively, they really do not value my efforts.

I have worked 60+ hours a week for these people since August and am completely exhausted, and to what purpose? Apparently, being perceived as the sort of person from whom one wants to extricate one's partner, and being seen as deserving of public sarcasm.

5. The icing on the cake. After they all left for the day, and feeling utterly depressed, I did the damned dishes from the awards ceremony. I really hate myself for doing this, especially as nobody will either notice or care.

Many of these posts require you to make the best of a one-year stay, if I understand it correctly. What are conditions like where you are and how are you coping? Do you have advice for your fellow forumites?