I’ve been blogging on WordPress since 2010. I became familiar with Substack as I subscribe to several bloggers who regularly publish on Substack, so I decided to start this blog on Substack back in April 2023, and I wrote a couple of posts—the last one is titled, “What’s It All About, Alfie?” published on April 13, 2023.
Because I publish posts frequently on WordPress, after my initial foray on Substack, I never got back to using it again after I published the post mentioned above. In that post, I wrote about a work situation that came up in my professional life back in 2008-09 that had far reaching ramifications going into the future.
This past week I received some news on the institute I worked at back in 2008-09. I published a blog post titled, “To Bid Adieu,” on Wordpress yesterday (September 29, 2023) that brings a conclusion of sorts—15 years later—to what happened back then. Since I explained this situation on the post mentioned above that I published on Substack back in April 2023, I decided to post the conclusion to that story here on Substack (it is available on WordPress). It also gives me an opportunity to explore using Substack again by creating a new post since it is quite different from using WordPress. Practice makes perfect, right?
It’s been a quiet month. I’ve published two blog posts so far in the month of September–“The Sounds of Silence” on this blog, and “Silence and Solitude” on my second blog–both published on September 13, 2023. Those two posts added to my previous two posts published on August 27, 2023–“To Be or Not To Be–Silent” on this blog, and “The Power of a Quiet Spirit” on my second blog–have all been on the same topic– “silence.” No wonder it’s been such a quiet month on my blogs.
So, it’s time to come out of my quiet mode, and I’ll start with a brief story.
Today, September 29, 2023, marks the 15th anniversary of the day I started working as Director of Academic Advising at an Art Institute back on September 29, 2008. I ended up losing that job seven months later on April 21, 2009, and while I didn’t know it at the time I lost that job, it was actually the end of my 20+ year career in Student Services/Student Affairs at colleges and universities that started back in the mid-1980’s, and continued on when I was working on a master’s degree at a state university in my home state (which I received in 1991).
After I received my master’s degree in 1991, I applied for and I was the recipient of a one-year doctoral fellowship at a private university in Florida for the 1992-93 academic year in the area of higher education administration with a specialization in adult education. After I completed that fellowship year, I was hired in positions ranging from Coordinator/Academic Advisor to Assistant and Associate Director in colleges and universities leading up to the Director position at the Art Institute. All of the previous colleges and university were non-profits. The Art Institute was a for-profit institute and my only foray into the world of for-profit higher education. I loved the creative atmosphere I found at the Art Institute, and it fit in perfectly with my bachelor’s degree in Art and Design which I had earned in 1985 at that same state university where I received my master’s degree in 1991.
When I accepted the Director position at the Art Institute, I never dreamed that it would come to an end a scant seven months later. After all, I had been working in this field for 20+ years, and I was well qualified for the position. But as it turned out, it wasn’t meant to be long term. I had moved 1,000 miles and paid my own moving expenses for this position, so you can imagine my shock at losing that job a scant seven months after I began working there.
What I didn’t know at the time I lost that position was that regardless of how long I tried to find another job in my career field (I was 56 at the time I lost that job), it never did materialize, and I was still at least a decade away from normal retirement age (according to Social Security it is 66 for full-time benefits). I was single and self-supporting, and I was hoping God would guide me within the first six months to my next job as He knew I desperately needed the income. However, that did not happen, and I stopped counting the number of jobs I applied for when it reached 500 in early 2011 (two years after I lost that job). I continued to apply for jobs right up until I turned 62 and I was forced to apply for Social Security benefits (the earliest age to apply for them) just to have any income again.
What has transpired over the years since I lost that job has been, at times, a miracle (one after another in small increments), and while it is not easy for me to look back over these years since I lost that job in 2009, I can see God’s guiding hand in my circumstances and experiences over and over again. The things I have learned have been invaluable, and my faith has been strengthened by what I have gone through. And these experiences are not the type of things one reads about in the latest “Best Life Now” type of Christian books (that is not to say there is anything wrong with those types of books, but rather that there is another side to consider). We tend to have a “success oriented” and materialistic view (which is the same as the culture around us) of how the Christian life should unfold and what it looks like here in America.
Billy Graham was asked what success should mean to a Christian, and he responded:
The world has its measures on what it [success] means: financial success, athletic success, business success, professional success, social success, success in gaining popularity. The list is almost as endless as the man’s search. Many people spend their lives pursuing at least one of these.
But how does God define success? His measure is very different from the world’s measure, and it can be summed up in one sentence: Success in God’s eyes is faithfulness to His calling.
The Apostle Paul was a failure in the world’s eyes–but not to God. Even Jesus was a failure as far as most people were concerned, but He was faithful to the One who appointed Him–God the Father–and that is all that mattered. (Quote source here.)
Back to my career that ended in 2009–this past week I read in Higher Ed Dive that the Art Institute where I worked at back then along with seven other Art Institutes are closing down permanently this week. How ironic that my very first day of work back in 2008, and the last full week day they are open (today) are the exact same date–September 29th (it officially closes on Saturday, September 30th). Another irony is that it was also on September 29, 2008, that the worst Wall Street Crash in history back then occurred after Congress failed to pass a $700 billion bank bailout plan, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777.68 points—which at the time was the largest single-day point loss in its history (source here). Perhaps it was an omen of sorts.
This past week after I read the news on Tuesday morning about the demise of the Art Institutes, it has been on my mind. After I lost that job in 2009, the management corporation that owned the Art Institutes as well as other for-profit colleges and universities started to fall on hard times with massive layoffs starting in 2012, and three years later they closed 15 of the Art Institutes. They sold the remaining Art Institutes and colleges to a new owner in 2017, and the former owner (who owned them when I worked there) ended up going bankrupt in 2018. The second owner almost went bankrupt, too, and they sold the last eight Art Institutes and remaining colleges to a Foundation in 2019, and now the Foundation is permanently closing those last eight Art Institutes this week. (Source and more information at this link.)
Obviously, while I didn’t expect to lose my job back in 2009, there wasn’t much of a future going forward if I had been able to keep working at that Art Institute. The department I worked in was dismantled in 2012, and the Academic Advisor who replaced me as Director in April 2009 ended up losing her job in 2012 with the first round of massive layoffs. And after several more layoffs and closings system-wide, and changes in ownership twice over the next decade, the remaining eight Art Institutes are closing down this week. Some of its history is available at this link on Wikipedia.
With the permanent closing of the Art Institutes this week, it feels as if a chapter in my life has finally ended–a chapter with a lot of mixed emotions since my career ended back in 2009 when I lost that job. I originally started this blog back in 2010 as a creative outlet while I was searching for another position at colleges and universities. Obviously, this blog has grown into much more than just trying to work through how I was dealing with long term unemployment back then while looking for and not finding another job.
The people I worked with when I worked at the Art Institute have long ago moved on to other job opportunities or retired. However, this past week when I read about the permanent closing of the Art Institute that so totally changed my life back in 2009, it feels like I can finally let go of the frustration I still feel from time to time. Losing that job was not the way I wanted my career to end, and it ended far too soon, too.
So, I bid adieu to the Art Institute. It’s time to move on to a new chapter and finally put that chapter to rest. There are two verses in Philippians that I read this morning that reminds me of these past 15 years and moving forward from this point on. Paul wrote in Phil. 3:13-14: Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize…
For which God . . .
Has called me heavenward . . .
In Christ Jesus . . . .
YouTube Video: “Auld Lang Syne” by Home Free (click here).