Because, she admitted to herself, she had been a tenured member of that faculty for too long not to have been chair already. Twice before she thought she deserved the job at least as much as the person who was eventually named. If she were passed over again, she would have to consider seriously whether she ought to spend the rest of her career at Waterford College.
The news finally came one Wednesday morning when a knock sounded on her office door. “Gwen?”
“Come on in, Jules,” Gwen called. The door opened and one of her graduate students entered. “Ready for the candidacy exam?”
“Almost. Ask me again next month.” Jules settled his lanky frame into the opposite chair. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” Gwen turned away from the computer to find him peering at her, his expression guarded. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“So you haven’t heard? Or is it just a rumor?”
“Is what a rumor?”
“One of Professor Brannon’s grad students says she’s going to be chair.”
For a moment Gwen just stared at him, absorbing this. “There hasn’t been any official word yet. It’s a bad idea to spread rumors. Or to listen to them.”
“I know. I know. But this rumor’s spreading fast, and no one’s refuting it.” He hesitated. “We wanted to see how you were taking it.”
He meant the rest of her grad students had sent him in to gauge whether it was safe to approach or if they ought to avoid her for the next few days. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop.” She saved her document and rose, adding with forced confidence, “I’ll get this cleared up.”
Bill’s assistant buzzed her in to the department chair’s office with little delay, with a look of sympathy that spoke volumes. She had probably known the committee’s decision weeks before Bill did.
When Gwen entered, Bill rose and offered her a seat. His atypical politeness so unsettled her that she almost involuntarily dropped into the chair. “I think I know why you’re here,” he said, scratching a graying sideburn.
“I’ve heard some rumors.”
“Annette Brannon has been appointed department chair.”
“I see.” She inhaled deeply but held his gaze. “Based upon our conversations of the past two years, it was my understanding that I was first in line.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you were our next choice if Annette refused.”
“No, it does not make me feel any better.” No one who would consider refusing was ever offered the position. “Why? What happened?”
He spread his palms. “The same process that happens every three years. The committee scrutinized a number of relevant factors and determined that Annette was the best choice.”
“I have been a member of this department for nearly sixteen years.” Gwen studied the photos on his desk: Bill and his wife in tuxedo and gown, his wife alone, Bill and William, Jr. wearing identical Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirts. When she was calm enough, she said, “Annette joined us five years ago. She has one book out, her dissertation. I have four and another slated for the fall. She has not yet led so much as one department committee to my six. Compare our journal publications and you’ll find—”
“Gwen. Please. The decision’s been made.” Bill glanced at his watch discreetly, but not discreetly enough. “Maybe next time will be your turn.”
This time was supposed to have been her turn, and she was not about to go through this same humiliation three years hence. “I’d appreciate hearing how the committee reached its decision since you didn’t dispute my comparison of our qualifications.”
“Maybe you should take it up with the committee.”
“I’ve had a little too much bureaucracy for one day, so I’d prefer to take it up with you.” Gwen reminded herself to be civil. “I’d appreciate it, especially since, inadvertently or not, you led me to believe I would be offered the job.”
“Annette is the most appropriate choice for the department at this juncture,” said Bill. “You’re focusing on quantity of work and ignoring quality. The committee felt the department needed someone with solid academic credentials in substantial, hard research, and Annette is that person.”
The implication stung, but Gwen let him continue unchallenged.
“Undergraduate majors have been declining over the past decade. We’ve lost students to history, government, and women’s studies at alarming rates. Annette’s research is cutting-edge and well regarded, and the political angles have caught students’ attention. Her teaching evaluations are off the charts. She’s brought in two six-figure grants. She’ll invigorate this department at a time when we desperately need it.” He rose to indicate the conversation was over, but added, “Does that clear up the situation?”
“Almost. One more question. Are you saying my work is not ‘hard, substantial research’?”
“Gwen—”
“What is soft and insubstantial about my research?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? You study quilts. That’s nice, but it’s not politically or socially relevant.”
“Haven’t you read any of my papers? How can you say art is not politically or socially relevant within a culture?”
“Art? Come on, Gwen. Quilts aren’t art. My mother-in-law makes quilts.” He came out from behind his desk and rested his hand on the doorknob. “I know you’re disappointed. Personally, I think you’d make a fine chair. Here’s some advice if you want to improve your chances in three years. If you want to study the arts, study the arts that matter—architecture, maybe. Sculpture or painting.”
He opened the door and gave her a sympathetic grimace.
Somehow his attempt to be helpful infuriated her even more. “For a card-carrying liberal and someone who claims to be devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, you and your committee have an obvious and detestable bias for ‘manly’ topics. Since when did you all turn Republican?”
He looked wounded, but she did not linger to apologize. She stormed from his office and back to her own, ignoring the curious glances from colleagues and students alike.
Jules had wisely not waited for her return. Fuming, Gwen shut down the computer and packed books and papers into the quilted satchel she used as a briefcase. “The arts that matter,” she muttered, locking the door behind her. If Bill had read any of her research—for that matter, if he had any common sense—he would realize that home arts and folk arts revealed more about a culture than the isolated, esoteric pieces preserved in museums for the benefit of the elite. She was sick and tired of having her work dismissed as frivolous because it centered on a largely female occupation. If most quilts had been made by men, no one would question her interest in exploring the role of quiltmaking in American history.
She crossed the wooded campus carefully, her footsteps unsteady on the snow-covered sidewalks. A snow squall had struck while she was in class, too recently for the maintenance crews to have cleared the icy dusting from anything but the main roads. Two men, one probably a student, were shoveling snow from the steps of the Computer Sciences building when she arrived. The older man greeted her by name as she climbed to the front door. She did a double take before she recognized Bonnie’s husband, Craig. She smiled and made some joke about his getting out of his office to enjoy the fine weather, but he didn’t get it. “We’re understaffed,” he replied instead. “Everyone has to help out.”
Gwen had never particularly liked Craig, so she merely smiled again, nodded, and went on her way rather than explain. Bonnie and Craig were a prime example of opposites attracting, although Gwen had never figured out what Bonnie found so appealing. Of course, she found little to admire in the institution of marriage, so she probably wasn’t looking hard enough.
She found Judy in her lab studying a long printout of rows and columns of numbers and letters—incomprehensible to Gwen, but apparently holding Judy and two of her graduate students spellbound. When Gwen asked if she had a moment to talk, Judy handed the printout to one of her students and led Gwen into
an adjacent office. The room, though small, had a window, two laptops, and a color laser printer Gwen had coveted ever since Judy unpacked it. The walls were lined with bookcases—the shelves so full they bowed in the middle—and on the back of the door hung a quilt designed from a fractal pattern.
“What’s going on?” Judy asked, leaning against the edge of a desk and gesturing to a seat.
Gwen sank heavily into it. “I wasn’t named department chair.”
“I thought the committee had all but given you the keys to the office.”
“Never again will I believe anything until I see it in writing.”
Judy shook her head, her long black hair slipping over her shoulder. “So they chose another man after all.”
“No, they cleverly rendered me unable to complain on those grounds. The woman they chose is bright, capable, and only five years out of graduate school. She doesn’t even have tenure, but her work is hip, political, and socially relevant, which mine isn’t.”
“Since when?”
“Since I started concentrating on textiles, apparently.” Gwen’s head throbbed. She buried her face in her hands and massaged her forehead. “And naturally I had to make everything worse. I couldn’t just take the news stoically and write up a well-reasoned, formal protest after I regained control of my temper. I had to storm into Bill’s office and demand an explanation.”
“How did that go?” When Gwen hesitated, Judy winced. “Never mind. I can guess.” She reached out and squeezed Gwen’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s probably more embarrassed than you are, no matter what you said. He must be ashamed of the committee’s ridiculous excuses.”
“I doubt it. He seemed sincere when he told me to switch to studying ‘the arts that matter’ if I hope to be considered three years from now.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I might write him a letter of apology.”
“Sounds like overkill to me. I meant, what are you going to do about your research?”
“I don’t know.” She wanted to pursue research that fascinated her, but had her passion blinded her to the obvious? Was her work irrelevant? She never wanted to become one of those academics who churned out journal article after journal article that no one would ever read. For a time, a time she had enjoyed enormously, studying the lives of women in history had been celebrated as the archiving of the almost forgotten past of an enormous, disenfranchised population. When had the climate shifted?
“You have tenure, so they can’t fire you simply because they don’t like your research,” Judy reminded her. “But they can prevent you from advancing within the college and otherwise make your life miserable. I suppose you have to ask yourself which is more important: impressing the committee or continuing your current research, which until an hour ago you couldn’t have imagined abandoning.”
“I could always return to it after my term as chair.”
“That’s true, but three years is a long time to study something that bores you.”
Gwen doubted she could stand even one year bored out of her mind simply to make a point. Worse yet was the idea of herself humbled, acquiescent, willingly switching research topics to please the selection committee. She might be able to do so if she accepted their assessment of her work, but she did not. “Not all departments believe that women’s stories are irrelevant,” she said.
Judy shrugged. “It is possible to outgrow a college. You can be happy for many years, but one day, you realize you’ve gone as far as you can go. Sometimes the best and only way to pursue your research is to pursue it somewhere else.”
Gwen would hate to leave Waterford College, Elm Creek Quilts, Summer. But she was a long way from retirement and refused to be shuffled off to her rocking chair where she could work on her girlie projects while younger women like Annette were celebrated for their important work.
She had to find a middle ground. If her ongoing research wouldn’t impress the department, she would find something new, but she would not abandon quilts simply because some stuffy old men didn’t understand their significance. It was her job as an educator to make them understand.
But it wouldn’t hurt to find something that would also win her a grant.
Gwen managed to avoid Bill and Annette the next day, but she found little comfort in the sympathies of the two American Studies professors who stopped by her office once the official announcement was made. Her grad students, perhaps warned away by Jules, did not seek her out, so she left campus right after her last class. She would work at home until it was time to leave for the weekly business meeting at Elm Creek Manor. Bonnie wanted them to arrive early so she could show them the first blocks of Sylvia’s bridal quilt.
Was it any wonder Gwen preferred the energy and camaraderie of the manor to the suspicious temper of the Liberal Arts building? Elm Creek Quilts was collaborative, cooperative, and—she dared to say—matriarchal, while academia was still a rigid hierarchy despite the varying political winds that drifted across it, altering its surface without changing the deeper layers. As an idealistic student, she had thought the university was a place where the love of learning and the sharing of ideas were celebrated; now she knew that argument and backbiting were the norm, the egalitarian exchange of knowledge an afterthought.
Or maybe she was just bitter. Judy never seemed to encounter politicking and backstabbing. All she ever complained about was inadequate funding and too many boring department meetings.
The gray stone manor was a welcome sight as Gwen crossed the bridge over Elm Creek. She parked near the middle of the lot, where a patch of snow-covered grass encircled two towering, bare-limbed elms. Summer’s car was not there, but inside Gwen found Bonnie, Agnes, and Diane, and Judy soon joined them. Gwen wished Summer was there; she never failed to help Gwen put her disappointments in proper perspective. Still, Gwen joined in the usual banter and admired the blocks until Sylvia’s sudden arrival sent them scrambling. Fortunately, Sarah managed to fling the blocks into the pantry before Sylvia saw them, but her feeble cover story made Gwen cringe. Miraculously, Sylvia believed it, or pretended to, and the Elm Creek Quilters went to the parlor to begin the meeting.
Sarah began with the good news that enrollment for the coming season was up fifteen percent. “Your Photo Transfer workshop is especially popular, Gwen,” she added. “Summer and I thought it would be a good idea to offer a second session each week. If you’re up for it.”
Gwen shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Once the spring semester ends, I’ll have plenty of time.” Much more time than she had intended or hoped, but she needn’t tell Sarah that. No one but Summer and Judy knew how much she had counted on that appointment.
Not long into the meeting, Summer burst in, slipping out of her coat and full of apologies. She wore her long auburn hair in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and if Gwen wasn’t mistaken, she had secured it with a number-two pencil. “Relax, kiddo. You’re not that late,” whispered Gwen, but Summer was too distracted by the others’ teasing to hear. Naturally they assumed she was late because of her boyfriend, which Gwen thought ridiculous until Summer confessed they were correct.
“You guys spend so much time together you might as well live together,” said Diane.
Agnes looked horrified. “Don’t suggest such a thing. She meant after you get married, dear.”
Summer blanched as Agnes patted her hand.
“Married? Are you crazy?” said Gwen. “Don’t go putting thoughts of marriage in my daughter’s head. Or of living together. My daughter has more sense than that.”
She gave Summer a reassuring grin. The other Elm Creek Quilters still felt cheated out of planning Sylvia and Andrew’s wedding, and they saw Summer as the most likely candidate for matrimony. They obviously hoped to nudge her closer to the altar so their investigation of local florists and bakeries wouldn’t go to waste. What they could not possibly understand was that Summer was just like her mother in her need for personal freedom. Summer was too wise
to commit to anyone when she had so much of her own life to live first. No one would ever accuse her of either settling or settling down.
The teasing subsided when Sarah resumed the meeting. Afterward, Gwen stopped Summer before she could put on her coat. “Kiddo, can we talk?”
“About what?” said Summer, wary.
“Nothing important.” Gwen forced a smile. Clearly Summer was in no mood for a heart-to-heart. “It can wait. Can you come for supper on Sunday?”
“Can we make it the following week?” Summer tugged on her coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck. “I’m swamped until the end of January.”
Puzzled, since January was far from their busiest season, Gwen agreed and promised to make the lentil and brown rice soup Summer loved. Summer thanked her with a quick kiss on the cheek and bounded out the door, and Gwen watched her go. It was hard to believe that Gwen herself had once been so slender and lovely, but she had the photographs to prove it. Summer would accomplish much more with her life than Gwen had, though, because she was brighter and braver than Gwen had ever been.
“You must be very proud,” remarked Sylvia as she cleared away the cups and plates left over from their midmeeting snack.
“Proud beyond reason,” said Gwen with a laugh.
She stayed behind to help Sylvia tidy the room, and as they carried the dishes to the kitchen, she found herself telling the older woman about her disappointment at work. Sylvia put on a fresh pot of tea and they sat at the kitchen table while Gwen confessed the whole sorry tale.
“I spent most of my teaching career trying to convince people quilting was art,” said Sylvia when Gwen had finished. “Now you’re trying to persuade them it’s a relevant art. I suppose that’s progress of a sort.”
“At that rate, in another forty years, no one will have these arguments anymore.” Gwen stared glumly into her teacup, wishing she could read the leaves. “Just in time for my great-grandchildren.”
Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter Page 8
