How to Fail at Flirting
Denise Williams
For my husband. If I were rearranging the alphabet,
I’d put U and I next to each other.
One
The student in the fourth row glanced left then right as his friends stared in other directions and the bravado drained from his face. My question still hanging in the air, he muttered, “I don’t know.”
I itched to call him out for not doing the reading, then texting during class. Disengaged students didn’t usually bother me this much, but it had been a long semester and I was tired of this room. Someone crinkled a bag of chips a few rows back, and the clock on the wall ticked away. The ticking brought back a flash of memory, but I pushed it aside.
Not now.
His expensive-looking shoes caught my eye. Boat shoes. They coordinated with his plaid shorts, polo shirt, and sunglasses pushed into blond hair styled just so. I needed to check my roster to confirm his name; it was Quinton or Quenton or something equally preppy. I planned to add looking him up to my to-do list when I got back to the office.
“We’ve covered several theories. Tell us how the study of social learning can be applied to communication on social media.” I hoped he might contribute something, anything, to renew my faith in the modern American college student.
Instead, Quinton or Quenton leaned back and repeated, “I don’t know, Dr. Turner. Um . . . there are a lot of ways because of . . . um . . . the social connection.” Pen in hand, he glanced down at his “notes”—a blank sheet of paper in front of him—as if this answer should appease me.
That wasn’t even a good nonsense answer. C’mon, man.
I stepped back to address the auditorium, pulling at the hem of my loose cardigan.
“Turn to a partner and discuss three ways we could apply these traditional theories of learning to social media.” Chairs squeaked and groaned as students shifted, and voices rose.
I knew better than to judge a student so harshly based on his appearance. A penchant for Top-Siders and sherbet-colored shirts didn’t influence his intellectual ability. Quinton or Quenton would either surprise me by acing the final or he’d fail the exam spectacularly in a blaze of styling gel.
I knew this, but mostly I was still annoyed by his stupid shoes.
* * *
Joe, my department chair, waved to me when I stepped into the hall after class. “Naya, do you have a minute?”
We took the flight of creaking stairs to our floor, where a sign with the words “The Center for Learning” etched into an ancient and scuffed plaque greeted us. The home of my specialty—math education—shared the cramped space with faculty from English and social studies education. What was left of the elementary education department took up the half of the floor above us that wasn’t unusable because of water damage.
Originally constructed in 1917, the structure could best be described as decrepit. The faded, chipped paint and worn carpet were a good metaphor for our diminishing funding as the institution increasingly focused on preparing students to go into business and engineering.
When we emerged from the dim stairwell, our department secretary’s efficient voice followed us down the hall. “No, you want the campus childcare center. This is the Center for Learning . . . I’ll transfer you.”
I wondered how many times a week she answered that same question. Dr. Anita Kline, a senior professor, was a national leader in the study of early-childhood math development and online technology, and my research on math education for English-language learners had been called groundbreaking, but most of the campus assumed our building had a swing set tucked away somewhere. We needed to think about rebranding if we wanted the campus to take seriously the cutting-edge work we were doing with the science of learning.
I attempted to close Joe’s door, pulling it hard, but to no avail.
“The wood’s warped with the humidity. Don’t worry about it,” Joe said over his shoulder.
We had a little way to go before we got to that cutting edge, I thought as I sat in a chair with worn, orange vinyl. “What’s going on?”
The familiar smell of coffee and old books surrounded me like a fleece blanket. All our spaces were cramped, though Joe’s was the most cluttered.
“Do you have anything in the hopper this summer?”
“Sure—a couple manuscripts, and some grant proposals to submit, plus working on developing that new course for the fall.” Plus whatever else I find to keep me busy. “Why?”
He bobbed his head and shrugged in resignation, sitting back in his chair. “This new president makes me nervous, and rumor has it that he plans to make cuts. Not sure where our department will land.”
After six months, Thurmond University was still spinning on its hundred-and-twenty-year-old axis and getting used to our new leader: Archibald “Flip” Lewis. He was often described as “nontraditional,” a big challenge to a campus that took to change like a toddler to nap time.
“Would they really cut education? We’ll always need teachers.”
He smiled wanly. “I get the sense that everything’s on the table.”
I’d worked my butt off for six years to publish as much as I could and tirelessly improve my teaching. This was where I was good. This job was where I had solid footing, and I was going up for tenure review in the fall. Now I struggled to wrap my head around the possibility of my department being cut.