Annie From Abelard Has an Update.

I wrote about an opportunity that my Dean approached me with last week; a research fellowship that's being started that they want me to be chair/senior fellow of. There would be two junior fellows that I would be responsible for hiring. The Dean, HR, and the college have nailed down exactly what they're going to do. The fellowship is going to be a part of the college, but not a part of its associated department. I'll answer directly to the Dean, but be expected to coordinate very closely with the associated department (which is defined in pretty certain terms). They approached me with the official offer and, after doing research, I asked for slightly more money while presenting my findings. Dean said sure, HR wanted me to take half of the increase out of my budget. I thought that was fair. So done deal. I didn't need anyone to walk me through the benefits package because it's the same as I was getting before. Everyone at the University gets the same thing: Professors, administrators, janitors, Deans, everyone.

So they've given me my research budget and my hiring budget. The research fellowship is going to be named after a donor who started an endowment for it, which is where the lion's share of my budget will be coming from (just learned this last week). I'm probably going to write them a letter thanking them. The Dean wants everything to be up and running by October (October!) and to start having comprehensive research projects out next spring. Which means I've got the next two months to sign two other fellows and then a semester and a half-ish to publish some heavy shit. So I'm kind of freaking out now. (Thank you all for your help, by the way)