Microcomm Publications - Poetry: Leaving Academia

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Leaving Academia
(a true story of starting The SETI League)
Copyright © 2013 by Dr. H. Paul Shuch

Richard was a ham friend. Since he didn't live so near,
He'd call me on the telephone, maybe once a year,
So we could catch up on our lives. Early one December,
Richard rang me up. It was a call I'd long remember.
My wife had gone out Christmas shopping. I was home alone,
With lots of time to talk to my friend Richard on the phone.

"So, what's new with you?" he asked. He kept his questions short,
To give me lots of time to file as detailed a report
As I was wont to give. This time, I tried to make it clear
That I had had a busy and most interesting year
Teaching some, and flying some, and getting on the air
Not so very often, just to talk to here and there.

"And you?" I reciprocated. "Tell me, how's your life?
Are you still a bachelor? Did you ever take a wife?"
"I may be deluded," Richard said, "but I'm no dunce.
Marriage is the same mistake I never did make once."
(Richard's statement, as it happens, is no longer true.
When you meet your soulmate, there is little else to do.)

Richard then went on, of matters serious and petty,
Finally asking, "Do you know what's going on with SETI?"
I was well aware that NASA's funding had been cut,
And the search for life was in its final phases. But...
Maybe private funding would appear to save the day.
We can carry on, I said. There has to be a way.

Richard and I talked on for an hour and a half
About this situation that could make you cry, or laugh.
Then he dropped his bombshell, and at last I came to see
This wasn't idle chit-chat - he was interviewing me!
"I'm impressed there's so much about SETI that you know.
I've founded a non-profit. Would you like to run the show?"

I was being asked to turn my back on something great:
A job for life, backed by the taxing power of the state,
With pension and full tenure, for a chance to tackle real
Fringe science with uncertain funding. I began to feel
There's just no way that I could pass up such a cushy deal!
So, I told Richard that his offer had a strange appeal.

I first took a sabbatical from teaching, just to find
I liked the change. And so, the next semester, I resigned.
Those twenty years of teaching quickly slipped into the past.
Two decades now I've run The SETI League. It's been a blast!
The classroom was another life that I can scarce remember,
And all because my ham friend, Richard, called me that December.

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