Chapter 53: Professor David Janson

DAVE

I was standing in my kitchen with a shocked expression on my face. In front of me were the four women that lived with me and were in my bed. They were all smiling and nodding to encourage me to accept something that they knew about before I did.

Five minutes earlier, Cindy had handed me an envelope on university stationary that was addressed to me. She said, “We kind of know what the letter says, but we haven’t read it.”

I tore open the envelope. The letter started, ’Dear Mr. Janson,

Paul Prentiss, a trustee of this university, suggested we contact you regarding a part-time faculty position, specifically as part of both our Masters of Business Administration program, and our Masters of Finance program. With his encouragement, we are reaching out to make this position offer to you. We want you to become a member of our faculty as an associate professor,...

The letter went on with some specifics about the job and how I could contact someone regarding accepting the post, the suggested classes they’d like me to teach, and also learning more about the position and the other attendant benefits. The letter was signed by the provost. It also indicated that someone named Matthew Stanton, Ph.D., would be my contact in the faculty and my mentor to get started.

After reading it a second time aloud, Mel, Cindy, Trish, and Wendy all cheered and congratulated me.

I said, “What about my job for Paul?”

Mel said, “This is only a half-time faculty position. You’ll have plenty of time to help Paul. Besides you’ve created a top-notch team with Dan and the other men and women that are doing all your heavy lifting. You need this as a new challenge in your life. Please say, ‘Yes’.”

I sighed. I asked how they happen to know about the job offer. Mel explained, “Paul called me to ask whether you’d accept. He wants this for you. I told him that you’d be a great teacher, but that I couldn’t predict your response. You have to say, yes. He did emphasize that he wouldn’t force this on you, if you really didn’t want to do it.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Considering what it meant to everyone including my boss, I called the man mentioned in the letter, Matthew Stanton. He told me to call him Matt, and I went to campus to see him.

I hadn’t been on the campus except to drop the girls off for classes on rare occasions. I parked in a student lot and walked to Willis Hall where Matt had his office. His office, by all rights, should have sunk into the earth’s core because of the weight of the books, periodicals, and papers everywhere. There was no place to sit except his office chair. We went down the hall to a modern seating area that happened to be unoccupied.

Matt explained, “You come highly recommended. We’ve had some charlatan’s in here that really just wanted to sell some of their own snake oil. Paul called me himself to tell me that you were probably the most objective person he knew. Accordingly, I hope you’ll accept the teaching positions.”

“Positions, as in plural?” I asked.

“Well, we need somebody to do both an undergrad and a graduate-level course – that’s two of them, but more or less on the same topic – investing, markets, risk management, and so on. The undergrad course would meet twice a week, usually in the morning, for about eighty minutes each class. I could show you the classroom set aside for that; pretty standard, holds thirty students or so. The graduate class would meet once a week, most likely on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings from six-to-nine p.m. I’m sure we can adapt to your schedule.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, “but I’m more worried about the content. What am I teaching?”

“Oh, that. First, it’ll be up to you, but in my opinion the courses should touch on the scope of investing, the many avenues for that – markets and also non-standard stuff with high paybacks like sports teams, art work, and so on; the concept of a risk and or a risk portfolio; monetary policy vis-à-vis various classes of investment; and so on – that kind of stuff. One thing that I think would be important would be for you to talk about what you do when you investigate a potential investment, especially something that isn’t well publicized or even pre-IPO. How would you evaluate a race horse or race car team?”

I nodded. This was about basics.

Matt said, “I might add that it would make us very happy to hear that you’d taken on one or two students as interns in your areas at Prentiss Enterprises, even for just a summer or a semester. Often those internships don’t pay, other than the cost of your own time to mentor them occasionally. Undergrad, those are really important. It helps get the kids used to something other than dishing out ice cream or side orders of fries.”

I accepted the teaching job – two courses. I negotiated the salary down to one dollar. I told Matt that I hoped the college would use the other money wisely. Everyone knew they were strapped for money. We left the meeting happy.

MEL

I went full-bore to outfit my new ‘professor’ husband. I bought him a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, a rakish hat, a pen and pencil set for his new desk, some new photos of the extended family for his office, a picture of the Treasury Department building in D.C., and few other trinkets. He got a laugh out of all of them.

The picture of the ‘family’ included Dave, me, Cindy, Trish, Wendy, Beth, and Scott. I was hopeful that people would ask him who the three ‘teens’ were. I told him that he had to explain that they were his ‘extra’ wives.

He took me to his new office just as summer started. It was just large enough for a desk, chair, chest-high bookcase, and a straight-back chair for a visitor to sit in. I also met Matt Stanton who ran the university’s Finance and Accounting Department. He had a much larger office down the hall from Dave.