Nathan P. Spencer
English
Montana State University-Bozeman
The Cliff Walk is an account of what happened when corporate "downsizing" caught up with an august Colgate University professor. Up for his third-year review, he was told he was being dismissed because his department "was already top-heavy with tenured professors" (14). Thus Don Snyder found himself--at age 41, married, with three young children and a fourth on the way--facing a job search and what would turn out to be overwhelming uncertainty. The Cliff Walk narrates the changes his life underwent as he tried unsuccessfully, over a period of two years, to gain another teaching position, before finally turning to construction work.
Snyder begins his memoir with a prologue that initiates the descriptive, self-reflective writing he employs to captivate his readers. Through conversation with a woman whose Maine cottage he is repairing, we discover that he has been awakened to, and has experienced, the "disillusionment" of America's middle class (8). This personal awareness wasn't arrived at quickly, however, for Snyder is allowed a full seventeen months before he must vacate his university office. Given this grace period, and the fact that he was both a published and a popular professor, Snyder is consciously immodest in portraying himself as a man who has paved his own way, a teacher who believes strongly in his abilities. However, the rejection letters pour in and his life begins to fall apart; many readers will not be able to avoid thinking, "That could be me."
If Don Snyder had to repeat his narrative nightmare, one assumes that he would more quickly step into the role of non-teaching laborer, for the long period that he holds out for a job in higher education largely contributes to his financial downfall. Yet it is this faith in skills proven--teaching awards, books published--that causes him to hold out and that draws the reader to his side..."If he can't get a job, how could I?" How many of us have not had Snyder's doubts echo in our minds, doubts about whether or not rejection or termination letters are related to race or gender, rather than to a glut in the market?
The "cliff walk" refers to that often precarious striving to attain permanent/tenured employment, while sometimes, as in Snyder's case, finding that the flowery path has reached a deep, dark crevice, and one must enter the darkness to regain sight of the goal. As an adjunct faculty member, formerly a part-time/half-time instructor for the Wisconsin Technical College System, I too have performed a balancing act. Often working from semester-to-semester, I have in the past been driven by uncertainty to apply for a teaching position in the middle of nowhere (along with 200+ other applicants); agreed to teach over interactive television to make myself more marketable; and combined writing center duties with teaching to stay afloat. I have also, as recently as this past summer, been a blue-collar worker.
Unlike Snyder I have never had to worry about supporting a pregnant wife and children who understand at an all-too-early age that to receive food stamps is somehow demeaning. Yet I too have felt the inexorable draw to academia, despite the pleasure I get from working outdoors. Like Snyder I feel I can make a difference, that I am good at leading students into improved critical thinking and writing skills--and like Snyder I am willing to wade through rejection letters to earn the chance to teach.
The Cliff Walk is a very personal account, for while Snyder does address such issues as downsizing, tenure, and career shifts, his focus is on the journey that changed his life and his way of thinking. He is, at times, brutally honest, and some readers may find themselves assuming a morally superior stance upon reading about his prank telephone calls, petty thefts, dependency on sleeping pills, and the contemplation of selling a yet-to-be-born infant for adoption. The crevice is dark indeed. At times Snyder also seems so preoccupied with sharing details of his youth, details that appear to be insignificant, that the flow of the narrative pace is disrupted. The occasional melancholy tone, however, fits the mental state that Snyder finds himself in, and, along with his sharing of personal failings, magnifies the seriousness of his job loss.
Though a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education carried claims that Snyder was not completely honest about the reason for his Colgate termination or about past educational employment, his text has received much favorable publicity and may be turned into a film, according to a feature article on Snyder in People magazine. The themes of The Cliff Walk--the value we place on white-collar versus blue-collar employment, the trauma of a job loss and its effects on the family--are those that, Snyder suggests, we would all do well to examine further.