He's still only an Associate Professor, not a full professor. Despite the university's lip service to awarding merit for community work and teaching, they pretty much don't care about that at all.
He probably won't get any awards, or special recognition for his longevity.
A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, he talked about retiring. Oh, not that he wanted to retire, but that he wanted to be able to retire if he should decide to do so.
Three years ago, he was gravely ill and ended up having heart surgery. There was no talk of retiring then, except as a possible necessity should he not recover, but honestly, we all thought he was more likely to die than to retire.
A year or so ago, he was again very ill with a bad gall bladder, but again, retirement didn't really cross his mind as a real option.
He loves what he's doing, and what he's doing is teaching.
It just makes me very sad and angry to see this brilliant man, who has dedicated his life to improving the state of math education for public schools across the state, not to mention his own students at the university, be disregarded and dismissed as unimportant.
I wish I could do something about all the brilliant teachers at the universities who are just crapped on by the system.
But especially ... I wish I could do something for my Dad.
