Dominick's Mountainview College

Dominick's Mountainview College is a small Utah institution whose offer of guaranteed tenure gave Dominick Corvaisis a safe alternative to an uncertain academic future. He accepted the teaching post with relief, but when he arrived in July, the prospect of resuming his old life became unbearable, and he did not take up the position.

Setting and Appointment

With a student body of about four thousand, Dominick's Mountainview College offered a post teaching English and creative writing. The college had been impressed by the magazines in which Dominick had published stories and brought him from the Portland University campus for an interview. He made an unusual effort to appear outgoing, and the college offered him a contract with guaranteed tenure.

Why the Offer Mattered

The appointment emerged from Dominick's anxiety about his prospects at the Portland University campus, where he was approaching tenure review and feared the board would refuse him. He had kept such a low profile that decision-makers questioned whether he had shown enough commitment to the university; he also believed that a denial would make it difficult to secure another academic post. In response, he applied to institutions across several Western states, emphasizing his fiction because it was the strongest part of his record. The Utah offer turned that anxious search into a seemingly secure escape route.

The Abandoned Fresh Start

Dominick left Portland in late June towing a small U-Haul trailer filled mostly with books and clothes. He remembered setting out in a good mood, feeling that he was beginning again rather than failing, and looking forward to life at the college. Parker Faine interpreted the job as a protected retreat: a low-key institution where Dominick's introversion might be accepted as an artist's temperament. Yet after reaching the college in the second week of July, Dominick could not bear the thought of returning to the kind of life he had lived before. The appointment that had relieved his fear of professional failure therefore became a path he could not follow; he later described that life as unfulfilling.