Mfcttrf

Okay, so this question has quite a bit of background information, so I thank anyone willing to read through this, but I really could use some advice.

I received my MA in English in 2008, and while working on it, I also worked in a university writing center. While there, I worked with and became good friends with a couple who ended up getting married. After graduate school, we first all got jobs teaching in the local school district.

Years later, I got a new job at a really nice academic school. They had two openings for English that year, so I told my female friend from this couple first. However, she had just had her second child and was looking to take some time off, but her husband was open to moving schools. I put in a good word for him, and he ended up getting the job.

During that first year, we talked a lot about our shared dream to start a high school writing center like the one we had worked at in grad school. We had both tried at other schools but never received administrative support. Our new principal, however, was supportive.

I put in a request for a new class, wrote a class description, and submitted paperwork to the state to have a new class started. It was all approved. I was a little upset the next year when they put the class under his name, but they gave me a free period at the same time so that I could work on it, too, so I tried not to be petty and just happy that I was getting to be involved with something I really believed in.

I researched resources for starting a high school writing lab and got our principal to pay for them. I spent the summer researching best practices. I highlighted, tabbed, and sticky-noted good ideas that I thought we could incorporate. I worked quickly because I wanted him to have access to the resources too. I gave them to him that summer, but he never read them. He returned them with no comments or feedback.

Our first year went well with mistakes learned but lots of successes. We trained the tutors together and worked on solutions to problems together. It became clear, though, over time, that my colleague was very interested in how doing this made him look. He was constantly talking big about what we were doing, showing off, but I was doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work. I researched the best scheduling system and got our principal to pay for it, I planned field trips to the local university's writing center and worked on agendas, and I attended state meetings with other writing center directors. He never did this kind of work but was always happy to be the face of the program. Whenever we presented to faculty together, I really had to work to have my voice heard, to speak up so as no to be spoken over. I should note that, not only am I female, but I'm also short. All of this made making myself recognized difficult in his presence.

We even got asked to present at a regional conference together. I attended the whole conference, eager to learn from the other professionals - I really do care about this work. He only showed up for our presentations.

While we were starting the writing center, he began his doctorate in education. He was often busy with coursework during this time, but it was clear he was excited to move on to big and better things.

After our third year in the lab together, he accepted a professorship at the university down the street. I have run our school's writing center since he left. I have a good professional life of my own. I work with the writing project, including a grant helping rural schools. I have done professional presentations and am working on a publication with some other colleagues about our collaborative efforts teaching AP Language. I'm happy in my professional life, but unfortunately, I keep hearing about this formal male colleague and him not giving credit to our work together. Several people who have spoken to him or heard him speak to graduate students and teachers in training say that he has mentioned his work at our school and has said that he "founded" the writing center there without mentioning me or having any help. Someone I work with now even met him, and he told her the same thing, but she corrected him, knowing the back story.

While this is annoying, it doesn't necessarily affect me. I run the center now on my own, and people know that. He's teaching graduate students now, and we hardly ever interact.

However, I was at a writing center director's day for my state today, and every year, they offer a tutor collaboration day. This is like a conference but just for tutors and fairly relaxed. This year, it's going to be at the university down the street, so I was excited that it will be easy for my students to attend. The director of their center turned to me and said, "Guess who our keynote speaker will be?" Then, she mentioned my former colleague's name and proceeded to say that they wanted to focus on high school-college collaboration between centers. She said they had chosen him since he had founded our writing center and then corrected herself to say "co-founded."

I am frustrated because I feel like, while he was a part of our center, I did almost all of the work. He has not been involved with a high school or college center in two years. However, his wife now does work at this university's center, so perhaps that was a connection that got him offered this opportunity. I am amazed, since I know his wife and at least another director at that center, that no one even considered contacting me if the focus of their keynote is working with high school centers, work I have been doing for the past five years. As mentioned before, he didn't even plan the collaboration with the local university. I always did that for us. I really can't imagine what "expertise" he can offer as a keynote. However, his motto has always been "fake it 'til you make it," advice he often gave to students that made me cringe. He is very confident in his ability to bs anyone into buying into almost anything, especially if it makes him look good.

I do not want to go to a keynote speech where he talks up "his" achievements and erases my contributions. I do not want to have my staff and the colleagues that I work with see me as a backup to his success. I feel like he has unwittingly used me as a stepping stool to improve his professional persona. He is genuinely a kind person, and I think he is so blinded by his own self-promotion and ambition that he doesn't even think about how he may be hurting others.

My question is - what can I do? A female colleague suggested that I just confront him - that he has done similar things too much. However, he does not handle criticism well, and since he is well connected in our academic area, I feel like that may just cause more problems for me. That said, I think I should professionally stand up for myself to some extent and insist that if he does give this talk, that he make sure to give me due credit, hopefully not in a patronizing way. Any advice is greatly appreciated.