I'm choosing to leave for the U.S. for a unicorn job. Does that make me a traitor to Canada?

This First Person column is the experience of Alice Nelson, who is a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ. 

In January 2025, I got a call to go for a job interview at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). They were looking for a professor to lead a new theatre arts degree program.

My friend Claire said, "That's a unicorn job!"

"What's a unicorn job?" I asked.

"It's a job where they're looking for someone very specific and you are that unicorn." 

A typical tenure-track job will get 100 applicants. I was feeling like one very, very lucky unicorn.

I had to make a difficult choice: stay in my tenured job teaching theatre in Windsor, Ont., where my career was at a standstill or move to the U.S. to start over. It was a choice further complicated by the trade war initiated by Donald Trump and his claims that Canada should become the 51st state of the U.S. 

Seven years earlier, I was living in Calgary and had been working contract jobs as a theatre artist and educator. On my 40th birthday, I landed a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in the school of dramatic art at the University of Windsor. 

My partner, Oly, and I had community and family in Calgary. I wasn't sure if he would want to go with me. But when I told him I got the job, he smiled and said, "I guess we're moving to Windsor."

We packed up and drove across the country with our two dogs to start our new life in Ontario.

Fast-forward to July 2024, I achieved tenure and became an associate professor. That same month, University Players, our students' mainstage, which gives them the opportunity to apply their training, was shut down. The six staff members who taught students the production side of theatre lost their jobs in the department. The school also decided to halt new enrollment in the acting program.

In September, a guest speaker at UWindsor's Senate repeated over and over: "Nobody is coming to save us" — referring to Canadian universities. 

And it's true — every day there's an article about programs being cut at another Canadian university or college due to underfunding from provincial governments, the impact of tuition freeze and a recent federal cap on international student permits (which has hit Ontario hard). Yup, nobody is coming to save us.

I felt like one of the violinists on the Titanic.