Should I stay or should I go?

I dropped the bomb on my boss Monday. hes not happy, but he's really glad that I got in. Hes one of the people that wrote the original letter of recommendation. Hes as shocked as I am.

This is kind of a bad thing though. Our webmistress is also leaving since her visa is expiring or something like that. Now the whole department is going to be high and dry. What I told him was that I would like to stay on as a part-timer, either as a GRA or an hourly employee.

Now I have a meeting with the head of the department, who, ironically, also gave me a letter. Shes not so optimistic about the whole thing, and says shes going to look into the GRA thing. Shes knows I've done a good job for the department but doesn't know if the whole GRA thing is going to work out.