My very late Fall email to the faculty, admins, staff, and hourlies of LAHC
(By which I mean my Fall email, which is very late. Not my very late Fall email, which isn’t here yet.)
(The antecedent of which in the previous parenthetical comment is “very late Fall,” not “email,” which I sent about ten minutes ago.)
(And when I say “ten minutes ago,” I don’t mean ten minutes ago from now, whenever that is for you, because I’m assuming that the now you are experiencing as you read this is going to be in my future from my now, now.)
Hello, everyone!
I have sat in front of this email to you for more than two weeks, and I simply have not had a chance to finish writing it. One of my friends outside academia asked me what being dean was like. I responded: A rushing stream of interruptions punctuated occasionally by dean work. The beginning of this fall was more interruption than back at work.
But this isn’t about me, it’s about you. Ok, well, it’s about us.
First, welcome back, and more importantly, I want to thank you for coming back! I’m honored to be dean of a division full of people who are committed to our students and our mission. I can’t say thank you often enough for the work you do every day — all of you. Faculty, admins, staff, hourlies — everyone who makes LAHC what it is.
I can’t thank you enough, but I can say that you should not work every day. Strive to maintain your balance, and give yourself time for self-care and getting re-centered on your life’s mission. It’s hard — I know only too well the lure of just working all the time — but we need whole lives to sustain our work. To pervert a well-known bit of wisdom: We don’t live by work alone, but by reflecting, relaxing, and recreation. By which I mean the occasional beer with friends.
Speaking of which: I’ve decided not to Convoke at you this year. We’re all getting plenty of people telling us administrative things and asking us to care about them. Instead, let’s have some fun. Let’s have a nonConvocation.
Join me at Meanwhile Brewery on September 23 from 3:00 PM until we’ve had enough socializing and beer. Bring your stories! The LAHC MOP team will be on hand to take pics and capture conversations. No agenda and no work to accomplish: My only goals for nonConvocation are (1) to drink a little beer and (2) to connect with each of you. I plan to be outside, somewhere near the stage. Look for snake tattoos and a Panama hat, which you can spot from a greater distance than a copy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
Now, I’d like to leave you with a story, too, about my own summer vacation.
If you’re willing to give my story a few moments, I’d appreciate it. It’s the most palatable way to introduce a new framework for DIL eligibility I could think of 😉
Thanks again for everything you bring to our mission and our division. Keep teaching like what you teach can save the world — because it can!
If you can, please join me for nonConvocation!
