continuing the conversation

As a follow up to my guest post for Constructing the Academy blog, I found a pretty interesting article that lays out what one should do at a conference (as opposed to my post which was simply what I did at my first conference as a faculty member).

How to Work the Conference Part One

How to Work the Conference Part Two

How to Work the Conference Part Three

**disclaimer: by posting this link I"m not suggesting I agree wholesale with this writer. To me, though, its worth thinking about how other people approach professionalization issues in our field because it helps me clarify what I want my approach to be**

Home is (?)

I knew it would happen, but I have sort of forgotten that it would. It was shocking, then, when I tried to sign in to my UNCG email account and I got an error message that read "log account expired."

I'll admit, I go to the English department website sometimes and just surf around, or watch the scrolling stories go by on the universities home page. I've stopped getting mail for awhile now in my UNCG inbox, but somehow it was always comforting to be able to check my email when I wanted to.

I'm hoping it'll be good for me, this enforced shut-out from the corner of cyber-space that defined so many years of life. Instead of being suspended between two spaces, checking both my new school and my old school's email, I now find my academic identity squarely situated in only one email address.

Although I've been forced to cut ties with my old email, I'm so fortunate that ties to my advisors, my colleagues, my friends, and my family can continue. I wonder what "home is where the heart is" might mean when your heart is with so many people flung far and wide by jobs and other life circumstances? I'm beginning to think home is not a place but a state of mind, more like the phrase "I feel at home with you."

Thinking about home in this way might make it easier for me to get my Texas drivers license. I have heard you don't get to keep your old one, and I can't yet bring myself let go of this last piece of tangible evidence that says I belong in North Carolina. Just the other day at the security checkpoint in the airport the security personnel asked me if I was traveling with the guy in front of me. In response to my quizzical look he shrugged and said "you both have North Carolina licenses." Eager to strike up a conversation with a fellow North Carolinian, I introduced myself to this traveller and he asked me "so what are you in Waco for?" It was a stunning question, but not nearly as stunning as the answer I heard coming out of my mouth: "Oh, I live here now."

In moments like that I realize this isn't home -- yet. But if home does not have to be just one place, but can be a state of mind, an attitude I have toward lots of different places and people and moments in time, then I'm rather anxious to add Texas to that list. My email account may have expired, but obviously my affection and attachment for UNCG and Greensboro have not. Nor will it ever, I imagine. But this doesn't preclude attachments to other places. I'm still quite attached to the lake house I grew up in, and to my best friend from 5th grade, and to the local farmer on highway 29. They are all home to me, and in this way I suppose I will always be coming from or going toward home. What I'm trying to do now is to learn to be at home.

The Importance of Failing

Condoleezza Rice spoke yesterday evening at Baylor University for one of President Starr's "On Topic" events and I was fortunate enough to be among the audience. Yes, some of what she said I disagreed with and Yes, some of it sounded too practiced and stilted. But a good deal of it was genuine and entertaining. My favorite moment was near the end when a question card from an 8 year old was chosen who asked "why are you so smart, beautiful, and amazing?" Dr. Rice answered with the story of how she got to be Secretary of State, which was, she says, "by failing as a concert pianist." Apparently she could read music before she could read and her mother had groomed her to become a world-renowned musician (they lived in segregated Alabama if this tells you anything about where Dr. Rice gets her tenacity from). Dr. Rice discovered as a sophomore that she would not be able to cut it in that line of work, so she gave up this pursuit that had to that point consumed her life. A few months later she discovered politics.

Her answer, I thought, to how she found her way to success profoundly begins with failure. This is a quality I think we need to cultivate in our culture - both inside and outside the classroom. A praise of failure would go a long way toward enabling people, especially those in high positions, to say "I was wrong" without being lambasted. Or even to say "I don't know." It would also foster greater creativity in all kinds of ways, by encouraging people to try and then to see their failure as success. Failure is a kind of success, because you you find out all kinds of important things-about yourself, about the subject you are pursuing, about the world-when you don't get it right.

Transitions Series

So for the next few weeks I may have fewer or at least shorter posts as I am "guest blogging" on my colleague's blog, "constructing the academy" (see link in list of blogs to the right). I encourage you to visit his blog not only to read my posts (which will appear on fridays) but also just because his blog is brilliant :-).