Graduation Day

Today I graduated. Well, okay, I *attended* graduation. Baylor University's graduation. As an assistant professor. 


I dug up this picture from my actual graduation, back in May of 2010, and I found it somewhat ironic since it shows me hugging my favorite tree on UNCG's campus, the very giant trees I miss so dearly here in central Texas. But the picture does afford me the nice moment, mixed with a sense of relief and deep satisfaction, to reflect that the tentative sense of hope I felt in that picture, hope that my hard work for the last 7 years in graduate school would amount to something, did. 


I still feel awfully close to the self in that picture, in full regalia with arms wrapped goofily around my sentimental attachment to the campus I called home for 7 years. Shouldn't I feel a greater sense of distance, a greater sense of difference? I have, by all accounts, achieved the first important measure of "success" in our field after graduating. I landed a tenure track job at a research university. 


But graduation day, of all days, asks us to reflect on this notion of "success." The next several posts begin a series on my reflections from this past year. In these posts I will engage with the notion of success, discuss what was surprising and not-so-surprising during my first year on the job, and mostly ask a bunch of questions that I hope will begin many interesting conversations.