I'm going to write this quickly before I have time to second-guess an impulse that reeks of shameless self-promotion, but my excuse is that the academic climate these days leaves me feeling so beaten down that I have to celebrate the victories when they come. So here goes:
This summer I've been in charge of a grant-funded program in which a dozen very busy faculty and staff members meet for five hours each Tuesday for four weeks in a row to discuss readings and lay the groundwork for (re)building a sense of purpose and commitment on campus, and while it was a ton of work, I have enjoyed reading and talking and eating with my colleagues for the past four weeks. These people did not need to give 20 hours of their summer lives to meetings plus doing the readings on their own time, but they did the work in exchange for a few morning pastries and coffee, some free lunches, a modest stipend, and a couple of free books.
Today I asked them what kinds of incentives would lure other colleagues to participate in future meetings, and they said that while they appreciated the coffee and lunch and books and stipend, there was one big reason they agreed to participate in these meetings: "Because you asked me to."
That would be me. I did that.
Not without help, of course, and I appreciate the support of every single person who assisted with logistics and planning, but several of the participants said they agreed to do this big lump of summer work because they knew I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important.
Nothing else that I have done this summer has made me feel so positive about my job. Good work has been done here--and I had a hand in making it happen.
Yay me. Yay us!
3 comments:
Yay! This makes me quite happy. I love to see this kind of story; it inspires me to try to do similar things.
Thanks for sharing!
Thinking of the Rudyard Kipling poem “If.” Good work.
Thanks! We really need positive experiences like this right now, and I'll bet we're not the only ones.
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