Here we sit in an odd interregnum: things are going swimmingly in class and out; I'm checking things off my to-do list, planning campus workshops, developing plans to celebrate faculty research and scholarship, enjoying opportunities to make good things happen on campus, but at the same time in the back of my mind sits the constant awareness of the looming Board of Trustees meeting where Important Decisions will be made about how we're going to continue digging ourselves out of our ongoing budgetary mess.
Earlier in my career I was never really aware of when the Trustees were meeting or what they might be doing; if they made a decision that affected me, I assumed that someone would let me know. But ever since we dug ourselves into this budget apocalypse, every Trustees meeting feels like an existential crisis. Will they cut programs? Cancel positions? Impose further restrictions? Or will they announce some big new donation to fund an initiative that will save all our necks?
I tell my students that liminal space is a place of possibility--we stand in the threshold of opportunity where anything can happen--but it's also a space of limitation because we can't fully engage with activities on either side when we're stuck in the doorway. But here I sit, uncomfortably aware that something is going to happen in the next couple of weeks, or maybe nothing will happen and we'll scrape along as best we can with the resources available.
So things are good! Until they're not--and who knows when the door of opportunity might slam shut in our faces?
