Just a few days ago, it seemed like campus was empty. Now it's teeming with people, and on Monday we'll be back in full swing.
As I participated in our annual Faculty & Staff Institute, I reflected on how the university seems to spring into being so quickly, so suddenly. How is it possible for all these faculty and students to swoop onto campus and reconstitute an operational university in such short order?
The answer, obviously, is that campus wasn't empty ten days ago. Plenty of staff members and administrators (and, yes, even some faculty) have been laboring here diligently all summer and all year round. I'm proud to count myself in that number. I was reminded that our faculty and students need the support of our hard-working staff, in order that we can even have a university.
Yet, campus seemed empty without faculty and students around. It was peaceful and quiet. I enjoyed it, but that's a temporary condition. Indeed, the illusion of peaceful emptiness was delicious precisely because of its ephemeral nature. I was reminded that staff members like myself need our faculty and students in order for our work here to have any meaning.
These are simple observations, to be sure. I merely want to affirm this simple truth: we need each other.
Our cultural summer is over, though the heat will blaze on for quite a while. In the coming school year, it's my wish that we may find that great value that we supply to each other, that we may see it, and act upon it, in service to our shared mission.
Have a great year!
Dr. Megan Osterbur is a Political Science faculty member in the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In addition to Political Science courses, Dr. Osterbur teaches courses in the Women’s Studies program as well as Black Politics, a part of the African American and Diaspora Studies at Xavier. Her research on teaching pedagogy includes “Does Mechanism Matter? Student Recall of Electronic versus Handwritten Feedback,” which she co-authored with Dr. Elizabeth Yost Hammer and Dr. Elliott Hammer. In the summer of 2014 she also participated in the National Women’s Studies Association Curriculum Institute.
