The Dream Dean

Saturday, July 24, 2021 (Day 205)

Relaxing Music for the week: Shared Values: Liquid Mind (9:10) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHaryFeHLE

Question: If you knew you had only one more year left to live, what would you change about your life today?

Answer: You’ll probably laugh when you hear my answer, but I don’t think I would change much. Even though I’m not in the best place right now both personally and professionally, I’m in a good place – and feel like every day is getting a little bit better. For example, I finally submitted my proposal to create a new office/center to the School of HHS Dean, Associate Dean (my new boss), and the 3.1 staff members in the unit. My gut tells me that having a plan in hand is better than not having one at all; at least it gives us something to work with right now. Of course, they could say it’s junk and we want nothing to do with it, but that means I will continue my strike again doing transactional advising – and only focus on the transformation work of our students and our community. I would definitely take a trip to Wilmington, NC to visit my dear friends Robin and Carl, as well as to Georgia to visit my daughters Bethany and Amanda. I might even take a trip down to Florida and spend a day or two with my sister. How about that? As far as things I’d like to do…there isn’t much that I’d like to do, since I pretty much do what I love doing already. It seems like I have an opportunity to speak to a different group every month; in August, I’ll be doing a workshop for Academic Coaches at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO; in September, I’ll be presenting two 1.5 hours sessions on LDC work to the North Carolina Community College System. And in October, I’ll be presenting two concurrent sessions and a poster session at the National Academic Advising Association National Conference in Cincinnati, OH. Plus, I’ll be teaching my 12-13 classes of HHS125 in the Fall Semester. Pretty full plate, just the way I like it. So, I don’t think there’s much I need to change today.