Weekly Messages to Faculty

Thwarted in her plans to go fly-fishing on Friday evening (actually, to stand in the water and occasionally hold a rod handed to her by an expert), the Dean was off her game on Friday and forgot to send her Friday message. I imagine this must have been a source of great wailing and gnashing of teeth for you all, but here I am on a Monday morning to launch the work week. This message is lightly edited to accommodate the Dean’s delinquency. And by the way, I have no idea what happened to the line in last week’s message. One minute it was bold and black, and the next it had vanished. Hoping for a better line this week.

I hope you are faring well and moving through the second half of the semester with all the dedication, humor and gusto I’ve come to expect from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. You are a force to be reckoned with and in many ways, you are the William & Mary experience for our students.

We’re entering the final stretch of the semester, and April promises to be an eventful and exciting month. We’re also entering that time of year in our region where everything turns yellow. This phenomenon is both fascinating and slightly horrifying. Another phenomenon, though not horrifying and far less likely to irritate your allergies, is Monday’s partial solar eclipse. The departments of Art & Art History and Physics invite you to the Sunken Garden on Monday for a viewing – special glasses will be provided. More details below. I may keep my glasses on after the viewing to try to keep the pollen out of my eyes.

We’ve made it to Friday again, and I hope you have managed to stay dry this week. This week I acquired a dark leather couch from surplus (actually, from surplus via Abbie Schaefer’s office, but don’t tell her) which reminds me of the couch in Sigmund Freud’s psychotherapy treatment room (see below the line). There’s talking and there’s listening and there’s trying to understand, and all can be equally hard, in different ways. We are a large community and I know it may be difficult at times to feel that you are heard. My door is open, so please come through it. You don't actually have to sit on the couch.

I hope you all enjoyed a bit of rest during spring break. We are moving rapidly through the second half of the semester now. I went to Santa Fe this week (I know, poor me) to attend a training for new Deans, so now I am either new or no-longer new, depending on your perspective. But I am infinitely better at my job. You’ll see.

It’s a beautiful Friday and we are heading into Spring Break. In fact, I suspect a few of you may have already dived headlong into Spring Break and for that, I applaud you. However, before you begin your much-deserved rest, please review the important reminders and updates below. These items will have to last you for two entire weeks as you won’t get a message from me next week.

We are charging along, fueled by all sorts of things: tea, coffee, hopefully a bit of sleep, and in the case of one of my Ewell Hall colleagues, a very specific type of sustenance called porridge. Is it possible to survive on porridge alone? Time will tell.

This week I have been feeling – dare I say it – a little bit jubilant, and I think it has to do with being able to see the sun past 5 p.m. It could also be that I’ve spotted a few birds coming out of winter hiding, puffed up and preparing for spring. On the other hand, why am I still scraping frost off my car in pitch darkness in the mornings? (Better than Michigan though, where I used to live – there you had to use an ice-axe to climb into your car. Crampons helped, too).

I hope this email finds you (choose one): A) Well B) Chuffed C) All of the above

First, I want to acknowledge the difficult and painful times we are living through. The many conflicts taking place around the world right now affect us all, even as we share our common humanity. In our different ways, we are all vulnerable. Mutual support is the best way we know to help one another endure, and I am grateful to you for giving that to one another so thoughtfully and patiently.

I’m penning this Friday message from a plane, in which I am awaiting take-off. I enjoy planes and airports not only for the people-watching opportunities they provide, but also for the feeling of suspension from reality. Though, when I’m connected to my laptop as one might be to an IV, mug of coffee, tea, or other lifegiving source, reality isn’t all that suspended.

How strange yet fitting that the first day of classes on Wednesday held the promise of spring in the air. Of course, it is a promise deferred for a few more months, but it was a beautiful day for a fresh start, and start we did. You all have been up to something across campus, in your classrooms, offices, common spaces and picnic tables all around. You’ve been engaging the minds and imaginations of our students, hard at work at the business of learning, exploring, discovering.

There is something in the air. It’s not snow, about which many of you seem to have strong feelings. It’s a little buzz of excitement that is steadily growing. This weekend, move-in begins and we welcome returning students back to campus and new students to campus for the first time. The little buzz will grow into a loud hum. On Wednesday, the first day of classes, the loud hum will undoubtedly grow into a boisterous cacophony. I can hardly wait. Or can I?

Here we are - the start of another semester and the beginning of a new year. I like to think of the new year as a time to ponder what I’m grateful for (I know there must be something) and the things I’d like to change this coming year (I think it might be everything). Only kidding, of course.... Amid all the change, I think about how much beauty and fulfilment can be found in continuing. In seeing things through. In “keeping going.”

I’m writing to you with my final Friday message for 2023. Can you believe it? I think I’ve just heard a collective sigh of relief. I share in your excitement to bring another semester to a close – but I am also invigorated by working alongside you and the deep satisfaction that comes from doing challenging, good work together.

I am just back from visiting with donors in Missouri and California. Gerald Bullock, A&S Executive Director of Advancement and Craig Anzalone, Senior Director of Regional Advancement for the Western Region, did a fantastic job of setting up a series of visits and events with engaged and generous alumni and parents, two of whom graciously opened up their homes for Yule Log celebrations. Below the line, there is a quiz about planes and about the Yule Log ritual. The winner will receive special mention in next week’s Friday message (and who wouldn’t want that?).

I hope you all enjoyed a productive and restful break last week. Nothing was pardoned at my house, so we spent the week in solemn reflection on all the reasons why that was. (Because we’re not turkeys, though perhaps some of us are). Look at the definitions attached, if you care.

Some excellent news: no Friday message from me next week, and I hope none of you will be sending any work emails on Friday either. A reminder that the university is closed all week, with the exception of remote synchronous or asynchronous classes on Monday and Tuesday. This has been an intense semester (maybe they all are), and I hope all of you will be able to disconnect for a while and enjoy some unstructured time. And remember, those of you who take pictures, these lines by poet Wendell Berry from the poem “The Vacation” (2012): “He showed | his vacation to his camera, which pictured it.” I love this.

Oops, almost forgot about my message this week. But here it is, in your mailboxes, faithful as always. This week, I’m mostly drawing your attention to announcements from elsewhere, and sharing information that has been shared with, plus a few updates, and then of course, below the you know what.

First, I want to make sure that all of you saw this recent (Nov. 1st) message from the President, issued in response to the crisis on the Middle East and its tentacles into our community: Affirming Support. The President’s messages, and other communications from senior administration, are posted in Campus Announcements. You have to scroll down to see them, but they are there.

A sobering week for so many reasons, not least the injury to a student yesterday on Richmond Road. Our thoughts are with her, her family and her friends.

It’s Homecoming, which means Deans are on the move. Thanks again to all of you who are putting on events in your departments and programs (or have already done so). It means a lot to our alums to feel welcome when they return to campus, and I’m grateful.

I cannot start without acknowledging the unimaginable pain of so many people around the world, the escalating violence in so many places, and the difficulty of living alongside and within conflict. I could add some platitudes, but I will refrain. There is evil in this world, but there is also brightness, goodness and love. (OK, maybe that was a platitude).

Welcome to the end of a beautiful week of late summer weather, and here’s embracing the coolness of fall that will descend upon us next week. (Yes, the British do actually talk about nothing but the weather. I miss that.) A number of announcements this week, and then, of course, the sublinear zone.

A number of updates this week, and one very pressing question: why does it keep raining? I lie in bed at night and it patters against my window, I get up in the early morning and it’s misting all across the lawn, I walk around the sunken garden when I am let out for my exercise and I come back in all wet, and I drive home at night with my windshield wipers on. What strange, soaking place is this?

We’re really in full swing now, and it’s exciting. Every day there are more events than I have time to attend, and I know that’s true for you too. Today’s message will include information about events to come, and events that have passed. Sometimes it’s frustrating not to be able to go to everything, and at the same time, knowing that there is more going on than you could possibly keep up with is just really exciting. (Some people, like me, love cities because you can always hear the sounds of other human lives. This campus is like that – the constant hum of activity and of hundreds of people all totally absorbed in what they’re doing).

It’s another late one! So much going on this past week, including this evening, apparently. I’ll keep it short in case it’s past your bedtime.

It’s Friday again! TGIF, except for me, because Friday comes with its own delightful challenge: writing a Friday message! Look below the line if you dare, and now I know that some of you look below the line even before you ponder the pithy information and eloquent exhortations of the above the line section, I feel extra pressure to keep you engaged. Here goes.

As we approach a glorious long weekend and the all-faculty meeting and picnic, and as we leave the first day of classes behind us, I want to extend a warm welcome to all of you - new and continuing – during these early weeks of the new semester.

Welcome to William & Mary! We are so excited that you chose to spend the next four years of your life with us. We can promise you an inspiring, interdisciplinary, liberal arts and sciences education here in Arts & Sciences. Wait, sorry. Got mixed up. I do have to keep saying that this week, but not to you. Seriously, though, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to say those things to our entering class of students, so thank you.

I feel something big approaching. Or perhaps it is lots of smallish things, very close together, moving en masse. Could it be our students, getting ready to return? Yes, I think it is. The pace is picking up, as I am sure you have noticed.

I am totally back in the swing of Friday messages now, as you will see below the line. Just a few announcements: