he thought for a while and then answered: "when you get to UW, get a box and set it aside. a good strong box. anytime you do anything - anything research, anything teaching, anything service - get some kind of physical evidence of the thing you do. then, put that physical evidence in the box. when you publish something, put a copy in the box. when you finish a new syllabus or get an award, put it in the box. when you get a letter of appreciation from a student or colleague or member of the community, put it in the box. then, when tenure time comes around, you'll have a box full of scholarship."
i thought for a while and said, "that's a great idea! thanks, john!"
in the center of the octagon there is an eight-sided pit. this morning i placed my tenure box in the pit and began taking out the box's contents. instead of me arranging the work into three categories (teaching, research, service), the work arranged itself: first as pods, then as clusters, then as blobs that suggest some kind of a continuum of scholarship. currently and curiously, the work seems to have settled into eight rough blobs.
3 comments:
if it were a hexagon, would it have found its way into six?
i am not really writing much other than work these days, but it's such an obvious joke that i was obligated to note it.
and btw: what will happen in the octagon on friday? i hope that you are doing something worthy of the great eights.
and p.s. pleased to see that IA's report has proved helpful. i hoped it would help. it seems to me that public scholarship is what is at stake at a jesuit university...educating students to work in service to others.
Maybe from now on, in addition to a box, it'll also be a blog full of scholarship, David.
kq - yes! friday, great eights day, was spent cooking, eating, and celebrating in the octagon.
ivan - "a blog full of scholarship," i love it.
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