Reflection
December 6, 2018 |
Reflection. It's prominent among the Xavier's Gifts of our Ignatian Heritage. One of those words you hear a lot around here.At this time of year, it's entirely unavoidable for many of us--despite all the other demands on our time! The last week of classes. The end of the semester. The end of the calendar year. The due date of faculty members' annual reviews. The review of tenure and promotion dossiers. And, simultaneously, the earlier stages of recruiting new faculty into our community.
These multiple occasions for reflection have dominated my week so far, and I know the same is true for many of you. It's undoubtedly the greatest privilege of my role in the college: I get to look deeply into the tremendous and diverse work of our faculty, to visit colleagues' classes, to read our indefatigable chairs' accounts of what their colleagues have accomplished, and then to describe to faculty candidates what it would mean for them to become part of the liberal arts college at the heart of our Jesuit Catholic comprehensive university in Cincinnati.
All that informs my hope for all of us, during this hectic end-of-semester season: that in addition to the formal occasions for reflection that the season demands of us--like faculty annual updates--each of us will find a few moments of peace to reflect on our own experiences in the past year and our hopes for the next.
