The Long and Winding Road

The more time I spend as a faculty member, the more I realize that education is a life-long journey, even when you are an "expert" in a field. While I may know a lot about what I work on, it is from the perspective of my -ism. When I talk to others in different -isms, they see the same problems differently, and they can teach me a lot about something I thought I knew about. I actually really like this aspect of academics. And this learning doesn't just come from other faculty. I have a student that I took from a program outside my -ism, and he is constantly challenging my notions and bringing in new ideas. I love the way that academy can reinvent itself in this way. Right now I am working on learning a lot about these new areas and trying to plug them into my current understanding to make a more complete picture. I am constantly being pushed in this way, but it is a good way. And this is why I love my job.