It’s a quiet week on campus; all the administration and many of the faculty are back, working away. However, the students won’t return until next week. It’s an extended “in-between” time this academic year.
An empty campus evokes moments of reflection that seem harder to achieve when it is filled with the hustle and bustle of students. While the quiet is welcomed, it also reminds us of who is absent.
When we surveyed faculty about the joys and pains of their jobs at Georgetown, one strong result was their love of teaching Georgetown students. It’s clear that the energy and interests of the students offer a kind of stimulation to the minds of faculty that can’t be achieved in solitary scholarship on their own. Questions from students repeatedly force a faculty member to rethink basic questions in their field.
From the student side, I hear stories about how a faculty member took time to talk about their future. The talks might focus on the students discerning their way through life challenges or more narrowly career-oriented discussions. Once they overcome their fears of opening up to a faculty member, the students love these encounters. For many students, it’s the best thing we have going at Georgetown.
These interactions between students and faculty are central to creating self-awareness as part of the students’ formation process. Along with all the other student support systems we offer, they help answer both the “what” to do with one’s life, but also the “why” of that doing. The self-awareness is a key tool to discerning how a way forward can offer genuine meaning to their lives.
All our faculty are leaders in this endeavor. They help students find their way forward. Anything we can do to maximize those encounters will strengthen the university.
We’re blessed that we have faculty who excel in this and gain deep satisfaction in guiding students, and we’re blessed to have students who appreciate its value.
With each passing day in this semester interlude, we’re coming closer to the students’ return. New classes will start; new mixes of students and faculty will be launched. Former students will stop by to renew bonds with professors who no longer teach them. Students will discover new faculty whom they admire. New bonds will form over the coming months. The cycle of formation, self-awareness, and discernment of life purpose goes on.
Well said. Formation as life IS about relationships and the connections that develope. A simple but so meaningful thought.