Speeding down the slope into the wall of irrevelance
Am I a fool at this late date?
It's official!
I will begin phased retirement in Fall 2025. I am not surprised that the day this news became official was also the day of the largest drop of the S&P stock market index in a long time. The Yin/Yang of it all can get old. Timing was never a great skill set of mine.
I am grateful, though, for having been one of the luckiest people on earth, even though there were times I most definitely was not grateful (and there a few people I won't ever forgive), and times where suicide seemed like a decent option.
Don't be shocked by the suicide comment. In 1993, after an SSRI brough me out of a very dark place, I promised to always be honest about my mental health challenges as a way to destigmatize them. And, it turns out that being genuine and vulnerable about my challenges with depression and anxiety has allowed me to help a large number of students find support. If you don’t understand what it is like to be under the grips of severe depression, and want to, you should look up William Styron’s “Darkness Visible.”
Phased retirement means I will be 50% FTE for up to three years (which will still mean 30-40 hour weeks, but that is truly half time for me). My wife, Adele, would appreciate any support you can provide her during this transition. Don't worry about our dogs. They seem always happy to have me around.
It also means I can focus on the only thing I really love about higher ed these days- teaching the kind of students that enroll at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and sharing my joy that arises from organismal, ecological and evolutionary biology and my research with undergraduates and graduate students.
Those who have read my out of office messages or holiday letters know that I can write things that are funny with maybe just a tinge of profundity. My next projects are a few blogs with that humorous tone. Then, I want to write a piece/book of creative non-fiction regarding my journey through academe as a high functioning autistic person, titled "pathologically genuine"
Also, for some reason totally unknown to me, my students like the songs I write and/or sing with my guitar in classes, even when there is no benefit for them. An executive coach once called me [positively] a golden retriever- and like my current golden Brea, I just really like to be liked. So, I will keep on writing, playing and singing for them.
I have way too much experience in higher ed (40 years. 25 years of VPR, Dean and Provost in what feels like every institution in the country [ok. I exaggerate. it was only 12 including my undergraduate and graduate schools]). And that experience brought wisdom or derangement, depending on your perspective. I would be happy to share either or both with you, your colleagues, and/or your organization.
I would also be honored if any colleagues wanted to engage me on issues around ecological and evolutionary physiology, student success, dealing with mental health issues as a faculty member, or talking about navigating academe as a high functioning autistic person. I feel like I have gained some wisdom on how to help students work towards reaching their full potential. I, actually not really me, but the people that worked with me, was/were pretty successful implementing institutional level tactics to improve standard measures of student success. More importantly, I professed and related to more than 1,000 undergraduates, since returning from the dark side of administration in 2021 [who I can't help but feel are part of my extended family]. As someone who is open about depression, anxiety and neurodiversity, I learned a lot about how we can best support students to facilitate them moving towards reaching their full potential. In recent panels where I spoke about my lived experiences as an autistic person, the audience seemed appreciative
Brea (our golden retriever) is now a therapy dog and is available to right all of the wrongs in your life at no cost to you. All you need to do is ask and she will heal you with her eyes as you pet her. Well, there might be a small fee- like pretending to like me as much as you like Brea; saying something nice about what I did during my career; buffering my retirement accounts with your generosity, and/or buying 1,000 copies of Pathologically Genuine when it is available along with writing five star reviews on Amazon.
For those of you that just muttered under your breath, "thank goodness, he's gone"- don't celebrate just yet, at least not in front of me. The eventuality of my being gone is the only thing that was certain when I was born, so you just need to hang on a little longer.
Perhaps the hardest part of aging is skiing down an ever steepening slope right into the wall of irrelevance. There is a touch of irony that one hurdles head first into that wall, just as one says to themselves, "I finally get it!"
I still hope that there is more to come. And, I am confident that Brea agrees- we all need a golden retriever sometimes to boost our hope..
I am an optimist at heart, even if I am a cynical one, so I am trying to take these lyrics from John Gorka's song "Morningside" to heart, recognizing that I am probably "a fool at this late date."
Am I a fool at this late date
To heed a voice that says,
You can be great
I heard it young, now I hear it again
It says, you can be better than you′ve ever been.....
I also know that there is still lots of time to experience the infinite awe of being part of the natural world that we share with other species who have a completely different reality- and a reality that will always be a mystery to us. Knowing there are an infinite number of realities (because organisms sense and process the world differently) is comforting to me. It's like imagining that there is a cool breeze somewhere in the world when one is melting in the excessive heat and humidity of a North Carolina swamp.
And back, to John Gorka,
"if I find hope
in the fading light
I'll see you
on the Morningside"
in lux perpetua,
Jim