Graduation Finishes and Starts ~ Praxis Habitus - On Race Religion & Culture

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Graduation Finishes and Starts

E. H.Image via Wikipedia

It's graduation weekend at Davidson College - and time to wish my students (and their ever-grateful, ever-relieved parents) many congratulations.

My life seems to have always run on an academic calendar. Maybe for most people New Year's is a time of reflection, but as a person caught in the school cycle, it's graduation that makes me look forward and back.

Graduation is a "big finish." It represents the completion of years of work. For teachers like myself, it represents the end of a long succession of classes, meetings, setting goals, helping others along, getting to the end. It's a time of easing burdens.

GraduationImage by spemss via Flickr


For me, graduation is also a time to see how far I've come on different goals (personal and professional) and look to the swell of summer as a time to re-jigger my schedule and re-figure my priorities. Davidson has no summer courses (compared to my teaching as an adjunct in other institutions in the past), so I have the good fortune to use my summer to consider my goals and set a new track for what I'll be doing.

I heartily congratulate everyone on the "finish" of graduation. We've all accomplished a lot.

But I am also reflecting on the many possible new "starts" that commence after commencement.

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