This past week has been full of endings- last lessons, graduation, final year working with a longtime friend and colleague. Tears were shed….but there were smiles, too, because those endings? They are also beginnings.
Last lesson with a wonderful young man that I’ve taught since his junior year in high school.
My world in academia is divided up into semesters and holidays, and so over and over, year after year, we come to endings and beginnings. Students move to the next level or graduate, colleagues move on or retire…things change. New semesters start, bringing with them new faces and new adventures. Possibilities.
We celebrate these milestones in big and small ways…
The UAB Clarinet Studio celebrating the end of the school year with massive quantities of pizza at The Mellow Mushroom.
The faculty gathers (and takes photos) before the processional.
Faculty selfie….we are just as bad as the students. :))
Celebrate!
I am excited for the wonderful graduates who are going out into the world to experience their own beginnings. Seeing their beaming smiles, hearing the rafter-raising cheers from family and friends as names are called…an incredible sea of joy and possibility. The realization that all of this potential- happening in universities all over the world- is being unleashed gives me such hope for our world.
I love being a part of all of these endings that are really beginnings. Wonder is around every corner, change abounds…and life is good. Here’s to the Class of 2016. Go forth and chase your dreams. I’ll be here cheering you on, every step of the way.
The pipers at the end of Commencement….
The View from Here 