So, the Residential College is moving (for the next 15 months) and as usual, the process is at once absurd, exciting, frustrating and sad. I go through a gamut of conflicting emotions daily, and we have just started packing. I did earn my first gnome for having started my pruning process (I guess the little guys appear in our faculty mailboxes when we have made sufficient progress), so I guess I'm doing something right. I feel like hugging the old wood panels and lovely moldings and high old windows (none of which will be preserved) - it's like saying goodbye to a friend. I don't mind saying goodbye to the asbestos or the 100 degree heat in the dead of winter or dusty old type-written programs from the 70's (some older than me!) - the last of which will be preserved at the Bentley Historical Museum in the RC archives. For the next year the RC will be all over the place, or "everywhere" as we like to say (it's hard to put a positive spin on this, but we're trying). My office will be on the east side of campus at the Dennison Building, I'll be teaching at the bell tower which some other music classes will move to north campus: the students and the languages and the other things that actually make us a college will be clear across campus on the west side. The fragmentation is unavoidable (the RC "thing" is after all that everything happens at the same building...). Somehow, then, it is up to us, the faculty, to make the college hold together and make the experience meaningful to the students. I think the quality of instruction will not suffer - we are professionals after all - but we will have to work very hard to not get lost in the giant that is the University of Michigan. And how to preserve the essence of the Residential College when the residential part is not fully there? Something to ponder in the next year or two...
Why are we moving? Oh, the shower heads on the residential side are too low and a couple of other things. The Quad is getting a mega-remodeling to the tune of $116 million. Competition with the new luxury high-rises in the vicinity is heavy and the U is remodeling all the dorms. Considering that little has been done at the East Quad since the 70's (or before...) it's probably time. But I'm still going to miss our large office with a big window to the street and the ghosts that come knocking at the pipes at night and the stone staircases that make me fee
Why are we moving? Oh, the shower heads on the residential side are too low and a couple of other things. The Quad is getting a mega-remodeling to the tune of $116 million. Competition with the new luxury high-rises in the vicinity is heavy and the U is remodeling all the dorms. Considering that little has been done at the East Quad since the 70's (or before...) it's probably time. But I'm still going to miss our large office with a big window to the street and the ghosts that come knocking at the pipes at night and the stone staircases that make me fee
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