Pensive

I forget how bittersweet these last days of the semester can be.

One of the things I regularly tell students is that “our best view of you is watching your butt cross the stage at Commencement, because that means we’ve done our job.”

We faculty know that we are charged with these students for only a brief time. Our teaching work is finite. It’s going to end.

And yet it doesn’t end. I personally have the joy and delight of knowing that my teaching continues to resonate in the lives and voices of students from across the years. I know this truth because I hear from these students often enough!

The legacy lives on.

But the finite-ness of teaching means that students come and students go while we faculty remain.

And that’s bittersweet.

The damn pandemic is certainly feeding some of my pensive emotions. Well yes . . . somewhat sad emotions as well. Our last 14 months have been rent asunder. Nothing has been normal. The rituals of the senior year have been truncated. The daily interactions that make our professorial days so appealing have been curtailed.

And Zoom has been a blessing and a hindrance.

Now we are not even gathering in person for the final, important celebrations. Our departmental honors convocation has come and gone . . . on Youtube. The fine arts celebration takes place tomorrow . . . on Zoom. And the all-important grand Commencement is streaming again this year. I am missing these events tremendously.

I am graduating three wonderful senior voice students this year. They have all grown so much. I’ll miss laughing with them, seeing the revelations sink in, and hearing their stunning voices.

With graduating senior Will Davis at my home after his final lesson last Saturday.

We as a Music faculty are graduating a small but mighty band of talented musicians. The world is going to be a better place when they are unleashed on these poor unsuspecting denizens of Planet Earth in a couple of days.

Soon enough, a new group of students will join us. For today, though, I’ll embrace the bittersweet and celebrate our graduates.