Stressed, happy, and sad

No exciting news here today, just a bit of reflection. It is such a stressful time of the year for everyone: students taking exams and worrying about their grades, faculty grading term projects and exams and worried about assigning grades, and lots of events for everyone that can be fun but can also be stressful if you are trying to ensure they go off well.

It is also, certainly, a happy time of the year. Students are done with classes (who cares what I got in the class because I’m done!), faculty are soon to be done with grading (and that’s always a relief), and the daily press of scheduled events is soon to be over.

However, mostly, for me this is a sad time of the year. Students have to say goodbye to their friends who they won’s see much, if at all, over the summer. This was always the worst part of summer for me when I was a student. I hated for summer to come because I would have to go home and live with my parents. (Not that they were anything but good to me, but they weren’t my friends and I had to live by their rules and all of that. They were paying the bills so it’s not like this was torture. Ah, the pains of growing up.) I’ve also spent quite a bit of time with seniors over the last few weeks and have seen, up close and personal, what goods kids they are and what good representatives of UM, Ross, and the BBA Program they will be as they go out into the world. I’m going to miss having them around. And I’m also dedicating myself to have more frequent contact with more students. I’m in the midst of trying to figure out just how I can do this.

We had our BBA Celebration in Rackham Auditorium yesterday. It’s a beautiful facility and one that I always enjoy visiting for whatever reason. (That’s not to say that I won’t enjoy having the event in the auditorium in our new building in two years.) I had a great talk presenting to the graduating students my summary of their experiences here and my hopes and good wishes for them for the future. Then with the sharing of good food, highlighted by a chocolate fountain, we went on our way. We’ll see each other at graduation one last time.

And before I know it, it will be September and we’ll start the process all over again.