This piece marks my entry into the role of "Chronicle columnist," a role that I accept with a good deal of irony. I was asked by The Chronicle editorial staff to write a column because it wanted faculty opinions in their newspaper. You'd think that The Chronicle would want mainstream views to allow students to get the pulse of the faculty. But that isn't going to happen here.
Whatever illusions I may have that I'm just a normal faculty member disappear most every time I take my very occasional walks down the quad. The most common greeting I get from colleagues is not "Hello. How are you?" Rather it's something like, "You're still here? I thought you'd left and resigned."
As a result, I'm going to avoid the expected way of entering a gig like this. I'm not going to "just get on with it" and start writing about an important issue facing Duke, which is after all why The Chronicle wants me to write this column. I have some explaining to do first. I have some rumors to quash.
For those students who believe that faculty and administrators are above rumor mongering, let me disabuse you of that notion. Faculty and administrators are just plain folks at heart, and like ordinary people they revel in gossip. They spread rumors, some filled with bile, as well as anyone else, maybe even better than your ordinary Joe or Jane.
Someone in the Allen Building once told me, "I hate to go to the bathroom because I'm afraid I'll miss something." University life would be very dull it seems without the rumor mill.
In my dozen or so years at Duke, the rumors about my activities that have gotten back to me have ranged from the benign to the ridiculous.
Some of the rumors have been of the National Inquirer variety. I haven't heard that aliens have abducted me or that Nan is carrying our love child. Instead what has gotten back to me are some fabrications about my personal life. I'm not going to address them.
Then there are the political rumors. These I feel a need to address. I haven't resigned from my position at Duke. I am not writing a "tell all" book about Duke that will "name names." No one, including the provost, is demanding my resignation. To steal from Mark Twain, rumors of my academic death have been greatly exaggerated.
Where does such garbage come from? I have no idea and I don't really care to track down their source. I'll just take my lumps in the rumor mill and move on.
This readership does deserve, however, to know some facts about me so that they can place whatever I write in context.
The useful facts are that one and a half years ago, I went on a sabbatical from Duke and moved back to my home in California. I took a position as a visiting scholar at Stanford, a position I still hold. It's just an honorary kind of position--no salary attached--that allows me to use Stanford resources. I'm glad to have it.
At my initiation, I negotiated a contractual agreement with the leadership of Duke that allows me to stay in California and teach part time at Duke for the next year and a half. I continue to do my teaching, research and writing. I supervise my graduate students from Duke via e-mail, phone and fairly frequent visits.
For a number of reasons that I don't think merit discussion, being away has been a very good thing.
Will I come back to Duke full time eventually? It's my choice ultimately. It's not likely. I may well decide to leave before the next year and a half. Predicting the future is always a very dicey business.
So now that I've quashed some rumors, and laid down the facts, I'm ready to begin this gig as a columnist.
I'll write about Duke from the perspective of a faculty member who has been associated with the University for over a dozen years and now mostly views it from a distance. I'll try to keep it free of affectation and baloney. You get enough of that from elsewhere.
See you in three weeks.
Stuart Rojstaczer is an associate professor of geology and of civil and environmental engineering in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences His column appears every third Wednesday.
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