Finishing This Chapter...

Three years ago this month, an amazing opportunity landed on my desk and a short while later, I took a massive leap and (temporarily) walked away from my position as a Full Professor and stepped into the role as the Interim Director of Professional Development for all twelve community college campuses in CT. To say I was anxious is to put it mildly as I was leaving the campus I had been at for eleven years with many close friends and colleagues.

Today, I’m putting it out there that another change is on its way – after winning multiple national awards for programs I’ve developed and having served thousands of faculty, staff, and administrators over the past three years in this position, it’s time for me to go back “home” to the classroom. At the end of the spring semester, I'll be stepping down from my current role and resuming my full-time faculty position.

Suffice to say, it wasn’t an easy decision for me to make. Seeing the impact of helping colleagues find new and innovative ways to support students has been deeply fulfilling. Being a person who helped folks feel seen and heard when few others did “filled my bucket” immensely, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to connect many folks to professional learning where there previously hadn’t been such opportunities in our system. For many, this choice to step down is counterintuitive and goes against the standard expectations of “always climbing the ladder.” It’s certainly caught a number of folks by surprise as news of my shifting roles has been slowly making the rounds. But those who know me know that moving up ladders holds is not what “fills my bucket.”

Over the past year, I’ve gone back to teaching a section of our first-year experience course each semester, and it’s reminded me of how much I am finding myself missing the good work I did in the classroom. And it’s time for me to get back to doing more of that now.

Of course, I’m sure I’ll still find ways to keep myself involved in the world of professional development. Helping my colleagues sharpen their tools in their toolkits – or find new ones – still drives me, but it’s just going to look a little different moving forward. I’m sure once the time is right and what that looks like firms up a bit more, I’ll share about that down the road. After all, I always seem to find a way to keep myself busy and do some good work here and there. Despite all else, that’s something that isn’t going to change any time soon.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t extend a word of appreciation to those individuals who offered me this opportunity from the onset in the Spring of 2021, my Teaching & Learning colleagues, and my “boss” who was an amazing collaborator and pushed me to do some of my best work in the arena of professional development. And of course, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to connect deeply and authentically with so many of the staff, faculty, and administrators across my College and its campuses. In spite of the politics and negativity that exists, there are so many more amazing professionals out there who want nothing more to do good work for our students, and I’m glad I get to continue being a part of it.