February 2023
My focus, such as it is, alternates between a computer screen and the dormant bed of hostas outside my study window. A month into retirement, I’m struggling to write a description of the course that I’ve promised to teach next fall at Central College.
The top of my document reads, “Leadership stuff I never learned in a classroom.” I realize that won’t work as a course name, but at least I’ve eliminated profanity from the working title.
I was, and am, indebted to Maggie Fisher Schlerman ’02, associate professor of accounting, Mary Strey, vice president for academic affairs, and Mark Putnam, Central president, for indulging me with the opportunity to try teaching. I’m not productive this morning because I keep staring out the window trying to picture my students.
This is a problem throughout the design phase of the course.
August
The course has a better name — Leading a Problem-Solving Organization — and somewhat surprising to both me and my former classmate, now Central registrar, Leslie Keuning Duinink ’90, 10 brave souls have enrolled.
I’ve drafted a course guide that started off as a concept description and somehow evolved into a 110-page textbook. I have lesson plans for 28 sessions. Somehow, though, after a 30-year professional career noteworthy for, if nothing else, a bewildering succession of job changes, I still can’t help wondering, “Am I ready for this?”
I drive into Pella, air conditioner and my favorite Des Moines classic rock station blasting. Cruising by campus, it feels like I’m returning to my hometown.
September
My students and I are getting used to one another. Most of my insecurities during the course development phase are gone. The 10 brave souls are at least pretending to find the material both interesting and relatable. I’m struck by how bright and attentive they are, and I’m not sure who’s learning more — them or me.
The primary component of the compensation I negotiated with Mary entitles me to enjoy nine meals per week at the campus dining hall: Central Market. I asked for this, so I don’t become too burdensome for my hosts — two former classmates and lifelong friends (saints, really) — who are gracious enough to allow me to come and go from their basement from Tuesday to Thursday each week.
Central is almost certainly losing money on this deal. The food is delicious and plentiful. Throw in a soft-serve ice cream maker, and I find myself in jeopardy of gaining whatever the 55-year-old equivalent is to the infamous “freshman fifteen.”
Realizing this, I begin a ritual of morning runs on the college’s cross country course. My memory is notoriously poor, but I’m pretty sure that 35 years ago it was a ravine behind a cornfield adjacent to the football practice field. I don’t recall noting the elevation changes then. A hilly run, though, offers the advantage of commanding views. If there is a more beautiful place than central Iowa at sunrise on a September morning, I have not found it.
One mid-September afternoon as I walk back to my office from the dining hall, I pass three students with easels painting separate campus landscapes. It reminds me that I work in a place where art is created.
I had the privilege of offices in many beautiful settings over my business career, but this, as the kids say, “hits different.” I note that my eyes are moist.
In late September, my classmate Coach Jeff McMartin ’90 invites me to speak to the football team after practice. I arrive early to watch. The plays and formations are much more complex than “in my day,” but the sound the players make when they run in pads, the bright blue September sky and the smells of sweat-soaked pads on a warm fall afternoon are all the same.
McMartin gathers them after practice and invites them to “take a knee.” He introduces me and I tell what my adult children refer to as “old guy stories.” I try to explain what I carried away from the experience they are sharing now: Sustaining organizational success by caring for their less experienced teammates; maintaining focus on improving every day; and most importantly, finding joy in the moment.
I find myself repeatedly addressing them as, “men” and I realize while I’m droning on that I’m channeling my father, who was also my high school football coach. He passed away 11 years ago, but increasingly I hear the echoes of his voice in my own.
October
Faculty interaction is another benefit of this gig that I didn’t anticipate. Early on, I get occasional spoken and unspoken questions like, “Who are you?” and “Why are you here?” As the fall proceeds, word gets around, and I have more opportunities to converse more comfortably. I meet members of the English department for libations early one evening at a downtown pub. (Yes, one of those exists now in Pella.) We talk about students, writing and our favorite books and I recount memories of taking classes from luminaries like current and former professors of English Art Johnson, Walter Cannon, John Miller, Mary Stark, Maxine Huffman and Jim Graham.
It’s delicious.
My students are used to me now. They usually laugh at the appropriate times, and I get occasional reports from faculty that they are saying favorable things about the class. (The ones with unfavorable things to say are perhaps astute enough to remain silent.)
There are still moments, though, when my dad jokes flop, and I see their eyes roll. I try not to refer to students here as “kids,” but they remind me so much of my own young adult offspring that I can’t help it.
They are kids.
They are my kids.
In late October my fellow trustees return to campus for the fall board meeting. As always, I’m overwhelmed by the talent in the room and the shared love we have for this place. In my 10 years as a trustee, I’ve never made it through a meeting without softly shedding tears. Usually, it’s when I hear students and faculty describe the experiences they’re having and the importance of this place. This time, the Student Senate president’s report provides the trigger. She’s a future dentist and an athlete, and so poised. She clearly loves this place as much as we do.
November
I walk by a member of the maintenance team as she’s planting tulip bulbs near Gaass Hall. It strikes me that I often take the beauty of this place for granted. It doesn’t just happen. There are great people working hard every day to maintain the campus. Maybe that’s the most obvious, but important, insight I take away from this entire experience. None of what happens here just happens. It is all driven by diligent people performing hard work.
My students include a cross country runner, two football players and two members of the women’s soccer team — all competing this fall. As part of my at-home Sunday routine, I devour all available online sources reporting on their team and individual performances.
The women’s soccer team plays many of its matches midweek, affording me the opportunity to attend regularly. They are gifted athletes, but also intense competitors and I enjoy watching them play. We’re all sad when the season ends.
Somehow, late November arrives. When I left campus before Thanksgiving, temperatures were in the mid-60s. As I drive back into town the Monday following Thanksgiving, Pella is blanketed in snow and the high for the day is 28 degrees. Leaving the dining hall my first evening back, the air is sharp. I pause and take a photo of the moon reflecting off the icy pond.
I’m not sure whether the sudden rush of emotion I feel is from the beauty of the moment or the realization that this experience will soon end.
December
Grades are turned in. The semester is done. I’m walking out of Geisler before dawn with a cardboard box full of my various office supplies and trinkets. I can see my breath radiate toward the decorative lights strung under the library. As I drive away from campus beginning a long day of travel, I try to remember what it was like leaving campus for that first break in the winter of 1986. Then, as now, I felt changed by this place and all the more grateful for it.
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