At the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Admiral Kirk is listless and unfulfilled by his position at Starfleet Headquarters and the Enterprise is serving as a training vessel with Spock in command. When a crisis emerges and Kirk and Spock discuss whether or not Kirk should assume command of the Enterprise, Spock responds by telling Kirk:
"Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny... anything else is a waste of material."
I know it's a random, geeky introduction to a post, but it serves to set up the main idea of this entry. James T. Kirk was never satisfied as an admiral, sitting behind a desk at Command. His place was on the bridge of his ship, in that center chair, making a difference as captain of the Enterprise.
While I can only hope to compare myself to Jim Kirk so much, the point is that I have gained a much greater understanding of that sense of listlessness, of not belonging, of not being where one is supposed to be over the last few years. I thought that the day I left Ann Arbor for the last time as a student and moved back to Holland was the lowest I could feel, not knowing that my time in North Carolina lay ahead of me a year later. My year in Holland made me angry, resentful, bitter and cynical at the world for not giving me a chance to do what I wanted and make my place in the world. My year in North Carolina taught me what rock bottom really felt like, facing each day more hopeless, helpless, and worthless than I ever knew I could be.
Without realizing it, I compared every state of comfort, belonging, and purpose I either did or did not feel to those same feelings I had while I was in Ann Arbor. I always thought it was just looking back fondly on my college years and the opportunity and excitement they afforded me, a uniqueness to the time and the people that were my undergraduate experience. I had such a profound sense of loss when I was no longer a part of that, and I thought I could never recapture or recreate such a sense of meaning and belonging.
But as I have written about before, all of the despair and uncertainty that characterized my teaching career have been met with their polar opposites since I have returned to graduate school and the profession of student affairs. While certainly not recapturing what I was in Ann Arbor, my experiences have nonetheless been marked with the same sort of success and satisfaction I had felt in my brief exposure to student affairs at U of M. Now as I am more than halfway finished with my summer internship at Binghamton University, I now have been in three totally different positions at three very different institutions, and yet all have given me the same sort of feeling of purpose and satisfaction with what I am doing.
I never really understood the point of educational theory when I was a teacher, and my practice in the classroom almost always came as a result of luck or taking my best shot rather than from a confident execution. By contrast, I love the academic and research side of student affairs and higher education, and my positions as supervisor and advisor has followed from a supreme confidence not only in what I was doing, but that the way I was doing things was right and well-founded. And given the awards and recognition I earned in the past year on both fronts, it would appear that I'm doing something right.
As I said, I've only got about three weeks left at Binghamton, and I'm conflicted about it. On the one hand I miss my colleagues and the familiarity of the home that GVSU became for me in the last year. On the other hand, I really like everything I've seen here at Binghamton, I have been made to feel at home in my office from the first day I was there, and my staff for the summer has been terrific. My time during orientation here at Binghamton has filled me with the same sense of purpose and accomplishment that my time with orientation at U of M gave me. Seeing as my time working during orientation at U of M is what got me to pursue a graduate degree and career in student affairs, that's not a comparison I make lightly.
Just as the command of a starship was James T. Kirk's first, best destiny, maybe I have in fact found mine in higher education and student affairs.
3 comments:
Not to play Devil's Advocate here, but doesn't this lifestyle also give you the ability to never really move beyond your early 20s as well?
You destiny will always lie within being Brad. Whether that's Brad the Destoyer, Brad the Purveyor, or Brad the Really Lame -- you always have and always will be the same guy that wasn't just in Binghampton, but the guy who was in NC too.
If nothing else, my current lifestyle gives me the choice of when and if I want to move beyond my early 20s. Living and working on campus gives me a sense of being perpetually 22 again, but whenever that loses its appeal I can start looking for higher level administrative jobs that no longer have me living on campus.
You are, of course, right that where I am does not determine who I am. But, as I have found and as I have tried to describe here, there are certain places I have been where it has been much easier to be myself and to have such an identity accepted.
My dad is the Student Affairs and Recreation director at a college and I certainly don't see him as being "stuck in his early 20s" ... much like at the Y where he used to work, he changed the programs for the better and while he enjoys the stimulation, I suppose, of being around those who are in the midst of their education, like I said, he's certainly not someone who hasn't matured.
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