I moved to college when I was 18 years old. For a remarkable 20 years — until I took my first sabbatical as a faculty member — I never spent more than three consecutive weeks away from a college campus. I’ve been an undergraduate student (Go Gators!), a graduate student (Go Crimson!), a post-doctoral fellow (Go Tritons!) and now a professor (Go Big Red!) and the Dean of Faculty (Go … Faculty?). At Cornell, I’ve taught graduate and undergraduate students on topics ranging from physics, biology and engineering to public policy and gourmet cooking. These classes have ranged from fewer than a dozen to hundreds of students. I co-lead the Schaffer-Nishimura lab studying neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disease, and have guided education and community outreach programs in Ithaca and surrounding communities. I’m also a long-time denizen of Cornell residence halls, having spent six years as the faculty-in-residence in Mary Donlon Hall. I now live in Barbara McClintock Hall, where I know some of you as neighbors and my dog, Dory, knows many more of you as ear scratchers. In short, I am very familiar with campus life.
Familiarity is not the same as understanding, however. Spending decades at a university does not necessarily provide insight into the experiences that students have during their years on campus. On the flipside, students are familiar with faculty as folks who give lectures, assign work and hand out grades, while the rest of our lives at Cornell is less visible. The goal of this column is to help us move from recognizing each other’s roles to understanding each other’s lives. What do faculty wish students knew about their lives and work? What do faculty repeatedly fail to understand about student life?
Office (after)Hours will explore these questions as well as the joys and challenges of daily life on campus from one faculty member’s perspective, with room for affection, explanation, criticism and a bit of the ridiculous. So, reach out and tell me what you think faculty do not understand about student life at Cornell, or ask that question about faculty that’s been bugging you forever. I’m listening.
Chris B. Schaffer is a Sun columnist and the Meinig Family Professor of Engineering in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering and the Dean of Faculty. His column, Office (after)Hours,explores campus life with affection, a critical eye and an appreciation for the absurd. It runs periodically through the semester. He can be reached at cs385@cornell.edu.
