Learning Yoga at a 3-Hour Lunch with Incredible Colleagues from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Egan School of Nursing

It was a wonderful email inviting me to lunch to celebrate my promotion to Full professorship by two colleagues who have kept me grounded, focused, and aiming for integrity. I served three years on Rank & Tenure with their insight, their ethics, and their vision for promoting excellence across all our professions. To receive an email saying they wanted to thank me for my leadership and to treat me for lunch to celebrate an accomplishment was foreign, but graciously accepted. I love Drs. Peter Bayers and Eileen O'Shea. They are two incredible human beings who represent the best of where I work.

I accepted. We had a 3-hour lunch, and I learned yoga, with laughter, in a conversation about why we do what we do with a moral compass to guide us. 

I cannot thank the two of them enough for their mentorship, advice, guidance, support, and encouragement. If one ever serves on a such a committee together, they understand the enormous role expected from an institution of higher education. We were only one generation and we took our job very serious. We lost sleep, held our breath, maintained utmost respect for the responsibility, and simply served our academic community as best as we could.

And we did this years ago, so when they wanted to treat me to lunch, I changed the trajectory of my responsibilities to meet with them (way over due...and total admiration).

Doing the work helps us to make sense of the magnitude of the work. The wisdom  is immeasurable and they have made me a much better man. It is so strange that we have not gathered until yesterday and I am beyond happy they cared enough about me to invite me to lunch (on them!!!). They wouldn't let me pay. 

They are the best of the profession. These are the human beings that make all the work worthwhile. They are the tradition and the responsibility. 

I put a pause on my normally frantic work life to enjoy their company. In the grand narrative of it all, they are part of the everything and I will never be able to thank them enough for validating the scholar I've always wanted to be, and the mentor I hope to be for future leaders in the profession.

Laughter. Honesty. Criticality. Drive. Courage. They are the real deal. Sometimes a glimmering moment of joy.