What We Envy

I think it's a pretty open secret that college professors envy their students.  We look at them and covet their youth, their enthusiasm, and especially their energy levels.  We wish we still had college student-size waistlines or hairstyles (or just hair!).  Some of us begrudge being too old to wear their cool clothes; others wish we could hear like they do, and still be able to attend a rock concert without going deaf.

But I think the thing we envy the most is their time.  Certainly Wofford students are very busy with classes and activities.  But most of them have that one pleasure we no longer possess, at least during the school year---time to read.

Of course, reading is essential to being a college professor.  We're all keeping pace with classes, and for our courses a great amount of re-reading is involved. I know the Sherlockian canon backward and forward, but I'm not comfortable unless I get to read the stories again before we discuss them in class.  It doesn't matter that I know 'whodunit' already.

Reading is also essential to planning new courses and interims.  I'm inheriting a wealth of Dr. Racine's classes, and when I look at all the reading I need to catch up on before I can teach the Old South, New South, Civil War, South Carolina, and Salem Witchcraft classes, I'm caught between awe and despair.  How will I ever find the time to do all of this?

Plus, we need to read because reading is a defining factor of being an academic.  We can't rely just on television or the internet.  Most of us still devour newspapers and journals.  These are assignments we make to ourselves, because it's who we are and what we feel the need to model for our young people.

Oh, and did I mention that most Wofford professors have real lives as well?  With families and children, spouses and companions, cats and dogs.  (Or, if you're a Wofford biologist, maybe a snake or rat or crayfish.)  We're not monks, we have lives in this world, and they often involve not only the interactions that we cherish with our loved ones, but things like housekeeping, bill-paying, and cooking. 

And that's why we envy our students and their time to read.  All of us remember some good old days when we could curl up in a library chair or crash on a dorm room futon with the written word.  It might have been a class assignment, it might have been just a trashy novel, but it was a wonderful pleasure.  At eighteen and twenty, we couldn't know how rare that delight would become once we changed into the people giving the assignments and grading the papers.

I doubt that any Wofford students read this blog, but if you are a Wofford student, stop right now!  Read something fun.  Something challenging.  Something thought-provoking and amazing.  Now is the time, while you have the time!

Meanwhile, we'll all be in our offices, trying to steal a minute to read a few pages before class starts.

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