Blog Impetus

Blogs have an impetus for being. The impetus for this blog was a conversation during the doctoral seminar yesterday morning. The seminar is designed for PhD students as a means for them to get to know each other, aka create cohort cohesion, and foster professional development. We hold class in the lounge area on the 6th floor of the School of Public Health, mostly because I did not feel like having a classroom atmosphere and knew that with a small number of students a casual environment would be a good fit with the intent of the course.

The 8 women, first and second year PhD students in Community Health Sciences, had lots of questions about "academic life". I found myself acknowledging that the general public, or even my family, does not have an accurate idea of what professors do, their full set of activities. Then, I found myself saying that it's our fault for not explaining our job. Maybe a blog would help. Their faces lit up and gave a resounding "yes, you ought to do that." It's one of those ideas that sounds good as it travels across the air, but gains weight as it passes through the gray matter.

As I drove home on the slow freeway, 7 hours after class let out, I resolved to blog. Not as an act of arrogance that my academic life is special, but as a humble act to rectify the gap we had identified hours ago.

For those who don't know me, there's my Community of Science profile with all the academic credentials and products. For a peak at the slightly more personal, I'm on Facebook, but be sure to mention that you are a blog follower in your friend request. But neither of those virtual presentations of self convey why I work 50 hours a week or what I do during those 50 hours. For that information, I blog.