Most people think of teachers as not working during July. So not true for me. Yes, I had a real 2 week vacation in June. So far, some surprises have emerged in July.

A junior faculty (Assistant level with only 3 years of experience) contacted me to be her mentor on a grant. A wonderful surprise. This type of being sought out not only makes the ego feel good, but it also validates my experiences and expertise. Naturally, I told her that I'd be delighted to work with her, which was immediately followed by a flurry of emails and meetings on making her topic doable within the grant budget. Being a mentor tends to be as much about giving support as it is about giving research advise. Only time will tell whether her grant gets funded. Meanwhile, I am blessed with pushing her and myself in new directions.

One of the looming dooming factors in her being able to apply for the funding is the state budget which has cuts to University support. Once again, the state support is scaled back.  It breaks my heart to see the overall economy (local and global) has been affecting higher education. When I started as a faculty, the presence of international graduate students underscored the global prestige and value of the U.S. university system. I always viewed it as a huge national asset which never seems to be counted in import/export estimations. Over my career, especially in the past 7-10 years, it feels like we as a nation have lost so much in terms of higher education.

My concern is how to regain, in an innovative replace and replenish way, what has been lost, dropped or deleted. My concern is for other junior faculty who might become discouraged or disheartened with the state of higher education and seek alternative careers. We need the bright, new thinking represented by this junior faculty. As a society, we need to be willing to re-engineer higher education in ways that will keep the U.S. at the forefront of technology and knowledge generation.