From the inbox:
I’m writing to check whether you saw the announcement about the retirement reception for Carson Bays. We imagine that you are too far away and too busy to attend, but we thought you might be able to write something that we could share with Carson at the reception tomorrow afternoon (3:30 – 5:30 p.m.). As one of the few among us who became a department chair, perhaps you can mention a few lessons that your learned from the master.
My reply:
I was hoping to attend but am slammed with reading day stuff on Thursday. How about this?
I was recently able to collaborate once again with Ju-Chin Huang and Tim Haab, two other ECU assistant professors from the 1990s. We all said at about the same time how we were looking back fondly on those days. Part of the reason was the excellent research environment established by Carson and the rest of the gang who were there at the time. My only complaint is that one year when I did more service than ever and got graded lower than my prior year's annual service review. They say service is a thankless task, but jeez. I mildly complained to Carson who dealt with me in the appropriate way. As an inexperienced department chair myself, I'll always consider Carson a role model and forever regret the one time, I think it was only once, that I added to the steady drip, drip, drip of faculty complaints [make sure everyone knows that I'm laughing as I write this].
And, folks in my department at ASU, it is just a joke!
