Today was a "Visit Day" at my university, for prospective students, and for each of those there are two events where department faculty participate -- the department chair does the presentation and a tour of the facilities (as an art department these are particularly important for students to see), and earlier in the morning, there is a meet and greet, with coffee and tea and donuts and bagels and tables and displays set up for all departments in a couple of large rooms. A couple of us join him for each of these events and today was my turn.
Recruiting is something that a lot of my colleagues are a bit unsure about. I love it. While I would not be a good sales person, I like to think I am pretty good at selling my university. It is actually easy to convince myself that we are well worth attending. We are the best, most selective, public university in the state, and we emphasize the liberal arts (that is our mission according to the state), so students take a wide variety of classes that interlink and become stronger thinkers and scholars, and, frankly, both more interesting and more employable when they leave. They can have conversations with anyone, and have some knowledge and ability to understand complex problems and come to innovative solutions. We are also pretty darn cheap (perhaps too cheap?), and that is a great bonus. It brings us good students who might go to an expensive private liberal arts university if they could afford it. It also brings us students who are good, but don't have the track record of success in their school days. Those sometimes are the best students, ones who realize how to put things together and succeed in classes and life.
I am lucky at where I teach. I both like and respect almost all of my students (maybe two or three don't fall into that category, two or three over the past 24 years). There are days or years when it still isn't easy though. There are some things that give me a boost and I wanted to talk about that beyond the twisted orange grissini. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other now...