Considering my options

I've been thinking a lot about retirement lately, even though I never thought I would. I was planning to teach forever. But like our own lives, things in the world change. We have an entirely new administration now from the one I was accustomed to for so long. Other friends on the college faculty and staff are either talking about retiring or already have. But the most important thing and the reason why I thought I would never retire is student attitude.

I've always taken a great deal of pride in the relationship I've been able to form with so many of my students. They were not only my students, a great number of them became my friends too and I've kept up with them, going all the way back to my teaching days at Northwestern State University in Oklahoma and St. Mary's College in Kansas. Over 600 of them are my friends on Facebook. But I can't help but notice over the last few years that my enrollments have been declining, sometimes by as much as 50% over what they were ten years ago. I know that Sociology and Criminal Justice haven't gone out of style and I also know I haven't forgotten how to teach so I'm pretty sure it's the age thing.

I used to hang out with my students and often they would visit me where I live or would ask me to come and visit them. They sought me out to have their pictures taken with me on graduation day and invited me to their college and university graduations two or three years later. We had good relationships that never compromised my role with them in the classroom. But it's been a few years now since I socialized with my students or I should say, since they socialized with me.

So it seems I've lost the important things that made me come back every year; big classes and friendly, sociable students. It's almost like they don't trust me now because of my age or perhaps, don't even believe the things I teach them. Distrust of the older generation started back in the 60's and has continued relatively unabated since then. Whereas older people used to be sought out for their knowledge and insight, now they tend to be tossed aside and forgotten.

So it's not as much fun to get up every morning to go teach as it used to be. It used to be the thing that turned me on every day. I couldn't wait to get to school, engage smiling, eager faces that wanted to learn and touch base with some young people that I knew would turn in to being life-long friends. That's not so much the case anymore. And because it isn't, it has almost become a chore to go to school rather than a joy and that's what tells me, more than anything else, that the time to step down is close.

I had decided before this academic year began that I was going to teach this year and next year and then retire but I rethought that during the Fall semester and now think that maybe this year will be enough. It's tough for me to think about voluntarily walking away from the college classroom that has been so near and dear to my heart for the past forty years but my feelings should be a better gauge for that than anyone else's. I always lamented the fact that many athletes stayed active too long but college professors usually don't fall into that trap. We seem to have an intuition about when it's time to go and that feeling is getting stronger in me with every passing day.

If the Gazette will have me, I plan on continuing to write my weekly column but my teaching days are numbered.