{"id":338,"date":"2018-04-13T17:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T21:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/?p=338"},"modified":"2018-04-17T06:40:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T10:40:19","slug":"academic-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2018\/04\/13\/academic-colleagues\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"

I understand how it can go both ways in academia.\u00a0 You can have colleagues who are really part of your family.\u00a0 And you have colleagues you are, um, not.<\/p>\n

Whichever way it happens, academic colleagues are completely unlike colleagues in other organizations. Academia is the last career in which you can be guaranteed lifetime employment. What this means is that we work with the same people for 30 to 40 years.<\/p>\n

That’s a long time.<\/p>\n

And while it is of course likely that there will be ebbs and flows in relationships and interpersonal dynamics, there are times where I don’t think there is anything like the relationships you form with the people you work with at a university.<\/p>\n

Like this week.<\/p>\n

This week was the trial for the murderer of our dear colleague Jeannine Skinner<\/a>. She was murdered last September 1, 2017. It was hellish because Jeannine is\/was extraordinary. I know that can be cliche, but at her funeral last September I found out that I was not the only person who saw her sunshine-beaming-from-her-face smile and thought “I’m going to be your friend. I will try not to freak you out by immediately pouncing into your life. But YOU! Friend! With me!!”<\/p>\n

She was on a trajectory to be an outstanding researcher.\u00a0 I reviewed her first year faculty research proposal as part of my university service duties.\u00a0 It was equivalent to some of our best<\/strong> full professors who have been writing the proposals for 20 years.<\/p>\n

She was driven to help under-served, minority, and low income seniors keep their health and their cognitions.\u00a0 The city of Charlotte lost out on her contributions.<\/p>\n

But we, as her colleagues and friends, lost out on what we thought was going to be at least a 30-year friendship.<\/p>\n

This week, my work colleagues and I gathered over two days to support her family and her memory as her murderer pleaded guilty.\u00a0 I’m telling you right now, I cannot imagine feeling closer to anyone else that I work with. We cried together. We hugged each other as we saw someone losing it.\u00a0 We laughed when one of our own was legitimately threatened to be thrown out of court for asking if someone else needed a tissue.\u00a0 They take VERY SERIOUSLY the no talking rule in court.<\/p>\n

We spent time hugging, visiting, and praying with Jeannine’s family.\u00a0 ((Who are, all three, exceptional human beings))<\/p>\n

Academia is just not like other places.\u00a0 I don’t know how other co-workers handle a tragedy in their midst. But I so love all of my colleagues right now.\u00a0 I can’t imagine people say that about the other places that they work.<\/p>\n

But that’s how I am feeling about my colleagues and my department after how we all held each other up this week.<\/p>\n

I do wish I would stop crying for a couple of three minutes.\u00a0 But I think that will stop eventually. I’m hoping this closeness stays around a while longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I understand how it can go both ways in academia.\u00a0 You can have colleagues who are really part of your family.\u00a0 And you have colleagues you are, um, not. Whichever way it happens, academic colleagues are completely unlike colleagues in other organizations. Academia is the last career in which you can be guaranteed lifetime employment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-5s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":237,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/07\/24\/facebook-at-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":0},"title":"Facebook at Work","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the newer areas of research that is getting a lot of attention is if, and how, people use Facebook at work. \u00a0Some of the negatives that arise is how employees manage issues of privacy (teacher's enjoying a beer on their personal time) and impression management from sharing one's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":343,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2018\/10\/18\/your-students-are-cheating\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":1},"title":"Your Students Are Cheating","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"October 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So, this is not a comfortable topic. And, surprisingly, the reaction I most frequently get from my academic colleagues is \"Not my students.\" Alas. Your students are cheating.\u00a0 Not all of them. Not on everything. But on a hell of a lot more than you know, and, apparently, are willing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":348,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2019\/05\/06\/preliminary-thoughts-on-the-unc-charlotte-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":2},"title":"Preliminary Thoughts on the UNC Charlotte Shooting","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"May 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I want to be clear: this is what it has been like for me in the last week. There are over 30,000 students, faculty, and staff at UNC Charlotte and I'm pretty sure there have been over 30,001 reactions to a gunman shooting our students last Tuesday. So far, I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":117,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2011\/07\/25\/academic-conferences\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":3},"title":"Academic Conferences","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just got back from INGroup11, an interdisciplinary conference for people who study groups. You can read the twitter commentary at #INGroup11. It was one of the best conferences I have ever attended. \u00a0I realize that by saying something like that (or even worse, the tweet confessing that I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":382,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2020\/03\/13\/a-whole-new-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":4},"title":"A Whole New World","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"March 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Two weeks ago--before I left with 15 students for a Spring Break study abroad trip to Berlin--I saw a few coronavirus cases in Germany and was joking that if I had to be quarantined when I came back I would prefer the Army barracks to home because I could work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/03\/Panic.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/03\/Panic.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/03\/Panic.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/03\/Panic.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":374,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2019\/09\/27\/the-next-education-bubble\/","url_meta":{"origin":338,"position":5},"title":"The Next Education Bubble","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"September 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'all, I think that we, on campus, who give a flying fig newton about our students see the next big educational bubble: Students who have already graduated with a university degree who know only a little more than when they left high school. Let me share some background and then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}