Leaving the Chaos Laboratory

For many of us, our office is a sanctuary and fortress, and a place to gather. Work? Sometimes that too. But if you are an academic and all your office is used for is work, you are missing the whole point. Every particle of junk in my office has a story, or could tell one if pushed. For the last 25 years my office, although 3 different rooms, held the bits and pieces of me in my academic life. Old tests and papers, old grade books, textbooks, novels, slides, dried specimens, flags of students countries, tea towels from places I visited, artwork (mine and others) and much more. If one listens carefully the echoes of laughter, crying, and quiet discourse can be heard.
When I retired “Emeritus” a benefit was keeping an office as long as the space wasn’t needed for new faculty. It was more than an office then. It was a lifeline to the past, a past that simply wouldn’t let go. I am still working on campus 2 years later, and the office is little used. Others have a greater need, so I will move into a smaller shared space and yield the “Chaos Laboratory” to another. Here is what I hope the next occupant will experience in the old Chaos Laboratory:
Fun with colleagues and students
Creative time to innovate teaching ideas
Serious discussions about everything in the world, not just the narrow academic view of the new occupant
Quiet moments of contemplation
Serious sessions with students, helping them to clarify their life goals, and listening to their stories and problems
Student’s children climbing into a willing lap when they come with their parents to talk.
A door always open
A mind always open to new ideas and paradigms
Above all, listening.
I wish the new occupant of my old digs the best, and hope their tenure is as long, fun and fulfilling as mine has been. As for me, I have a new project. Somewhere on campus there is a space waiting to become the next “Chaos Laboratory”. I am hoping that when I finish boxing up the accumulata of the years, I will uncover some forgotten gem.

Maybe a Higgs Boson.

Image 1 drewfrancis.wordpress.com/2008/10/