Since today is the two-year anniversary of my retirement
from my academic administrative job, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about
these past two years and, as word drifts to me of massive changes in my school
and my department, it has been difficult to not feel bereft.
I had a full year to actively plan my retirement and spent
most of eight months of that time overseeing a renovation of a new-to-me home I
bought to retire to. My last year of work was extremely busy as I had to catalog
everything I did in my job while doing it all for the last time, and make plans
for someone else to take it all over. Having been in my position for 16 years, there
was so much living in my head that nobody else had any inkling about. I was one
of the few repositories of history, with a great memory for details.
Though I was ready – more than ready – to leave when I chose
to, I was also very sad to go. I felt badly to leave my staff behind. I knew
that they’d be fine under my successor’s leadership while he was there, though
I knew also he would not stay long. But I also believed that the future held
massive changes because our new leader seemed on a mission to make her mark early
and thunderously. My job was already exhausting, complicated, and often
impossible. I could not imagine hanging around for it to be made more
impossible by someone else who had no idea the challenges we faced.
And leave I did. I cherish the memories of my farewell
party, and have photos on my home office walls that remind me daily of my
dearest Fordham friends. Though living
350 miles away, I still feel connected to my colleagues… through FB, email, and
visits when I am in Manhattan, I manage to stay abreast of what is happening in
my school. It also helps that I continue to teach on the online MSW program.
As predicted, change began to be imposed almost as soon as I
closed my office door behind me. My successor spend much of his next and final
year there, fighting the fight I didn’t have enough strength for…. much of
which involved conducting research to prove there was no research that
supported all of the assertions some leaders were fond of insisting existed…. and
trying to figure out how to make sure crucial elements of our program were
preserved despite efforts to dismantle it all.
Every time I returned to those hallowed halls, invariably,
someone would greet me in the hallway, hug me, and comment that my legacy was being destroyed. This assertion always made me pause for a moment and
consider whether I was being annihilated by the powers in charge or by some unconscious
hostility within the speaker. My legacy? Exactly what was my legacy, and how
was it being destroyed?
My legacy is a group legacy. I had the privilege of working
with a very special group of professionals. One of them was there a year on my
arrival. The others were people I brought on over the years. We were a very
tight team. Sure, the buck stopped with me, and some decisions were mine alone,
mostly for expediency, but most of the time, we moved and acted as one.
If our legacy is a collection of processes about how we
conducted the business of field instruction, then PLEASE go ahead and destroy
that. We were constantly having to create work-arounds because the school’s
administration failed to provide adequate funds to purchase or develop a
computer system we needed to efficiently do our work. That we had to resort to
excel spread sheets to track 1200 students in field work year after year is
nothing short of ridiculous. That we had no ability to instantly generate
emails to massive lists of students and personnel in community agencies when we
needed to, is sinful. That I had to pay for a subscription to a survey
generating company in order to have an online field application system and to
solicit agency placements is ludicrous. This list goes on and on.
But I think legacy is more than a system, it’s a set of
values, and it is indestructible. I’ve started shrugging and saying, “Things
change, that was then, this is now,” when people lament my lost legacy. They can put us in competition with each
other, strip us of titles we’ve earned, change job descriptions, move us out of
our offices, change our pay structure. But what cannot be changed or forgotten
is what is in the memories of hundreds – thousands – of students, field
instructors and faculty advisers in the tri-state region – that the field work
department at Fordham University was a dream team…. that we were competent and responsive
and creative, that we got an impossible job done – on time (often at great
personal cost) and quietly, that we were supportive of and kind to students, and
that we were always thinking about how we could do our jobs better despite
serious infrastructure challenges.
And that will persist despite changes in curriculum,
processes, and staff. Our legacy will survive until we and everyone whose lives
we touched are gone. Only then will it not matter. And I am ok with that.
