Dear Colleagues,
I was at a meeting last week of admission deans and directors of Virginia private colleges. It's always in early December, right in the heart of early application reading season. It makes for a good break and a chance to catch up with colleagues, talk about the landscape of our profession, and just breathe for a day. It's easy to get bogged down by the craziness of December - not just with work, but the increasingly frenetic pace of the holidays - and you start to count the hours until the holiday break. But anytime I have a chance to sit down with my fellow professionals, I'm reminded how important our work is, how hard we work at it, and what a fantastic group of people we have in our field. That December meeting inspires me enough to get over the hump of these last weeks before the holidays.
This has been a challenging fall semester with so many changes (including the Department of Labor adding another wrinkle for those of us on the college side). That's why it's fortuitous that the holidays and all of its festive cheer falls when it does. It's a good reminder that, as important as our work is, there are a few things more important than the perfect essay, the strong test score, or even which notification letter arrives in today's mail. That's often a hard concept to explain to teenagers, and sometimes even to ourselves. The message of peace of Earth and good will toward all isn't just a broad appeal for global affairs, but also a reminder for each of us and our everyday lives.
So, as we wrap up for 2016, finish our shopping, start our cooking, and dream of a white Christmas (but not too much...some of us have to travel, you know), let's all take a moment to appreciate our students, our colleagues, and the work that we do, and most important, take time to appreciate our family and friends during this season.
On behalf of PCACAC, let me tell all of you how much we appreciate you and all that you do for your students. I wish all of you a happy holiday season.
