I wonder what he thought
It’s Aug. 6 and I’m sitting in the lobby of a boston hotel thinking about yesterday. I gave my first panel presentation at a journalism convention with my former Castleton professor Terry Dalton in the audience.I was nervous, and him being there was both comforting and adding to the stress, if that’s possible.
The presentation went really well. He said I did great and I felt like I was engaging and concise.
But back in the room late last night watching the Red Sox blow another game to the Rays, I was thinking about the day some more.
I thought about how neat it would be for me to one day, twenty or so years from now, to be attending a similar conference and watching one of my former students present to a bunch or scholars and journalists.
Although thoughts of mortality and lost time might also filter into my mind, as I assume they did with my former professor, I can’t imagine that pride wouldn’t overtake them.
As I sit here typing, waiting to go check out the latest text books on display and waiting to go see Terry’s panel detailing the plight of journalism as we know it, I couldn’t help but write down my thoughts.
I knew it already, but being around so many professors and chatting with them at this conference has driven home the reason why we do what we do: to try to spur on students to do what we have loved to do for so long. We want them to experience the highs we have experienced and hope that they too will develop a love of this craft.
Terry Dalton did it for me in Castleton classrooms two decades ago, and did it again for me yesterday just by being in the same room.
I hope I’ve done the same for my students, past and present, and can continue to do it for them well into the future, until one day when maybe they can do it for me – maybe at a conference somewhere.
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