Home-May2013

Recharge, Relax and Reboot

Halls are deserted, parking lots mostly empty, and cafeterias remain quiet. The Ottawa campus appears to settle into estivation, a much needed respite from the energetic hustle of the school year.

During summer months, it seems the actual structure of the college shifts. The business aspects of our professions seem more visible. With students removed from the landscape, it’s as if infrastructure is somehow exposed. You pass co-workers as their way to meetings, coffees clutched, preoccupied with current concerns. Normally, they would be hidden behind a phalnax of students, slipping by unnoticed.

While passing a window, you look down to a green courtyard and watch an impromptu soccer game, a few students lounging by a picnic table, or a lawn maintenance crew applying a quick trim. It could appear that we work in a seasonal business.

But the invisible machinery of operating the College never slows. Schedules are drafted, budgets are created, presentations are made, and planning sessions lead to strategies. There are hirings, vacations, retirements and repairs. During the summer, we are, in fact, preparing for our clients’ return.

Though busy, the summer helps us to recharge, relax and reboot, to gain a perspective that somehow becomes curtailed over the long winter months.

This issue of Live Laugh Learn offers some perspective on the season, both personal reflections and College-related considerations. Enjoy.