Office Shelves and Optionality
A photo of part of my office.
My office is of course a place for me to do my work of teaching, scholarship, and service to the university.
It’s also a place where I serve tea to students as we talk about ideas both large and small.
And it’s a physical space that offers a glimpse of my story as a teacher, as a scholar, and as a person.
Often the space itself is a kind of lesson, and it becomes the beginning of conversations we did not plan.
I’m in a small city in the rural Upper Midwest, far from the coasts, far from the centers of power.
The students who come to my office hail from almost every state in my country, and from every populated continent. They come from big cities and rural ranches, wealthy suburbs and poor communities, and everything in between.
And so often when they first step into my office they say something like: wow.
Because many of them have never seen so many books, on so many topics, in so many languages.
Many have never had good tea, or good, open-ended conversation with a scholar who takes them seriously.
And I love the way this space fosters those conversations and maybe, just maybe, helps the students’ imaginations grow wider and richer.
