Abstract
What brings you sustained happiness or contentment? And I mean real contentment: that is, the emotion evoked by positive subjective well-being, state of happiness, a source or cause of delight, as defined in dictionaries. I suspect that many of your answers consist of an overwhelming number of things, items, or people that are likely unrelated to your academic career. I, too, think of those extracurricular topics. However, I do find ways to infuse other activities that bring contentment in my academic career.
Am I getting too philosophical here? Yep. I had plenty of time during our forced isolation to limit the transmission of COVID-19 to think about all kinds of stuff. However, the amount of anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges facing students and colleagues has made me consider what kinds of activities in which we should be engaged to help buffer the concerns we have about our health, safety, political and societal climate, etc. There are many societal toxic elements that probably require a significant amount of buffering. All of this has led me down the road of how to infuse more contentment in the professoriate.
I used to think the activities at work that bring contentment were related to research: solving a problem, developing a new tool, getting funded, graduating a doctoral student, and getting published. Oh, I will not say that endorphins are not released when any of those events happen. However, these research-related items do not seem to sustain me. Moreover, reflecting back on these activities does not help release more endorphins. Personally, activities that upon further reflection, activities involving student and faculty interactions have been a significant source of happy thoughts and seem to be something that puts me in a repeat state of contentment when I think back on those activities.
I became a faculty member because I was interested in research to help change the world and to inspire young minds to think about future possibilities in addition to developing current solutions to life's pressing issues. What I did not realize when I started my academic career is that teaching, research, and scholarship were never the end goal or mission that I envisioned. They were only vehicles that would allow me to build relationships and serve others. At NC State University, faculty realms of responsibility are divided into teaching and mentoring, discovery of knowledge, extension and engagement, creative artistry and literature, technological and managerial innovation, and service. The percentage of time spent by faculty in any of these realms depends on their appointment, rank, and stage of their career. While service is partitioned separately, the reality is that all these faculty realms of responsibilities are in the service of others.
Before our transition to a digital world due to COVID-19, I am sure that each of you had experiences when a former student stopped by the office or a colleague told you about how they were doing. The role you played in that person's life comes back to you and leads to feelings of joy and contentment. It is not to say that we are not getting student and faculty interactions through our new digital world (e.g., using ZOOM, Google Hangout). I have several ZOOM meetings per week with many different students, faculty, staff, and AEESP colleagues. I want to make the case that we should continue to explore ways to increase these acts of support toward the service of others to increase contentment. Instead of thinking of the mentioned faculty realms of responsibilities as exclusive independent goals, consider them all working toward the same goal: in the service of others.
“Ubuntu” is a word that comes from the Bantu language of South Africa and is defined as “I am because we are.” Desmond Tutu described the meaning of the word to explain how the dehumanization of others leads to dehumanizing yourself. Although that explanation could not be more important today in the United States (I will leave that for a future discussion), I want to stay in the positive. My interpretation of Ubuntu means that the service of all others is the primary goal and that we achieve it through the human relationships that we build in all our activities.
Although I have come to understand this goal, and frankly speaking, this human need of having relationships, our system of evaluating faculty and staff productivity does not include how impactful we are in the service others in all realms of responsibility. Although I do recall a Star Trek episode with Captain Jean Luc Picard explaining to a time traveler from the past that in the future, there is no need for currency as that is not the insatiable goal of humankind. He said that in the future, humans just seek to better themselves. I wonder if that was a different definition of Ubuntu? Ok, I am a little off topic.
My hope in having this conversation is to have each AEESP member consider reframing the goals within each academic realm of responsibility to assess how well relationships are built toward the service of others. Try to consider how well you are developing your relationship with your colleagues, postdoctoral fellow, and/or graduate students during your research projects. Make an effort to know a different student in your classroom and share an experience that could be helpful toward achieving their career goals. We are vessels of so much information and knowledge and we sometimes forget that our personal journey and stories are engines that drive the passion toward the pursuit of new knowledge and educating the next generation of environmental engineers and scientists. The wisdom that you share from your personal journey combined with your technical knowledge will be remembered more fondly than just the technical knowledge alone.
In addition to activities that you can do locally on your campuses, I want to encourage you to investigate the activities that are going on at AEESP. There are several committees that you can join to get involved in AEESP. All committees are designed to support our colleagues and constituencies that we serve. A full description and summary of each committee activity is displayed on our website (https://aeesp.org/committee-descriptions). These committees are an important dimension of the service that we do for our members and are filled with volunteers who have many great ideas and energy. However, they are always looking for more members to join and contribute new ideas that help grow and diversify our reach of support. I can easily highlight any of the committee activities here but do not want to leave out any as I am proud of all of them and would encourage you to join any that the spirit moves you to consider. If you have been a member of one of these committees in the past and have stepped down to pursue other activities, first let me say “Thank You,” and that I hope we can count on you to consider service on other activities in AEESP.
In closing, I believe that human relationships toward the service of all others are a significant path forward to help improve our well-being, joy, and contentment in our academic careers. Embracing the concept of Ubuntu, “I am because we are,” recognizes that building relationships and sharing our individual journey and wisdom along with our technical skillsets will strengthen our collective connection and reach those who feel unconnected and lack a sense of belonging. I hope you join me in spreading the power of Ubuntu. Best wishes for a safe, happy, and healthy 2021.
Footnotes
Joel J. Ducoste, PhD, BCEEM, FWEF, AEESP President