The Day

Today is my last day as Chair of the Department of Music at Webster University.

[Full disclosure: I am not counting the holiday weekend, but May 31 is officially the last day. Let’s hope nothing happens this weekend that needs ‘chairing.’]

Earlier this week, I wrote my colleagues a long valedictory letter. We’ve had a good run. Herewith, a portion of that letter:

Dear colleagues,

Thank you.

Those two simple words well up from my heart as I enter this last week of service to Webster University as Chair of the Department of Music.

On balance, we have done good work together, and had a good run as the current team. 

I am most thankful to my colleagues who have labored alongside in the Department of Music -- our current team and those who have now commenced the next phase of their professional and personal journeys in retirement. I am eternally grateful to the late Peter Sargent for bringing me to Webster. And I must recognize the support and collegiality of the other department heads in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts, both the current colleagues and those now no longer in leadership, and also our current Dean, Paul Steger, who has been a source of wisdom and unfailing kindness.

One of my biggest celebrations is that our camaraderie is real. We have all heard the tales of other schools where faculty meetings are rancorous, and where drama and intrigue are real. None of that exists here. I’ve said over and over again that one our successes is that we just don’t have the Older v. Younger faculty divide that could have happened as we started on our decade-long hiring spree. And I thank you for that!

We are indeed a cohesive unit, ably dividing responsibility and empowering others with trust and encouragement, firmly looking onward to a common goal. That goal is spelled out in our 2017 mission statement. But underlying the mission statement is the idea that we will be the best we can be for our students, maximizing the resources we are given, being scrappy when necessary (as these current times demonstrate), never resting on what we’ve already done.

And if that’s the legacy that remains after my thirteen years are complete, then I’m pretty darn pleased.

I am so ready for a summer off (my first without teaching or administering since 1989!), and I’m eager to join you elsewhere in the circle in our faculty meetings, to return to the full-time professoriate as I spend my last decade in academia, to cheer on (and join with when called on) our transformational new generation of leaders.

Leading this music program has been a privilege. When all is said and done, the joy from these last thirteen years will be the second most important professional happiness on my list — the first being the influence on countless voices and lives in what I hope will be a forty-year career of vocal and choral education, insha’Allah and God willing.

Thank you for mercies and kindnesses and trust along the way. I am so grateful, and aware of my blessings, that I landed here with you in Saint Louis in 2008.

Be well. Have a great summer.  

Jeff

2008, just after arriving at Webster.