When it was first announced that my sweet little campus would be closing, I was treated very well. The chair of my department emailed right away, and essentially, I could’ve spent Fall 2023 semester teaching at the UW-Platteville campus, or the UW-Baraboo/Sauk County campus, or online, or some mix. Online seemed right at first.
But the more I thought about it, the worse that idea seemed. Not just teaching online (which can be done very well, and which I had done at least competently already), but teaching at all. I was filled with the strongest sense of dread I’d ever felt any time I thought about it. I was writing in my journal at one point and the thought occurred to me, “I’d rather be dead.” Not, as in, I was or am suicidal in any way (I have issues, but that’s NOT one of them), but just–my subconscious trying to let me know DON’T DO THIS.
So I decided to retire and announced it and said right away I wanted a big-ass party. I couldn’t get the kind of party retirees at my campus had gotten in the past, where the retiring faculty or staff member met with the dean’s secretary to sketch out what kind of party, after which people would make donations for the party and the gift(s). Nope, couldn’t do that. By the time the campus was closed, there wasn’t a dean, let alone a dean’s secretary. But dammit, I wanted a party. For myself, yes. As I said in my remarks, any criticism anyone ever had of me as a professor wouldn’t be news to me, because I’m super self-critical as a general rule. Super high ambitions and expectations of myself. But I wanted to end my Richland teaching career with people saying nice things to me. To somewhat balance the scales.
My mother and father very generously funded everything, and the lunch ladies made an amazing spread, and my good friends Gail and Lisa (and Lisa’s whole family) handled logistics so it would just work.
So yes, I wanted it for me. But I also wanted to have at least one final party like the parties we’d had in the past, something people could come to and have kind of a reunion, and that’s exactly what happened.
And I wanted it during the school year, so Richland’s last batch of students could attend. It ended up needing to be in March, because we had two alumni events, spring break, play productions, and awards night taking up other weekends before finals.
Thus, the fact that I’m just now sending out thank-you cards is embarrassing. Tacky. Ridiculous. Awkward. Maybe not worth doing at this point? But I am doing it. With personal cards to people who nicely brought or sent gifts, and then probably postcards eventually to people who brought or sent cards, and if there’s someone on the sign-in sheet that just showed up to wish me well and didn’t bring a gift or a card (or they DID but I’ve lost it, which–I’m kind of a clutter-monkey, so yes, things do get lost, and it has been TEN FREAKING MONTHS).
So, for everyone in the above paragraph–your personal thank is coming, slowly but surely. In the meantime:
That’s the design I made for postcards and coffee mugs. I asked people attending to take a postcard and write a thank-you, not to me, but to someone else who’d helped make Richland wonderful.
If you were there and want to relive it, or wanted to come but couldn’t, or are just curious now, or whatever, it is available on Nova Video’s YouTube page, A Very Marnie Sort of Retirement Party.
I’ve watched it once or twice. I might watch again and transcribe my remarks and do another post with other remarks I considered making but cut because, as my good friend Sarah says, “Never leave them wanting less.”
And maybe that’s a good sentence to remember, when a career ends (just a little) too soon. Feels good when I apply it to my professional English teaching years, 1987-2023. When a much-loved campus closes leaving an educational desert behind, the sentence doesn’t have the same ring to it.
marniere 