September 7 and the summer is gone.  Oh where or where has my summer gone?  I don’t know where time goes, but for me it was wonderful summer perhaps proving the adage about time flying when one is having fun.  The dull dreary early July weather did nothing to harm eighteen days of retreat and holiday up at Jesuit cottage near Silton, Saskatchewan.  It didn’t matter that Fr. Joe Schner (former President of Campion College) and I had to turn on the heater a couple days to keep the room comfortable for sitting, reading, and feasting our eyes on the splendor of Last Mountain Lake.  Wonderful cool night made for good long restful sleeps!

All that time I anticipated a twelve day visit to Sligo, Ireland.  The W. B. Yeats International summer school again more than met my expectations!  Six of the ten lectures were simply splendid.  My friends welcomed me again with warm hospitality I have come to identify as Irish!  Two weeks of dinners, lunches, and visits were squeezed into the one week!  An extra bonus was to celebrate Mass twice for the country parish community near Drumcliffe (the burial site of W. B. Yeats – and its curious epigraph carved on his tombstone by his own command, “Cast a cold eye/ On life, on death./ Horseman, pass by!”)

August was full of wedding anniversary celebrations, one, a fortieth and the other, a fiftieth!  One celebration was rustic involving a fabulous Saskatchewan country BBQ with its setting an acreage just north of the Qu’Appelle valley, and the other was urban with a late Sunday morning Mass and fabulous brunch in the senior common room at Campion College.  Besides good family visits and good food, both offered entertainment by the newly formed singing duet of Marlene and Frank!

And today, as I sit at my desk looking out my office window at the big “S” on one of Regina’s downtown towers, I see all the traffic in the parking lot just below my window.  Families are unloading boxes, suitcases, and strangely shaped containers.  Young men and women are passing by alone and in clusters.  Despite the grey clouds hovering, there is a definite spark on the campus.  Tomorrow promises to be even more exciting as students continue to take possession of their campus.  The entire University goes into welcome mode.  Campion College too has a full day of orientation for first year students.  I am looking forward to the Head Start program.  Even though I’ve been involved with beginning of school years for over sixty years, I still experience its excitement.  I look forward to greeting the over one hundred Head Start students and to start getting to know my English 100 students on Wednesday!

Frank

Some Lenten thoughts:  Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return the words used for the imposition of the ashes at the Ash Wednesday liturgy are rather somber.  And last week the world outside my window was too.  The fog made even the hoar-frosted trees and landscape look ashen.  Both invited introspection.  Curiously, contemplating ones own fragility and the inevitability of dying, does not necessarily end in despair, but rather can lead to a clarity of purpose for ones life and a re-commitment to what is true and lasting.  The alternative set of words for imposition of ashes, Turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel,  points in the direction of hope in this life despite its vicissitudes and elicits an anticipation of what is beyond imagination the fullness of life promised by Jesus for those who struggle to adhere to the path of love.

The semester continues, but last week without students.  I hope they enjoyed the week respite from classes.  I hope too they caught up on some of their work (like getting a head start on the rest of the reading for my English 110 course).  But while students and faculty had some down time, meetings and activities of administration continued on with no let up both at Campion and at the University.  My heart went out to everyone at the First Nations University these past weeks especially.  I pray that First Nations peoples, the Governments, and the University of Regina will be able to forge an agreement to assure that the mission of First Nations University will be upheld and that the institution will be an even  stronger partner on the Regina Campus.  I remember that in First Nationss early days on the campus the fifth floor of Campion College was one of its sites for offices.  Father Hannin, S.J., the then superior of the Saskatchewan Jesuits, even made sure that the Jesuit Fathers provided some First Nations student bursaries.

In the Deans office?  Besides the regular daily duties, I am excited to work with the Catholic School Board , the University of Regina, and Campion faculty and staff to explore putting into place  Accelerated Courses in the Catholic High Schools in Regina.  The program is envisioned as enabling high school students to take a university credit course while completing their high school requirements.  The benefit for the students is to make transition to university easier and to give them a head start in their university academic program.

2010! A new year and a new decade!  It was appropriate that 2009 ended with a blue moon.  On New Year’s Eve, as I mulled over the past year, I marveled at the brightness of the full moon on the frozen lake at Saskatchewan Beach.  I recalled Cat Steven’s lyric from a few decades past about being “followed by a moon shadow”.  The moon actually did cast shadows,  wonderfully clear shadows of the tree limbs on the white snow.

While my past may be like moon shadows, 2010 brings with it much brightness and excitement for the future.  Already I have begun my English 110 and look forward to meeting my students each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  The theme of the course is ‘the journey motif in literature’.  It is good theme for beginning a new decade– a new journey!  The Odyssey is our first book.  I do hope that there are no Polyphemus’s, Charybnis’s, or Scylla’s during the semester journey.

I still have much to learn in the Dean department of my life.  Getting courses firmed up for the Spring/Summer and Fall terms, advertising for sessional positions, sending out contract offers,  all continue to be new experiences.   I will chair the Academic Review Committee today.  That involves deliberations concerning faculty applications for Career Growth Increments, Merit Increments, Tenure, and Promotions!  All very serious ‘stuff’!  I am glad that the committee members have to do the deliberations at this point!  My deliberations only come later.  I am still surprised with the number of items which come through this office for consultation or decisions. But I look forward to new ideas, experiences, and challenges that continue to be just around the corner of my journey into 2010.

A challenge for me during this past week is to respond to the calamity in Haiti.  It is difficult to feel helpless in face of such suffering.  I will do what I can do, offer Mass and prayers for all in Haiti and for those families who mourn, and ache for loved ones.

Frank