Too Many Events on Campus?

Am I the only one who doesn’t read many of the emails I get announcing no-doubt fabulous things going on around my campus?

I feel bad about being a bad citizen, but not bad enough to read most of them all the way through. I hate myself for not taking advantage of everything that’s being offered, but not enough not to go home when I’m done with my classes, office hours, and my own research.

One of the many unreasonable fantasies I had as a graduate student was that when I became a full-time faculty member and would therefore have all the time in the world (my first mistake because of course things never get easier, just more complicated) I would go to all sorts of events happening in the glorious community of which I would be a part. I would attend lectures, not only in my own department — of course I would go to every single one of those — but I would be a regular at talks, colloquia, forums, and performances hosted by other departments as well.

I pictured myself cramming my calendar with dates for openings at the local museum, performances by my students in plays and concerts, and literary readings at our campus bookstore. I saw myself eagerly opening announcements alerting me to the university calendar several semesters in advance. The very awkwardness of my phrasing tells you just how long ago it was that I was having these fantasies. We didn’t have e-mail when I was in graduate school. We had to open actual envelopes and find actual pieces of colored paper inside, often with hand-drawn graphics.

Yet it turns out that even in graduate school– working two jobs, taking three classes, and attempting to survive a bad first marriage — I had more time to go to events than I do now.

I certainly looked forward to hearing about events far more than I do now.

I hate to admit this, of course, because I still would like to fancy myself as one of those people who is a vivid, vital, always-colorful part of the larger fabric of the campus community. I’d also very much like to regard myself as one of those people who has a dynamic, fluid, ever-changing, ever-expanding set of intellectual and cultural experiences. Hell, I’d like to think of myself as someone who is interested in learning for learning’s sake.

The older I get, however, the less willing I find myself to open those notices announcing a campus speaker or Student Union-sponsored event. This is a drag because I am sometimes that person on another campus, and I’m always hoping that people will leave the comfort of their homes to come and see me. How rotten is that?

It’s the guilt, more than anything, that breaks my heart because I really would like to have all the time in the world, just as I imagined I would. I genuinely do enjoy most of the events that I go to — after I show up. I’m genuinely excited when we have good poets and writers, essayists and stand-up comics come to the campus. I’m happy to line up right next to my students to get tickets. But, heartbreaking as it is, it’s also difficult to talk myself into going to those readings or talks of people that I don’t know or haven’t heard of whose work doesn’t precisely dovetail with my own.

What’s the difference between now and then? In graduate school, I used to go to those events with gangs of friends; it was part of my social life. We would drag each other around. My colleagues are less likely to do that for each other now, unless it’s to call in a marker: the kind of thing where an old friend or colleague is coming to campus and you feel obliged to make a reasonable showing so as not to embarrass your university, your department, or yourself.

This is part of the reason I’m less likely to invite folks to campus: Not only is the budget increasingly tight, but it’s increasingly difficult to get people to come to events (see above).

Even for the students’ time, there’s now a lot of competition. There’s a sense of frantic over-programming on a lot of campuses. I hear this not only from my colleagues, but also from students that I know on various campuses around the country. Every school is invested in giving their kids a lot of bang for their buck, which, while not the most charming of phrases, is an accurate one, since there seems to be more of an emphasis on the noise and special effects nature of the event rather than the quality.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for in spilling my guts about the program-palooza on my campus: Commiseration? An outlet for that guilty voice in my head? Perhaps, in writing this, I’m finally admitting that even in my graduate school prime, that sense of urgency to attend those events wasn’t really coming from anything internal. I’m not entirely immune to pressure from external forces these days, but that crushing sense of obligation has worn off with time.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I have other things to do, several of which are taking place off campus.