Posts that appear on this blog are written – by me – in a third-person, disembodied style or voice. Not this one. Allow me to get a little personal – even if it seems to be focused more on the professional.
Last night I was helping, in my role as undergraduate director for the department, to resolve a rather obscure advising situation. The details are unimportant. What is important is that I realized that for the past few years, if I did not know the answer to a question like this, I’d go right to Nancy, who would drop whatever she was doing to help me.
The point here is simple: Beyond the personal aspects of her passing, which of course are tragic and sad, she’s leaving a huge hole in our department. Not only did she willingly and cheerfully take on the most difficult of advising cases, but she was a veritable treasure trove of institutional memory. How have we dealt with this (whatever this was) in the past? Ask Nancy…
And now that’s no longer possible. I don’t mean to ignore the personal aspects of this. But of course we’ll muddle through situations like the one I dealt with tonight, but I imagine I’ll be thinking of her every time one comes up. And that certainly speaks to what a terrific colleague and valued member of the department she was.