From the Chair

Abstract

Greetings to all. As your newest GODORT chair, I come into this position feeling like a student entering their new school year. As an elementary or secondary student, it was the excitement of new shoes, new clothes, new hairdo, new backpack, new lunchbox, seeing old friends again, and wondering how to make new friends, sometimes heading to a new school depending on the movement of grades. Then, off to a higher education institution, perhaps the first long stretch away from your childhood home and living on a campus or living in an apartment with new roommates, or commuting with a car or public transportation every day, finding the right building where your class is located, new independence, and for returning students seeing classmates again. It was that sense of new and familiar, exciting and terrifying, thrilling and intimidating, all rolled up together. Leaving the secure and comfortable and venturing into the unknown and unfamiliar for the chance to learn, develop, and grow in experiences, knowledge, and networking with colleagues. An old song that I learned in Girl Scouts long ago crept into memory: “Make new friends, but keep the old . . .”