Dear Colleague,

How can I describe for you this Texas heat? When not moistening ourselves in pools, we swaddle in layers of air-conditioning and drink vats of icy mixtures. Direct light between the summer hours of 10:00AM and 4:00PM is assiduously avoided by a majority of Texans. I emerge mostly in the evenings, like a vampire, after the all-seeing eye of the sun sinks under the horizon. Ah, but winter is scarcely noticeable here; spring and fall, wondrous; and the library here at TCU—as also the world-over—fit for comfort in every season. Welcome, my tenure-seeking friend!

It has been merely a year since I arrived at Brite Divinity School at TCU as a first-year faculty member. I want to pen a few thoughts for you as I prepare for my second year. This is un-asked-for advice, I know; but I am confident that you will ignore or use it as seems best to you. Here are three mantras for start-up at TCU: cultivate professional relationships that further your scholarship as a social act; build habits of self-care; and enjoy Texas and Fort Worth. (It goes without saying that, above all, you should listen to wise deans and mentors. If they be not wise, listen respectfully, anyway. Adopt this as the mantra of your mantras.)

Know that scholarship is a social act. Make time for conversations with colleagues about teaching. Artful teachers create synergies with others. Seek interesting discussion-partners inside and outside your field. Start, of course, with those in your department, but do not stop there. TCU has a diverse and exciting mix of intellectuals. Start a writing group with faculty from other disciplines. Find colleagues who can guest spot in your classes. Join creative working groups with scholars and teachers at other institutions – nationally and internationally. Look for folk who are centered and passionate, and be that way with them.

Your classroom discussions, coffee-chats, and conversations at campus events can form part of the living tissue of your research. If you prioritize ‘So what?’ questions in your courses, you will benefit from the richly diverse experiences of your students; and they, from yours. Like all academics, you will spend alone-time everyday, to think and read and write and prepare for class. Avoid thinking of this work as creation ex nihilo. Rather, continue there with curiosities and questions that emerge in social networks with students, colleagues, and friends. Once you get the hang of it, the process becomes circular in a tenure-helpful way: research and writing, in turn, guide your decisions about which courses to offer. For more on this, consult with deans and mentors.

Get to know the professionals at TCU who can help you with the details that make scholarship possible. Start with the TCU police department, parking division. Yep. Parking on campus is a dark art. Learn it fast, directly from those most in command of its elements. Meet the good people whose expertise in two- and three-letter departments, like HR (Human Resources), IT (Information Technology), and ILL (Inter-Library Loan) can change your life. Avail yourself of Koehler Center offerings: seminars on how to use LearningStudio, design courses, and build tenure portfolios. Koehler folk are ridiculously smart and friendly. Not meeting them during your first year is a rookie mistake.

Build habits of self-care. Respect yourself as an embodied creature. Good food, ample sleep, and refreshing exercise are not ‘extra’ but basic to the trifecta of research, teaching, and service. Improve your diet. Find out where the best and cheapest eats are. Secure a full-sized locker at the TCU recreation center and take three sessions with a personal trainer to establish exercise habits that fit your needs and interests. If you enjoy watching college football, call the Athletics Department the day you get your job offer at TCU to add your name to wait-list for faculty season tickets. Sadly, at new faculty orientation in August, you will meet countless newbies who did not get this sage advice. Avoid their pain. If not football, enjoy the concerts, theatre productions, art shows, or other events that come at little or no cost to you.

Friendships are the most important and influential habit you can make. Keep in touch on a regular basis with your best friends from previous contexts. Shed the flaky ones. Let love for and from family, friends, and neighbors encompass, nourish, and relativize your professional life. Teaching, scholarship, and service are branches rather than roots of whole-personed love. If you will disbelieve this maxim, look first to the wreckage of those in our line of work who sacrifice too much personal happiness to attain and keep their position. Got beauty in your life? Nurture it. Do not have a creative and fun hobby? Get one. Crave friends? Make some.

Enjoy Texas and Fort Worth. You have heard some of the highlights in the pitch that drew you here. Learn a bit about the history of this school. In order to interact creatively with students in your courses, you will have to know something about this social and cultural context. Like any major city, Fort Worth has racial, economic, and political issues that are difficult. Find out what they are, and decide how you will invest in solutions. More importantly: ask a diverse range of Fort Worthians what they love most about their city. Then seek ways to experience it.

If you have never lived in Texas, then get out and see it. It is vast. It borders Mexico. It has a coast. It has mountains (though I myself have never seen them). It rains, once and a while. There are cows. Oil. Baptists. Lots of guns. The Dallas-Fort Worth area – the Metroplex – is home to millions of people. The stereotypes about them are true. Except when they are not. Which is often. Which means: you will get to make your own decisions and find your own joys and heartaches. Suffer no one to persuade you otherwise. Enough advice. Look me up when the dust of your fall semester settles. I will buy you an icy drink.

All Best Wishes,

Ed Waggoner

This article was written by Ed Waggoner, Brite Divinity School, for the Fall 2013 Issue of Insights Magazine.