That's (Academic) Amore! or I heart the University!

These are the reasons I love working on a college campus:

EVENTS!

From WAMMfest (Women and Minorities in Media Festival) to planetarium shows on the third Friday of every month to performances, lectures and films, I love being at a place that has so much in a ton of different areas going on, all the time.  We have New York Times Talks during lunch about issues in the news, and internal conferences, (our keynote speaker at the multicultural conference was inspiring),  that can be downright stimulating.  There was a film last week that I attended called "Traces of the Trade" that was followed by an awesome student and faculty discussion (check out some of the comments on the link. Some of these grievances were aired in our discussion. People REALLY need to watch this film.)   If I wasn't working on this campus, I wouldn't know about half this stuff.  I feel really lucky to have learning opportunities outside of librarianship, every day just by being in an academic setting.  Love it.

COLLABORATION

Outside of the amazing librarians I've met, I also have met and talked to the amazing faculty that have either haunted our campus for years, or are brand new, like myself.  We talk about what we're working on, and very often if they don't have suggestions, or can participate, they know someone that can and should. I'm working with an audio recording professor on a non-library related project, but we'll also be recording some original music for the tutorials that the librarians are putting together.  That has been really fun.  I love that my personal interests and talents are actually translatable (is that a word?) into the library field.  Not to mention the crazy connections I keep making in trying to get my capstone project rolling for the fall.  Every time I mention it, someone seems to know someone else that can help.

CLASSES

While I may not have taken advantage of any classes here on campus, (I'm admittedly fairly busy with library stuff), I really like having the benefit that members of my immediate family can attend classes at a discount. My husband is a painter and finished one class and is looking forward to another.  I'm glad that he gets some sort of constellation for uprooting his whole life in order to follow me out to Baltimore so I could see where this residency thing would take me.

Service

There is very little that is more rewarding than a student effusing,  "Thank you so much!" It makes my week.