This is mainly for me.

I realized recently that I have not done much in my research area in the past few years.  It’s nice to have done research that is still relevant in conversations today.  I know that my doctoral research was a few years back, but I am able to still use it – even though I haven’t updated any of it.

A few days ago, I found and old paper that I had written for a conference.  I took a few of the concepts from my dissertation and pieced it together to write this paper so that I can do a presentation at a conference.  It was fun reading my paper – and I quoted myself which made me laugh that I could technically do that.  I quote a published work so there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s very pretentious.

I realized that even though my research from years gone by was still relevant, that I hadn’t used any of my research muscles or skills in the past years.  As I start working on the student life programming of this college that we are starting – I am thinking again as a researcher.  I’m really excited to set up these programs with the research in mind – a proactive approach to the programming as opposed to the reactive research methodology of most student life programs.  Not that it’s an after thought – but I only know of one student life program that was built on solid and grounded research.

So I am excited to build this student life program with the assessment in mind – on the front end, but more than that, I’m excited about researching again.  Writing papers and articles again will be fun.  But I am sure that I’m rusty so I better get to it.