Hooray!

Before I say what I came here today to say, I feel it is important for me to reinforce for you all just how much I love teaching and just how important I think teaching is to an academic life. I have an utter, dogged faith in the power and promise of the classroom. Further, I don't just think that we, as teachers, are important to the undergrads. I also think that the undergrads should play a role in how we think about our research, how we write, how we conceptualize our place in the big picture. I think the undergraduates should be a vital part of a research community and I think what happens in the classroom should be more to us than a way to get a paycheck.

That said:

They've left! They're gone! Oh, oh, THANK GOD. The campus is quiet, the library is dead, the town is sane. The undergrads have gone home and left us in peace. The summer has officially begun.