Multiple identities

We all have multiple identities, different faces that we put on for different occasions.

I ran into this head-on today. I was deep in a conversation with a prospective graduate student, a very interesting and far-ranging conversation I might add, when she mentioned that she reads my blog.

And for a moment I was taken aback. What un-professorlike things have I said in these pages, I wondered. In that moment I realized that when I get to the University, I am always wearing a sort of mask — my “professor” mask. Even if it is a friendly mask, it is still a mask.

In this blog I allow this mask to slip in ways that would not be appropriate in the classroom. Here I speak of life, of love, of the absurdity of it all. I write novels. I indulge in the sin of poetry.

But maybe it is all to the good. Students know that behind the professorial mask there is always an individual of flesh and blood, however cloaked in ceremonial cloth. Perhaps the very presence of that individual, ultimately not that different from themselves, inspires them to learn.