A Meaningful Academic Life: Loving, Fulfilling, Challenging, and Flabbergasting

Carolyn Ellis

doi:10.18778/2450-4491.08.16

Authors

Carolyn Ellis University of South Florida, Department of Communication https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3160-8436

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2450-4491.08.16

Keywords:

Academic life, academic calling, meaning and membership, retirement, academic aphorisms

Abstract

In this essay, I present the talk I gave at the celebration honoring my retirement from University of South Florida (USF). Held on January 25, 2019, this event was attended by an audience of friends, students, and university faculty and administrators. I tell several stories about coming to USF, meeting and collaborating with Art Bochner, and the support I experienced and the fulfillment I found in my university life. Passionate about teaching from the heart to the whole person and doing research that matters, I describe the meaning I derived from participating in an interpretive and qualitative Communication program that focused on the human sciences. I end with 10 aphorisms or observations from lessons learned in my experience of four decades in the university, some of which allude to the unnamed challenges I experienced among the great joys and good fortune of academic life.

Author Biography

Carolyn Ellis, University of South Florida, Department of Communication

Ellis Carolyn – Distinguished University Professor Emerita at the University of South Florida, USA. Co-creator of the concept of autoethnography and narratives studies on human life. She has published seven monographs, edited six books, and is the author of more than 150 articles, book chapters and review essays. Her most recent book is entitled Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness— Expanded and Revised Edition.

References

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