One of the things I do besides write about knitting is that I travel this great land of ours as a higher education consultant, which is a fancy way of saying that I help colleges write web sites.
Given that higher education lives in either the public or not-for-profit spheres, we are often not the beneficiary of luxury accommodations. Unlike other business travellers, I am grateful for a nice basic chain hotel knowing that the alternative might be a dorm room or local establishment where the major amenitiy is a cockroach roommate the size of a small ham.
This is work a lot of us fall in to. We end up working on a campus and before we know it we have this weird little area of expertise. I have certainly had my ups and downs with it. After a rather long stint of writing "major descriptions" (what is an English major, what is a physics major, what is mass communications, etc.), I started selling skin care through a mutli-level marketing company in the hope I would never have to describe "sociology" or "environmental science" ever again. Turns out, writing major descriptions is a lot more fun and interesting than selling skin care.
Overall, I am terribly grateful for having had the opportunity to work on so many campuses. The faculty and staff at most colleges and universities are so committed, smart and passionate that it's a joy to visit with them. And the students...more fun than a barrel of hormonal monkeys.
The other day I started making a list of the places I've been privileged to visit. Sometimes I travel to fabulous destinations, but more often than not, it's the off-the-beaten track town or city, home to a small or mid-sized college that's serving the local population, providing intellectual training and job preparation to regional youth and adults. For example, have you been to:
Greenville, PA
Wilkes-Barre, PA
Elmira, NY
Keyser, W.V.
Bethany, W.V.
Fairmont, W.V.
Georgetown, KY
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
Kalamazoo, MI
Keene, TX
Longview, TX
Elizabeth City, N.C.
Lumberton, N.C.
Princess Anne, MD
Everett, WA
Shawnee, OK
Decatur, IL
Peterborough, Ontario
Squamish, British Columbia
Pomona, CA
Orange, CA