raise a glass

I've been to a few university retirement parties in the last couple months (I guess people realize it's a good time to leave the UC system!) and I always leave each party feeling such a sense of gratitude towards being a part of the Design department. Everyone, both faculty and staff, truly care for one another and there is a presence of genuine community that I know can be rare within an academic department. Tonight's party for Victoria Rivers, Design faculty member for 30 years, was another great celebration. And true to the spirit of the Design program, it was an eclectic mix of memorable moments, including a faculty member asking me if I wanted a tequila shot (I politely declined, I'm not a tequila girl). Then there was Victoria's touching speech about how the success of her career was not due to her own talents but was a collaborative process involving every other faculty and staff member she had worked with over the years she had been at UC Davis. I think this is why I really enjoy retirement parties because it is a special time of recognizing not just how far one has come but the people who have been there along the way. Personally, there's no other group of people I'd want to share the professional part of my life with right now and it does pain me to think of eventually leaving such a grand group of people. One last highlight of the night was eating cake. More specifically, the way the cake was eaten: there weren't any extra plates or forks leftover from dinner, so one of the faculty jumped in and suggested that we serve it on napkins. Instead of being snooty and complaining, everyone went on socializing as normal, while eating off their napkins with their fingers. It doesn't really surprise me Victoria stayed in this department for three decades, it's just a unique place that attracts really warm, down-to-earth people who don't mind getting a little messy while eating some cake.