On July 1, 2027, after 37 years as a faculty member and academic administrator at UC Davis, I will retire from the university. As I thought about how I wanted to spend my final year on campus, one word kept returning to me: gratitude.
Thirty-six years ago, in the spring of 1990, UC Davis admitted me to its Ph.D. program in English, awarded me a fellowship that covered my tuition throughout graduate school, and offered me a teaching position. Those three gifts turned into 37 years of work I loved.
During those early years, generous mentors helped me helped me grow into the teacher I hoped to be. Ellen Lange (who co-taught my first class), Marlene Clark, Eric Schroder (who taught me how to lecture confidently), Alan Williamson (who directed my dissertation), Sandra Gilbert, and many others modeled intellectual rigor, kindness, and deep respect for students. They challenged me, encouraged me, and trusted me with important responsibilities. Every class I have taught since then carries traces of their influence.
I spent many years exploring how writing, instructional technology, and research-guided pedagogy could enrich teaching and learning. Those interests gradually expanded beyond my own classroom into administrative positions that allowed me to collaborate with colleagues across the University Writing Program, the English Department, and eventually every school and college at UC Davis. I have enjoyed helping faculty experiment with new teaching tools and pedagogical approaches while maintaining a focus on students.
I also appreciated having the opportunity to create and lead initiatives that encouraged faculty to share ideas about teaching and instructional technology, like with the faculty forums on topics such as generative AI and accessibility that I host twice a month during the school year. Yet, when I look back across nearly four decades of academic work, I find myself thinking less about programs, committees, publications, or administrative titles than about people.
Over the years, more than 5,000 students have passed through my classrooms. Some arrived bursting with confidence. Others discovered their voices and obsessions along the way. My students have become writers, teachers, physicians, therapists, nonprofit leaders, deans, parents, and thoughtful citizens.
Every quarter they showed me new ways of seeing the world. They introduced me to books I had not read, bands I had not encountered, technologies that reshaped education, and questions that lingered long after grades had been submitted. They reminded me that every classroom is a community of learners, and that the professor gets to learn alongside everyone else. Looking back, I realize that one of the greatest gifts my students gave me was the permission to remain intellectually young, whether as a 23-year-old graduate student or, now, a seasoned (I almost wrote “wizened”) academic administrator.
That realization has inspired a project I want to pursue throughout my final year at UC Davis.
Over the next 365 days, I will write about 365 former students whose lives intersected with mine in memorable ways. Some stories will celebrate inspiring accomplishments. Others will capture a single classroom conversation, a surprising paper, an office-hour discussion, or a moment that changed how I think about teaching. Many of these stories extend well beyond a single quarter; some students became colleagues, collaborators, and friends. Together, I hope the essays and videos I create will become a portrait of the extraordinary people who have enriched my life through the ordinary rhythm of university classrooms.
Memory has its limits. I recently cleaned out my office and recycled boxes of papers that an earlier version of myself would have guarded forever. The most valuable artifacts of a teaching career do not fit into filing cabinets. Rather, the real record of my career lives in conversations, relationships, and moments that resurface every time a former student writes to me. As much as my memory lets me, those are the stories I want to preserve.
This year will be my Year of Gratitude. And although my time at UC Davis will be drawing to a close, my work as a writer, teacher, radio talk show host, interviewer, and poet will continue.
Fittingly, as I sat down this morning to write these words, I opened my email and found a message from a former student whom I recently contacted about the part he played in a pre-professional writing class for English majors that I created in 1998.
Dear Dr. Andy,
Thank you for reaching out, and congratulations on your upcoming retirement. I certainly remember you and your class.
I consider my time in your course, along with a mentorship program at UC Berkeley, as pivotal moments in my career. Focusing on writing, revising, and crafting my statement of purpose and grad school application materials gave me immense confidence. I have frequently shared that positive experience with colleagues over the years.
Thank you for everything you did in that class.
Best,
Jeremy
Earlier this year, Jeremy became Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the university where he has taught for many years.
Jeremy’s note arrived at exactly the right moment. It reminded me why teaching has been such a privilege and why gratitude feels like the right theme for my final year at UC Davis. I look forward to sharing many more stories like his over the coming months.
July is here. Welcome to the start of a new fiscal year!
Let’s see how you do with no hints this week.
I look forward to seeing you tonight and every Wednesday at 7 for the Sudwerk Pub Quiz.