Rather than my weekly post about academic life, I thought I would take a moment to comment on my father as a scholar & role model.
Today, my father sent me an unexpected text message - asking his prodigal son - about Academia.edu recording thousands of citations to his work. He had no idea that anyone tracked his #citations or read his work.
His text disrupted my thoughts - from the paper that I'm working on about drivers of social media information disclosure - & made me think about what it means to be a scholar.
Please note, I recognize that it is not without some irony that I stopped working on a paper on information disclosure to, well, disclose information online.
In any event.
My father is an independent scholar - working nights & spare moments - pursuing ideas.
On weekdays, my father worked a full-time job, acquiring, archiving, & curating family history records for a large non-profit organization.
On weeknights, when circumstances made it possible, my father taught Chinese history as an affiliate of universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, & the United States.
On weekends, as much as my mother would permit, my father spent his time writing papers, preparing presentations, & editing books.
When my father retired, he promptly joined the #UniversityofUtah - & fulfilled his dream of teaching while wrapping up the translation of a classic Chinese text.
My father taught me mentoring is not easy. When I rebelled against his love of the #humanities and studied #business and #computing - because I was more interested in the present & the future, he accepted my choice - & asked at my graduation, "what will you study next?"
At that moment, he shared his respect for my academic freedom, as a good mentor should.
My father taught me the value of staying engaged. Even now, late into his 70s, he works on papers, gives presentations at conferences, & takes joy in poking his son (or protege?) to keep working on ideas and educating kids.
On each call, my father asks, "what are you studying now?" He asks, "where have you submitted your work?" & asks, "how is that kid from Scotland doing? Or from China? Or from North Carolina?" Recalling my #PhD students' names, their stories, & asking me to attend to their well-being - because they are his academic grandchildren!
My father taught me to value opportunities for conversation, to look in unexpected places for new insight, and to humor uppity young scholars. To him, thousands of citations never mattered, it was about the joy of discovery & the people.
At a time when universities value quantified scholarship, emphasizing citations counts, h-indexes & publications, I hope that every young scholar has a chance to find a mentor like my father, to witness their love of the work, the ideas, and the teaching.
We all need a scholarly mentor like him!
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