Rick's Blog

#bunyipsbooksbeyond

Use the menu below to explore "All Posts," or delve into selected topics like "Children's Picture Books", and more.

The email arrives. Or the press release. Or the carefully worded announcement on the school’s website. Or the piece in the Alumni Newsletter. Or the post on Linkedin or Facebook There it is again. “Ranked #1 in the nation for the 10th consecutive year.” The headline is clean, confident, and irresistible. It signals excellence. It reassures stakeholders. It travels well to alumni newsletters, donor briefings, and prospective student inboxes. And yet, beneath that polished surf

I have never cared for the phrase: “We are the #1 veterinary school in the United States.” Not because excellence should not be celebrated, but because I am not entirely sure what, precisely, is being celebrated. What does #1 veterinary school actually mean? And perhaps more importantly, what does it do for a profession that prides itself on care, diversity of practice, and service? What Are We Really Measuring? Most veterinary school rankings are built less on objective outc

Force #3: The quadruple mandate. There is a particular look I have started to recognize in young faculty. It isn’t incompetence. It isn’t indifference. It certainly isn’t lack of commitment. It’s fatigue. Not the ordinary kind. Not the end-of-a-long-week kind that a good night’s sleep fixes. Something deeper. A thinning of spirit. As though the light that brought them into academia in the first place has quietly dimmed. Early in my career, exhaustion usually meant one thing: