Haven't been thinking much about New School history recently, dramatic as our present and recent past have been, but today I had two chances to exercise that muscle again - helping first year fellows prepare a class with their first year charges on "What is (this) college for?" and helping the Politics Department welcome new graduate students and faculty visitors. For the former I offered a simple timeline of the milestones our official story (working from Marketing and Communication's history of steady-seeming growth and diversification), then turned it upside down, making each juncture seem messier and more serendipitous. For the latter I spoke of how New School had fallen into being a university, though conceived as an alternative to universities, but since we did this backwards, Trickster-style, the connections between the different parts are less obvious than elsewhere, and perhaps more open to reimagining. Perhaps a boon at a time when "the university" is (again) in crisis? But really it was nice to have a school to be telling tales about, something not guaranteed a year ago. I realized I'm excited to see the next chapter.
