Promotion

Summer 2008 has been full of news.
I have been promoted to a Full Professor.
As many of my colleagues have left APCSS, indeed I am one of the longest serving members of the faculty. Of course, seniority alone does not warrant a full professorship, especially under Professor Robert Wirsing's chairmanship of the Promotion Committee. I am deeply satisfied that my promotion was handled in the most professional manner under his chairmanship. I am also extremely thankful that Robert took it one of his last tasks at APCSS to see through the committee evaluation of my promotion application before he left APCSS.
With the promotion, I have moved into a bigger office. Indeed, it is the office Robert used when he was at APCSS. It was nice that I could lift the self-imposed ban on book buying that was in effect for the last few years due to the limited shelving space in my office.
Indeed, in the most recent trip to Tokyo, I had a chance to spend several hours at Kanda-Jinbocho--the prime book shop district. In Tokyo, I was conducting interviews for my new research. I also had a chance to get together with Japanese alumni of APCSS.
A new group of fellows has arrived, and I am paired with a newly recruited faculty member as a co-seminar leader. As usual, fellows come with diverse backgrounds, and some of them have already proved themselves to be very rich sources of learning for me.
One sad news I learned of recently is that Trans-Pacific Hawaii College (formerly Kansai Gaidai Hawaii College) is closing its door. I taught there from 1995 to 1998, at its petite but functional and scenic ocean-front campus in Aina Haina. Some of my former students have kept in touch, and I just learned of one coming to Hawaii for her wedding.
Back home (at my parents' house), my father brought tons of fresh sea food to celebrate my promotion and family reunion. It was a nice and tasty bonus.
Trade wind has returned to Honolulu with a little more regularity. Time for windsurfing shopping in Maui??? Quite tempting...