Faculty members are needed to teach, but the person who will unclog their toilets is needed, too. It's a joint effort. Yet one of the most valuable resources a university can have, its staff, is often overlooked, unrecognized, and undervalued. They are somewhere in between, providing the resources needed to hold the race at all. Much discussion occurs these days about how to strengthen higher education's sense of purpose.
Faculty members seek to find meaning in their teaching and research activities.
Students find meaning in community service and in interdisciplinary approaches to learning that help connect them to the world outside the campus. Papers are written, conferences are held. The secretary who types the program, the graphic artist who designs the handouts, the dining-services employees who provide the coffee and bagels may all be doing those things not just as state employees, but also as members of a university. Sarah Stockton was a staff member at San Francisco State University from 1986 to 1989 and from 1996 to 2000. She is now a freelance writer and editor.