I have been asked a number of times, “What is it like to be the new president of a College?”  My impression is that it is a lot like any other experience of moving to a new city and a new job.  With better furniture.

The first thing that happens is your IQ is sliced in half.  Things you could do just a few weeks ago, in another city and on another campus, are suddenly a mind-boggling ordeal. Diving headfirst into a new city and job, surrounded by so many new people and places, can be pretty disorienting. Befuddling, even.

Fortunately, this is a transitory problem -- every day is marked by fresh successes.  On day two I was able to find my parking place on campus.  On day three I understood for the first time directions I was given on how to get to a meeting in another building (hard to go anywhere if you don't know the landmarks). I had a major triumph during my second week on campus -- someone asked me for directions and I was able to answer (I might have even been right)!

That was also the week I was finally able to remember new passwords for everything from my ATM card to logging into the IC computer network to accessing my e-mail and my calendar.  I still don’t know my phone numbers either at work or at home, but I am sure that will come in time. 

There are compensating advantages to all this drastic change. It's a time of rapid learning, and I'm taking in as much information as I can squeeze out of every encounter.  Life is richer when nothing is routine, and I'm sure I'll have no shortage of memories from my first eight weeks in Ithaca.

Hopefully my phone number will be among them.