Dear President Cotton,

First, I wanted to thank you and the Vice President of Alumni Offices for running a story in the Willard College Lives and Lives! Alumni Magazine about my thirty one  years at the College as a member of the “FlexFax” team. (What a great improvement over “adjunct!”)  You can imagine my surprise in learning that I am the longest surviving FlexFax at the college. With the constant travel to my other places of employment, biannual office moves, the frequent retooling (the summer that I had to learn Chinese and GIS and prepare Introduction to Genetics is a blur), the annual and costly trips to conferences to interview for permanent positions, frequent changes of residence, a failed custody battle, plus the two hour commute home at the end of each day, I lost track of the years!

Willard College has changed since I first arrived. In the early days, it was tricky to figure out which buildings  still housed patients.  And so I’m all the more grateful for the renovated office facilities that came on line since then. All the more reason, then, that I share your concerns about the recent fires. I want you to know that I speak on behalf of all of the FlexFax when I say that we hope the perpetrator of these crimes is quickly apprehended.

Sincerely,

Hammond Phillip Phillips, PhD