Is it spring yet? Updates on a full winter.

March 9, 2023

In my mind’s eye, winter is supposed to be the calm part of the year where I stay indoors and store up energy for a busy spring. Not this year. The year 2022 turned into the year 2023 while we were in Pittsburgh visiting family. I flew there with the kids while Khai did her citizenship interview in New Orleans (which went well, yay!) and then she met us a couple of days later. We had a long and rewarding visit with my dad and Beth, my uncle Hi, and my aunt Anne. The kids even had their first sledding experience! When we tried to leave in January, our flight only had one seat available, so Khai and Alice flew back while Aden and I stayed another 48 hours. To distract ourselves from being apart, Aden and I went to a trampoline park and had a blast.

After a week back in Baton Rouge, I flew to Thailand to guest lecture at Chulalongkorn University. It was so great to be back face-to-face with those students and colleagues. I also had the opportunity to commune with several of my Thai co-authors and research partners. I’m reminded of the special importance of face-to-face interactions in the Thai context. As much as I love Zoom and WhatsApp, there’s nothing like face-to-face.

Back in the States, it was a busy start to the semester with lots of happenings. The most exciting was that Khai had her naturalization oath ceremony and became a US citizen! We celebrated with a Thai lunch at the New Orleans restaurant Pomelo. At LSU, I’m teaching online this semester, but it still seems like I don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything I’d like to do professionally. That’s also because I’ve been intentionally spending more time at home with family and pursuing my passion (reading). My former advisor and dear friend, Maria Cseh, is a good model of a life where work is important but should never take priority over spending our best hours with loved ones. What message am I sending my kids if I come home exhausted? I’m willing (and in a place of privilege to be able) to sacrifice some “productivity” for quality of life.

Last week, the Academy of Human Resource Development where I serve on the Board of Directors had its first in-person conference since 2020 — and it was incredible! I forgot how much I love being around people, talking about somewhat esoteric (but hopefully relevant and significant) topics, and contributing to a scholarly community. I was one of the facilitators of the Future Scholars and Leaders Colloquium (formally the Graduate Student Colloquium) and it had a record 64 graduate student attendees. My big impression of the conference was that the Academy is in good hands given the brilliance and energy of that group. Now it is up to those of us in leadership to be good stewards of the Academy and support those students in their growth as scholar-practitioners.

LSU had quite a showing at the conference, despite only a relatively small group of us attending. Between my colleagues Shinhee Jeong and Sunyoung Park, the three of us represented 3 of the 7 Cutting Edge Awards given out to the best conference papers. This was my first Cutting Edge Award, so I was delighted. I also was honored to win the Monica M. Lee Research Excellence Award for my paper with Oleksandr “Alex” Tkachenko on regional human resource development in Southeast Asia and ASEAN. This award goes to one outstanding paper published in Human Resource Development International each year. It’s been a long journey since Alex and I started that project back in 2018 when we first presented a working paper on the topic at the Asian AHRD conference in Bangkok. It was finally accepted in 2020 but didn’t come out in an issue until 2022. It took so long to come out in print that I even wrote a book on the topic, which came out in 2021! Oh academic publishing… Great to see my book Developing Human Resources in Southeast Asia in print at the Palgrave Macmillan table (bottom row, second from the right).

Wishing you all a wonderful end of winter! For me, I’m hoping things slow down a bit, but slowing down is a choice I need to work on making, too.

Onward.