Partnership exists everywhere- whether it be a partner for group work, your relationship as a student with an educator, or your relationships with your boss and coworkers. What comes from the various partnerships in life? As Gan says to T’Gatoi in Bloodchild, “There is risk…in dealing with a partner.” Though there is risk to dealing with partners, I feel there is also many rewards. When dealing with partners of any type, you are offered a look into their mind and their own points of view. As a result, you may learn something from a perspective you’ve never encountered before. As stated by Professor Beth McCoy in her syllabus, I will be witnessing many different perspectives of administrators from Geneseo and the SUNY system. Engaging in these partnerships will help me to fully understand all that goes into this partnership between myself and this college and the partnerships between all the people that make this college run.
The first partnership I made in this course was the partnership between Professor Beth McCoy and myself. At first, I didn’t see my relationship with Professor Beth McCoy as a partnership, but after class discussions I had realized that it is a partnership of a different form in which I have never thought about with my professors. This gets me thinking about how this course may be different from any other course I have taken, given how engaged Professor Beth McCoy is with all the students and how it her relationship with the class has been referred to as a partnership. Given the nature of this course and partnership itself, I think that this course will be constantly focused around what we both are going to need to give to engage in this partnership most successfully. I would like to explore what exactly Professor Beth McCoy does differently than any other professor to make it seem more like a partnership, even though it is already a partnership no matter what course I am taking. If I am not in class to partake in my portion of the partnership, then there truly is not a partnership to be had. I feel as though the small class size makes it easier for it to feel more like a partnership, but I also want to challenge myself to see aspects of partnership in all my courses this semester. The partnership with Professor Beth McCoy is not the only partnership I embarked on the first day I came to this course. The other partnership that I was engaged in right from the start was with the other students. I feel as though there may be more risks with that partnership, because we do have a collaborative essay that we will have to complete together. Given that the group I am in will have class time to complete the essay alleviates some of the risk, but not all. There is always the risk that a partner in the group will not complete their portion of the work. One of my goals is to not be the partner that risks a poor grade for everyone else. Another goal of mine would be to potentially help another partner if they are stuck so they do not become the risk as well. Though the collaborative essay may be the only graded portion of this partnership, every day in class, this partnership becomes more and more active as l learn through the other students and see things from their perspectives.
There is one type of partnership that I will never know the true inner workings of, but it is still notable. This is the partnership between Professor Beth McCoy and the administrators of SUNY Geneseo. Though I will not understand Professor Beth McCoy’s partnership with administration, I can relate it to some experiences I have had in different jobs and how different roles work together for one common goal. Professor Beth McCoy has a partnership with all the administrators in some level, but there are some that she may have a closer partnership to or ones that are so important that she is bringing them into partnership with myself and the other students. Professor Beth McCoy states in the syllabus that I will be listening to four different administrators from various roles which engages myself and the other students into the partnership Professor Beth McCoy already has with them. Having four separate days that administrators are coming in shows how important it is that I can engage in the partnerships with administration. This raises the question for me of how far am I going to get into these partnerships within this semester and also how far into the partnerships will I get into by the time I graduate, since without even realizing it I have been engaged in these partnerships from the day I applied to Geneseo? What administrators will I have the best partnership with? This whole semester I would like to think about how many partnerships I have within this college and how much each one influenced or will influence my career at Geneseo.
I have never seen my relationships with educators or administration or anyone of authority over me as a partnership. Throughout this semester, I would like to challenge that portion of my thinking because a partnership can mean very different things and works in many ways. I engage in partnerships every day, and I have never thought to notice them in that way. Some of the partnerships I engage in that I don’t currently see as partnerships may have been or will be the best partnerships of my life. Just from the first two weeks of this class my partnership with Professor Beth McCoy and the other students in my course has changed how I think about everything that goes into running this college and partnerships in general, and I want to be able to watch these partnerships grow and evolve throughout the semester while also forming partnerships with new people.