Modern Media Barn: Thoughts

For the last 15 years, I have been a media researcher.
I guess I will always be a media researcher.
Someday, I may return to mass communications and academe.
I know I have some tentative contacts out there.
A person with my teaching and research experience gets notices when not in our so-called “primary” field.

However, what was once a sabbatical has become a new primary area of interest.

As many of you know, I have spent nearly the last two years working for
the Picard Center for Child Development. Picard is a research center that evaluates
education initiatives in Louisiana and, soon, regionally.

There are some practical advantages to this new area research.
Well funded, well crafted efforts are always more interesting.
Volumes of quality data is just fun.

The environment at Picard is exceptional as well.
People laugh and work together in an environment that is more about completing projects
than getting credit or status. It is, by far, more healthy than where I have been in the past 15 years.

Finally, on a personal level, I feel like I am contributing to a needed project.
Improving education and raising people out of poverty may not me as profitable
as some fields. It is more clearly useful.

The end is a question.
Have I left my previous path?
or has my path returned to me?