University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

As a native of Spain, I would like to link 2005, the year of my promotion and tenure, to the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Miguel de Cervantes's masterwork (1605). This universal work of art has been defined as the origin of the novel as a genre, and as a masterpiece that focuses on the foremost appeal of literature: to become another, to leave a typically embattled self for another closer to one's desires and aspirations. Don Quijote and Sancho complete a caricature, the universal image of idealism on one hand, and realism on the other, which is the ultimate anachronism of human beings. As professors, we have a noble sometimes Quixotic--responsibility: to inspire the idealistic perspective in our students, and at the same time, to plant the seeds of reality in them in order to become better citizens of the world.