Sheila's Farewell

I am finally announcing Sheila Cheng’s resignation – and I recognize that we will lose a very precious teaching asset, an extraordinary person who gave her all to her students. I can think of many adjectives to describe this teaching icon: caring, dedicated, dutiful, experienced, industrious, learned, selfless. I can tell you that she is irreplaceable, clichéd as it may sound. You can imagine that in my department, where I have 4 (full time) teaching staff (including my good self) – her departure would mean that my department would be 25% incapacitated by end August 2009. You can appreciate by now that I don’t simply take in lecturers just to fill up the vacant teaching slots – unless they are good! That’s why at HICT, my department has the fewest number of lecturers and the largest number of students.

Anyway, SNHU students and staff threw her a farewell lunch today at Denny’s, and even as we fill our stomachs, our hearts cried silently. There were students, both past and present, and colleagues, both academics and non-academics who came. Sheila Cheng is really special and she will be missed! And oh yes, special thanks to Nicola, Woon Shi and Shireen for putting this luncheon together.