The Aging of DL Adminers

It has just occured to me this week in certain discussions with my staff (most who have been around for the long-haul with me), that we are significantly older than we were when we started our journey into online education and its support and administration. For some reason, this is a field people seem to stay in (that's good). Then I think about my many wonderful friends and colleagues over the world in DL Admin, and realize that they, too, have matured and even grayed a bit. Many of us were in our 20s and 30s when we somehow fell into this field, often by accident, and now we are middle-aged, over-the-hill (or fast approaching), and actually paying attention to phrases like "retirement planning." We are, as a rule, a few pounds heavier (I'm still working on this one) and a little less energetic (they say our lung capacity diminishes). On the bright side, we have experience, wisdom, and respect. But are we losing our spunk, our willingness to take chances, and our shine? I hope not! As we have reached a new lifestage, so have our maturing programs. As we aging DL Adminers work to find new meaning in our personal lives as the years flash by, we must also strive to keep our programs fresh and shiny.