Academia is often a waiting game. Degrees take time to accomplish, hires and fires are slow, and any kind of change is incremental. Despite the speed of information in 2022 (and beyond), the institutions of learning move more like a Jawa’s sandcrawler: Full of valuable stuff but frequently slowed down by their own bulk. (Image attribution: starwars.com) Since my successful dissertation defense during the first week of November of last year, I’ve been waiting for my diploma to show in the mail. Following weeks of reminder e-mails to the registrar and graduation services, this paper validation of the past 4.5 years of work arrived at my house. I came home to find the following: To say the final ceremonial step in my doctoral work was anticlimactic would be an understatement. It actually looked like the mailman had flung it like a frisbee, releasing it to sail across my lawn to rest on my porch. I could picture “graduation services” driving through neighborhoods on floats, zipping off