this is the dumbest shit

Countdown to fall: 2 days

Note: I’m going to cry while writing this. I’m going to continue crying while thinking about it. And I sense a gusher of tears is coming in the months ahead. I am not afflicted with the worst-case scenario anxiety that routinely sends me spiraling over the small but present probability of terrible things happening. In …

underwater view of swimming pool lanes

49 days to fall — movement & learning

It’s been a minute since my last #100DaysToFall post, which I’ll choose to attribute to my copious reading, family vacation to St. Louis, and general decision to attend to other things that felt more pressing. But here we are at the cusp of July, and the fall semester draws ever nearer. For this installment of …

A woman at a library doing research

68 days to fall: Are adjuncts human shields?

It’s been a little while since my last #100DaysToFall post; I’ve been working on an R&R for a teaching-centric article and, oh yeah, presenting at The Teaching Professor Conference (*in person*) in New Orleans. My mind is aswirl with all sorts of thoughts about teaching and pedagogy and higher education and equity and collaboration and …

a woman sits at her desk and is happy

82 days to fall: Caring in classrooms

I have so many thoughts swirling in my brain today, mostly because I’ve been consuming information at a faster-than-normal clip (thanks to all the driving I’ve done in the last week — more than 32 hours in the car over seven days). But for a #100DaysToFall post, I pulled out a book I read over …

a paper heart torn into pieces

88 days to fall: The hard truth is that we cannot reach everyone

Ostensibly about teaching, this #100DaysToFall series has been a delightful daily challenge to muse over what a teaching-obsessed college professor’s summer life looks like. For the most part, it looks nearly identical to the middle-of-the-semester life, save formal class meetings and the endless waves of guilt for not giving students feedback more quickly. I spend …

95 days to fall: Incomplete grades

I’ve been doing an awful lot of thinking lately about incomplete grades. Namely, this: How many incomplete grades can and/or should an instructor award before it becomes excessive? As I started thinking about this blog post a few days ago, I did some Googling around to see if there were other like-minded academics mulling over …