An actual jungle

Welcome to … the jungle?

Several weeks ago, I came across the image above on a college’s social media feed. For the purposes of this blog post, the institution shall remain nameless (including any notable characteristics of the institution). Suffice it to say, the entirety of this graphic was … well. I have a lot of thoughts, on the many …

two very wide eyes on a bright green/yellow frog

Gettin’ surreal in here

When we’re young, I think we all imagined that one day, we’ll be famous. At least, I know I did. I remember watching The Disney Channel as a kid, especially The Mickey Mouse Club (the early 1990s revival, starring future superstars like Christina Aguilera and Tony Lucca and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and Ryan …

a white envelope on a yellow background

A welcome to my students

Our classes start in two weeks, and today I sat down to write an email to my spring-semester students. Are you surprised to hear it was L-O-N-G?? Of course not, unless you’re here for the first time. 😉 I’m so happy with the tone it struck, I thought I’d share with my readers… just because …

RBG sign "I dissent."

I dissent.

Today is our third day of classes on my college’s campus. In person, without any legal backup to mandate masks or vaccines, or even require COVID-positive reporting. In other words, we’re well underway at becoming a COVID hotspot. It’s inevitable. In my class today, 1/3 of my students had masks on. I am literally not …

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 hand on a steering wheel of a boat

84 days to fall: Trusting students (and ourselves)

We only control what we don’t trust. Glennon Doyle As my last post indicated, I’ve been traveling this week — first to (attempt to) visit my brother in Kansas City, then on to my parents’ house in northern Arkansas. I hadn’t seen family since Christmas 2019, in the before-COVID times, so this has been a …

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 …

90 days to fall: Teaching Prof talk is soon!

Yesterday, I wrote about how I came to be an invited speaker (!!) at this year’s Teaching Professor Conference, which kicks off in just a couple of weeks. Today, I’m going to talk about the actual content of these TPC talks — how my thinking about teaching has been evolving over these last couple of …