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 …
At 6:34 pm (central) on Friday, September 18, my cell phone pinged to alert me to an incoming text message. I glanced at the screen. My pulse accelerated rapidly at the two words that appeared under the name of a former student–one with whom I traveled to Washington, DC, last May for a two-week learning …
I recently blogged about a variety of things clustered around emotion at work — psychological safety, leadership in challenging times, etc. — and did so in a vague-ish way, because I’m painfully aware that I’m not in a position to speak freely about some of the trickier aspects of my work life. You can deduce …
I’m delighted to share my annual review of my favorite books I read last year. Thanks to my full embrace of Goodreads, I know a few things about my reading last year: 119 books, 30,313 pages, averaging 254 pages per book. If you want to go back in time and see what I loved in …
I spend about 10 hours a week commuting to and from work I love. That’s a lot of time in the car, but to the amazement of most who ask, I cherish it. It’s my time. It’s time I spend listening to podcasts, thinking, decompressing from all of the people-ing I do in my day …
It’s pretty common that someone I know — importantly, someone who knows me well — will ask me, with a laugh, “How many jobs do you have right now, Liz?” Just this morning, Doug said to me as I was leaving for work, “I just hope you don’t say ‘yes’ to everyone this semester.” I’ve …
Like many of my friends, and a whole stinking lot of the world who watched Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance speech at last night’s 75th Golden Globes extravaganza, I felt moved by her words. Feel free to watch if you haven’t yet (somehow): But as a political scientist, as a teacher of government, and as a citizen, …
NOTE: This page is a repository for some of the more interesting, insightful, and applaudable comments and questions from my students. It will be updated frequently. At the end of each class meeting this semester (fall 2017), I’m asking students to reflect on what they learned that day that was important or interesting, then to …
Confession: I LOVE Jen Louden. She’s a writer, a writing coach, and just a phenomenal woman who does phenomenal work that I wish I had more time to fully embrace. She recently sent out this quick 3-minute video called, “Writing made me do it,” in which she talks about taking a few moments to journal about …
It’s the beginning of a new semester AND a new year, so I’m reading slowly this month … but I am slowly reading Jes Baker’s unflinching book, Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls, and it’s the sort of stuff that makes me want to put down the book after each paragraph and find someone to …
