Excelsior
chips off the old block
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Settling into summer break
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Don't diss the diss
Yesterday I was all smiles after a total stranger came up to me at a meeting and said, "I've read your dissertation." Today I'm trying to figure out whether it might have been a mistake or a little white lie or an elaborate prank.
I mean, has anyone outside of my dissertation committee ever read my dissertation? Decades ago I presented some bits of it at conferences and I published a piece of one chapter in a journal, but my dissertation exists primarily as a printed document in my house and in a regional university library--only the abstract is available online. It would take a significant effort to read my dissertation.
But the person I bumped into at this meeting had been talking about a stretch of old-growth forest she visits with her classes, and I recalled that I'd visited those woods close to 30 years ago so I could take some photos, one of which ended up in my dissertation. The stranger said she'd cataloged everything that had been written about that stretch of woods and that my dissertation was part of the collection, which at the time sounded plausible, but now I'm not so sure.
So I dug out my copy of my dissertation and took a look, and sure enough there's the photo of the woods in question accompanied by exactly one sentence labeling the photo and naming the woods. That's all. There's maybe one more obscure mention of the woods within the document, but it's not mentioned in the abstract or the title, nor does it play any significant part in the argument. So maybe someone (who?) might have been reading my dissertation (why?) and stumbled upon that brief mention of those woods, and maybe that person passed the reference on to the scholar I met yesterday, but the odds for that scenario seem vanishingly small.
We were in a room full of happy people at the time and it didn't occur to me to give the stranger a quiz to verify that she had done the reading, so I just beamed at the possibility that some total stranger had actually read my dissertation. Except maybe she didn't. Maybe she's confused. Maybe it doesn't even matter. But I appreciate the brief glow her words inspired as well as the excuse to hunt down my dissertation, which I'm sure I haven't looked at in twenty years. (The argument remains sound, but goodness gracious I used a lot of semicolons.)
Monday, May 12, 2025
Applause all around
I came out of Commencement Saturday with sore hands from applauding so much, and then I wanted to walk right over to the peony patch and applaud some more. How could those tight little buds burst into such massive gorgeous blossoms so quickly?
I'd like to ask the same thing about the students I clapped for as they received their diplomas. (Well, their diploma cases--the real thing comes later, after grades are submitted. Which reminds me of a great line from the Commencement speech: when he graduated from Marietta College in 1970, our speaker's diploma case contained only a bill for $2.48 for library fines--"And I don't remember ever checking out a book." It was a great speech and when I get the link I'll post it.)
It seems like only yesterday that these bright-eyed students came toddling into my first-year classes wondering what the word syllabus might mean, and now here they are tottering across the stage on platform shoes and out the door toward jobs and adventures and real life. Go, you! Here's a round of applause!
And how did I celebrate my sudden burst of freedom? With birds and wildflowers, of course, and by diving into a good book. I have some projects around the house that need attention and my summer campus meetings start tomorrow, but right now I'm spending every spare moment doing as close to nothing as possible. Go, me! Here's a round of applause!
Thursday, May 08, 2025
Grading accomplished! How shall I celebrate?
Today I waved goodbye to my office, a purely symbolic act since I'll need to be on campus many times this summer to attend meetings and manage events, but sometimes a symbolic gesture is just what I need. I finished grading student projects today and turned in final grades and then I walked out the door and shut it tight.
Yesterday's grading pile was made up of hand-written exams and in-class essays dense with tiny, crabbed handwriting; today's grading pile was all online documents, presentations, and portfolios. Both types of grading left my eyes begging for mercy, my vision so blurred that I struggled to read my list at the grocery store and couldn't read signs on the drive home. Good thing I knew where I was going!
But where shall I go tomorrow? I need to attend Commencement on Saturday and two big events on campus next week, but tomorrow's schedule is entirely blank. My husband suggested that I visit a friend, but I've fulfilled my quota of peopling for the week and I think I'd prefer to be alone--but where? Someplace quiet and peaceful and far from the madding crowd. Long walk in the woods? Deep dive into a good book? Or something else entirely?
The sense of possibility is what I like best about summer break. No need to punch the clock or put on teaching clothes or prep for classes--just long hours that somehow manage to pass without a lot of fuss and bother.
Goodbye, office! (Until next week.)
Monday, May 05, 2025
No need to get all shouty about it
It seems the semester just started last week, but what's left to do now? A final exam, some student presentations, a few meetings, and a whole mess of grading. I'm tempted to say It's all over but the shouting, but at this point I hope people keep their shouting to themselves--unless it's happy shouting, which I will accept any time.
We had some happy shouting today at the final meeting of the First-Year Faculty Support Group, which I've been leading since last August when I met all these colleagues at New Faculty Orientation. Orientation is a pain to organize even when the incoming group is small, but this group has been such a blast! I've had the opportunity to help them understand important topics--how our faculty governance system works, how to interpret student evaluations, how to troubleshoot teaching problems--and I've enjoyed observing teaching and encouraging them to do great work. Today's meeting was all about sharing our fabulous experiences, which led to much laughter and a little happy shouting. This group has been so helpful, they said, which I found encouraging because planning meetings is not my favorite thing to do and I'm glad when it works well.
That will be one of my summer projects--planning orientation and arranging mentors for new faculty members and adjuncts--but first we have to hire some people. I suspect that this fall's group will be small because who can afford new faculty members? Still, we have some holes to fill in a few key departments, so I'll make sure they get the training they need.
Also on this summer's project list: write the final report for the grant I administered, provide a professional development activity for staff members, help plan a summer creative writing day camp for high school students, update the official Syllabus Template to include specific language concerning use of Artificial Intelligence, plan fall pedagogy workshops, oversee Writing Wednesdays, and work on my own writing projects.
And plan my fall classes! Neither course is entirely new but I haven't taught Nature Writing in ages and I'm pursuing an entirely new topic for the freshman seminar. Yes, it's a little disappointing that our senior faculty member in the English department has no literature class to teach this fall, but I'll manage. I intend to have lots of fun with these two fall courses and then enjoy my last couple of semesters before retirement--and then it will really be all over but the shouting.
Friday, May 02, 2025
Stop me before I get "brilliant" tattooed on my forehead
I had to do a little shameless self-promotion in my American Lit Survey on Wednesday just to show what sorts of rewards may follow when research and teaching go hand-in-hand. I taught Natasha Trethewey's poem "Native Guard" a few years ago and then I read more of her work and did research and wrote an academic essay about why and how I teach the poem--an essay that was published in Pedagogy journal last year at this time--and so this week when I taught the poem again I showed my students the journal and told them how prior students' experiences had informed my writing and current students may inform my future writing, putting a neat little bow on the last week of the semester.
What I couldn't show them (because it wasn't available yet) was the most recent edition of Pedagogy, in which Elizabeth Brockman, who recently retired as editor of the "From the Classroom" section of the journal, devoted her farewell column to praise for the last essay she had ever edited for the journal, one she holds up as an example of what the journal can and should do. "I chose this essay because the author is brilliant, the essay is skillfully written, and the topic is profoundly important," she wrote.
Reader: I am that author. The essay she's praising is mine.