IT wizards for the win

It was just over a year ago that I took my college-owned laptop down to the dim bowels of the admin building and surrendered it to the IT wizards. "I think it's possessed by demons," I told them. They scoffed at first, but after some hands-on experience with the quirky beast, they retired the machine and provided a new laptop.

Well, not exactly new. New-er, maybe, and less likely to suddenly start deleting everything I'd been working on. I've used that newer computer for about a year without incident, or without the kind of incident that made me want to go after it with a blowtorch. 

Yes, the USB ports were sometimes unresponsive, and yes, the computer refused to recognize the cordless mouse unless I reinstalled it every couple of days until I finally gave up and plugged in the corded mouse, and yes, sometimes the power adapter would joggle loose and fail to function, and yes, the laptop refused to run without being fully plugged in at all times, which kind of defeats the purpose of a laptop. But I was able to live with those quirks--until last week.

I think it developed tech leprosy--a loss of sensitivity in its nerve endings, a loss of response in peripherals. One day the touch-pad stopped responding, and the next day the keyboard, and finally the on-off switch. I could unplug every stinking cord and jiggle every stinking connector and press buttons with varying degrees of intensity and mutter dark incantations under my breath until eventually the thing would start working again, but the whole process took a lot out of me.

And so I submitted a ticket to IT, and lo, it came to light that I'm actually due for a new laptop this summer, and the blessed IT wizards waved their magic wands and made the new laptop appear, fully equipped with all my files, favorites, and programs. I've spent some time this morning updating the desktop slideshow, checking all my saved passwords, and looking in on files to make sure everything is intact and functional, and I have to say my office has been refreshingly free of muttered imprecations. With all this spiffy new tech at my fingertips, I'll have to find something else to complain about.

Now if only the IT guys could do something about the weather... 

Inside, outside, upside-down

Outside the air is too hot to bear and too thick to breathe, seething with humidity; inside my office I wrap myself in a woolly blanket and avoid touching the ice-cold top of my desk.

Inside the office I have no plants, having killed off the last remaining evidence of my houseplant ineptitude, but outside my window Virginia creeper climbs the wall and thick stands of pokeweed invade a weedy space where groundskeepers can't work right now because of an onslaught of hornets.

Outside groundskeeper cuts dahlia blossoms from the pollinator garden in front of my building, offers me a few to decorate my office; inside, though, I have no vase, nowhere to put the flowers in water, no way to enjoy them without causing damage and droop.

Outside my house a fawn walked past the window this morning all cute and cuddly, but inside I still flinch every time I see a deer alongside the road and even, sometimes, when I don't see a deer beside the road, thanks to lingering trauma from the deer that materialized out of nowhere and wrecked my car.

Outside my head I remain cool and calm, carrying the facade of a competent person with everything under control; inside, though, the gears are constantly turning and everything's heating up in preparation for whatever hornets' nests I'll encounter in and out of classes, committee meetings, and campus controversies.

Someone needs to find a way to bring outside and inside into agreement before these extremes send me climbing the walls.  

 

A learning community built on trust

It seems odd to get involved in a heated discussion of the nature of interdisciplinary learning in July, but such are the dreams of the everyday academic. Summer break is a great time to work on reinventing courses, but we've got to buckle down and work a little harder if we're going to implement this new model before classes begin.

And here I am talking about implementing new models in the middle of summer break--or actually, near the end of summer break, eek! But it's also kind of exciting to meet with colleagues to figure out a way to make a supersized Honors learning community work.

I've taught in various types of learning communities over many years, some more effective than others. For at least a decade I've taught my Honors Literature class as a learning community with the Honors section of the introductory first-year seminar course. Last year, for instance, I taught my usual Odysseys topic while the same students took a first-year seminar focusing on superheroes; both classes talked about the nature of heroic action and the consequences of decisions, and we designed a few assignments that required students to draw on material from both classes. We also shared some out-of-class activities, but only a few students engaged with activities outside the classroom so it was kind of an anemic learning community.

In addition to Honors Literature and the first-year seminar, these same students were enrolled in a section of the one-hour first-year class focusing on college transition skills like time management and community engagement; however, I've never managed to engage the instructors of the one-hour course with our learning community, possibly because their time is so limited and their curriculum is dictated from above. But this year, all that has changed. Yes: instead of an anemic two-class learning community, we are bringing together five different classes.

They're all Honors classes, and most of the Honors students live in the same section of student housing so they'll already be interacting with each other regularly. For this learning community, half of the Honors students will be enrolled in my Honors Lit course and the first-year seminar on a linked topic, while the other half will be enrolled in Honors Communication and the first-year seminar on a different linked topic, and both sets of students will be enrolled in the one-hour college skills seminar. That's four faculty members from various disciplines and a Student Life staff member, for a total of five instructors represening a variety of disciplines and ranging in age from twentysomething to seventysomething (and I'm not even the oldest in the group this time). 

And here's the exciting part: we're not just planning to do a few field trips and a shared assignment; instead, we're working on an interdisciplinary group project that will engage students in group work and creative advocacy. Coordinating this project across five different syllabi--and finding an effective way to assess and grade the project--will be complicated, but if the discussions we've had so far are any indication, the results will be worth the effort.

This kind of project requires a great deal of flexibility, openness, and trust; yesterday, for instance, a colleague said, "You realize we'll have to be comfortable grading students on material from outside our own classroom." We all looked around the table in silence for a moment, and then "Sure," I said, "I can be comfortable with that. I trust you all." And that's how a learning community should work.

Looks good on paper! But how will it work in real life? Stay tuned for further bulletins. 

 

Gadzooks (and cukes)

After a long road trip I sit awhile and wait for my brain cells to catch up--I seem to have left them scattered along highways in seven states, or else they're just so tired of watching the world whiz past the window that they've decided to go on strike.

Among the other stupid things I've done this week, I bought eggs and then left them in the cart in the parking lot of the grocery store. I hope someone else grabbed them quickly because they wouldn't have lasted long in that heat.

Heat and humidity provide unpleasant conditions for me but perfect growing conditions in the garden. I wish my zucchini plants had take a vacation, but no: my son picked bags and bags of zucchini and cucumbers while we were out of town, but even so, my husband filled a five-gallon bucket with produce Wednesday morning. I took some zukes 'n' cukes to campus to give away to people who kept thanking me profusely, but I'm the one who should be thanking them. There's another zucchini I won't have to chop, grate, store, or bake.

I used the last of the eggs yesterday to bake seven loaves of zucchini bread, most of them for the freezer. In the past two days I've also made zucchini quiche, stewed kale, green beans, and cucumber salad, and I processed a massive pile of kale and a big bag of broccoli for the freezer. That's just the kind of mindless labor I need after a long trip, even if my multitasking skills are a little rusty.

Today I'm back on campus for the first of a series of meetings on various topics. Classes start in four weeks and I've got to check a lot of things off my to-do list before then, starting with gathering my wandering brain cells and whipping them back into shape. At least they'll be well fed. Zucchini, anyone? 

Just a small sampling of what we're facing

In a green place, with dogs and blossoms

My childhood memories of trips to Connecticut involve crowded rooms full of aunts and uncles who had very firm opinions on many topics of no interest to a small child; now all the aunts and uncles are gone so our visit to Connecticut was crowded with dogs and trails and waterfalls and flowers.

And a kayak. Yes: my brother succeeded in persuading me and my husband to try out his two-person inflatable kayak, which he promised we novices would not be able to flip. And he was right--we paddled around a flat, calm lake without incident, except for my difficulty in getting in and out of the kayak. 

We hiked to waterfalls and took the dogs for a splash in a creek, ate fabulous food (much of it cooked by my talented brother) and stood in the rain eating ice cream at a dairy--but not before visiting the Pinchot sycamore, where we were dwarfed by its nearly 30-foot circumference. 

And then this morning we left Connecticut and drove to Longwood Gardens, south of Philadelphia. I promised myself that this time I wouldn't take a zillion photos, but then I saw a hummingbird and started clicking away.

Tomorrow we get up early and make the long drive home, taking sore joints and piles of sweat-soaked laundry. And pictures, of course, and memories. This vacation has passed too quickly but I doubt that I'll soon forget the many varieties of beauty we experienced.

The Pinchot Sycamore, in the rain

Bash Bish Falls

Cloud hugging the mountain

Indian pipes

Striped wintergreen

Looking toward Hartford from the top of Case Mountain

Mississippi River Trillium

Cup plant

Shrimp plant

The orchid room was amazing

Orchids that look like autumn leaves

Lollipop tree

Artichokes in Pennsylvania? Yes!

Mounting toward beauty

"We have to make things beautiful; they do not grow so of themselves," wrote Edith Wharton, and she certainly lived out that principle when she built The Mount, her house near Lenox, Massachusetts. This is the place where she was able to free herself from her mother's oppressive influence and invent herself as an author, but after her marriage fell apart, she sold The Mount, moved to Europe, and never returned. The house eventually fell into severe neglect, but a massive restoration effort in the past 30 years made the house and grounds again a place of beauty. 

Every place we looked, we saw something beautiful, whether inside the house, in the gardens, or on the paths through the woods. Even the path up to the little pet cemetery where Edith's little dogs were laid to rest is a treat for the senses. The Mount currently hosts an outdoor sculpture show called Sculpture Now, which added interest to the experience; it's delightful to happen upon a little art at a bend in the path. It was a beautiful experience, for which I am grateful to both Edith Wharton and the Edith Wharton Restoration group that keeps it beautiful. 

 

"Old Growth" by Bobby Sweet

The path to the pet cemetery

The wrapped trees are part of an art project.

We didn't see any bears, alas.

Catbirds were active all over the grounds.

The gap between upper and lower hedges created a window onto a view toward woods and pond.

grape arbor

Edith's bedroom, where most of her writing happened

The desk in her study--I wanted to take it home with me.

"One Leaning on Another" by Joy Brown

"Balthazar III" by Wendy Klemperer

"Gruntled Inflection" by Justin Kenney

Detail of "Unbridled" by Deborah H. Carter

"Gourd II/Homage to Van Gogh" by John Ruppert

Detail of "I Have Been Dreaming to Be a Tree" by Byeondoo Moon