By Sabrina Bong – When I was younger, I used to babysit for a little girl who went to my elementary school. One time, I remember asking her mother why she didn’t leave the older brother in charge.

She laughed a little and said, “She wouldn’t listen to her older brother. Who listens to their older siblings? But because you’re here, and you’re separate from the family, she’ll listen to you.”

It was a concept that I didn’t really understand until I was in high school. During those tumultuous teen years, I saw that I would usually listen to my friends and teachers over my parents. My parents could be saying the exact same things, but I would believe the person who was outside of my immediate family. It wasn’t necessarily because those people were easier to connect to; it was simply the fact that I was struggling to establish independence from my parents.

Looking back, it was pretty silly. Why did I not listen to my parents’ carefully thought-out advice the first time around?

The biggest example of this was when I first was accepted into Marquette. I met with Latrice Harris-Collins, who worked with the admissions department at the time. During our meeting, she asked me what I wanted to major in, my extracurriculars in high school, and whether or not I had started thinking about how to pay for Marquette. I told her that I had filled out my FAFSA form and that I had been applying to a few scholarships, but didn’t think much would come out of it. She smiled and pointed out a few scholarships that she thought I should apply to.

I think she sensed my hesitation because she said, “What have you got to lose? You may as well try.”

This was the exact same advice that my parents had given me, but for some reason, I believed Latrice more than my parents. Either way, I took her advice, worked hard, and received several scholarships from many different organizations, one of them being from Marquette.

I remember Latrice so well because she not only pushed me to try for the scholarships, but she had a very unique counseling style. During our meeting, she made sure that she talked to both Mom and to me. She even told my mom at one point that she wasn’t allowed to talk! I really appreciated that. Latrice made it known that I was an adult, and that though she appreciated my mother’s thoughts and opinions, she also wanted to hear directly from me. Latrice also refused to let me shrug off major responsibilities. She reminded me that no matter where I went, scholarships were available and important. I did not want to spend my entire life paying off student loans.

Knowing what I know now, I realize how much influence a counselor has on his or her students. We serve as a liaison between students and their parents. We can collaborate with parents to ensure that their student is getting the advice and encouragement they need. We can help steer students down a path that is right from them. It is my hope to be a counselor as encouraging and inspiring as Latrice … and to one day, impact someone as profoundly as she impacted me.

By Ryan Manning –

From the early days of the listserv, many Student Affairs professionals, in an effort to stay current in order to best relate to and meet the needs of the modern college student, have sought to become experts of social media, and many of us use whatever downtime we find in our days to update our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or what have you, accounts. We also have a knack for scouring the internet for hilarious YouTube videos and sharing them with everyone we know, typically other Student Affairs professionals. We have real jobs that keep of busy most of the time, I promise.

So, it ought to come as no surprise that this new string of videos caught on pretty quickly in student affairs circles, partially to share and laugh about, but eventually to also use as teaching tools. What are we doing to help our students realize why the content of a “Things Girls say to Gay Men” video is worthy of so many head shakes? It’s a great way to frame conversations about stereotypes, multicultural competence, or just thinking before you speak. Ideally, this is why we’re on YouTube so much. I encourage more educators to take this approach, familiarize yourselves with today’s hot topics, and find ways to use them in your day-to-day work with students.

But that’s not really why we’re on YouTube so much.

We’re also on YouTube to find out that there are videos like “Stuff RAs Say,” “Stuff Resident Directors Say,” and “Stuff Student Affairs Professionals Say.” Needless to say, I find these videos more hilarious than anything. It’s been great to share “Stuff RAs Say” with my friends who were RAs with me in college and laugh about how, even four years later, we still can laugh about waking up in the middle of the night imagining that the duty pager is going off.

At a recent staff meeting with my current RA staff, one of my RAs wondered, “Someone I’ve never met today told me that they could tell I was an RA just because I used the term ‘active listening.’ Is that an RA thing to say?”

I couldn’t help but laugh and think about how unique of an experience it is to be an RA, or any student leader on campus. Then I went back on YouTube and watched Stuff Hall Directors Say to RAs, to laugh some more. It shows you that while my work as an RD can be grueling at times, especially given the massive spike in alcohol, drug, and mental health-related crises around the country, laughter really is the best medicine. And nothing makes me laugh more than thinking about how often i utter the phrase, “so how does that make you feel?”

So that’s why nearly everyone you know who works in student affairs tweets more than you think is humanly possible while still having a full-time job. For the most part, social medial is an amazing tool for those of us in higher education to connect and share ideas and best practices for the wide variety of institutions that we work at, from large to small, urban to rural, and I can imagine that it could be used the same for K-12 educators and administrators. And by better understanding the ways in which our students communicate and the messages that they are receiving, we are better equipped to help deliver the most comprehensive out-of-class education possible.

But, we also just like watching hilarious videos.

By Bill Henk –

In other words, I won’t write about cats or snow days or my rusty teaching or Santa’s Naughty List or our Marquette winter commencement celebration.

Besides, there’s lots happening in the state politically around education that appears to be calling for some expert perspective.  Most significantly, Governor Walker announced an Education Reform package with three key foci:  Educator Effectiveness, School Accountability, and the Read to Lead program.  Respectively, the proposed legislative actions would:

• establish a framework for a teacher and principal evaluation based 50% on student outcomes and 50% on educator practice
• create a system whereby schools will be measured on multiple measures of  “growth and proficiency,” and will require them to display report cards on their website and distribute the information to parents whose children are entering the district.
• require all students to be pre-screened for kindergarten, and  all teachers graduating from elementary education programs to take a more rigorous licensure exam beginning in 2013-14.

If you want to learn more, here are some links to:  the release of the Wheeler report, the report itself, and the related statement by State Superintendent Tony Evers.

So, What Do I Think?

To be honest, I haven’t had time to read the report, so I’ll have to withhold my reaction for another day.  Otherwise, I’d be guilty myself of criticizing things I don’t know about.  Plus, I’m not sure I have the energy right now to deconstruct the initiatives anyway.

I will say that the 50% student outcomes metric for evaluating teacher effectiveness gives me pause, and I’m not personally thrilled with subjecting aspiring teachers to what I imagine will be yet another expensive paper-and-pencil exercise.  When it comes to qualifying to become a teacher, application in the classroom is the litmus test.  I’ll wait to see what the exam looks like, though, before making any final judgment.

And I’ll also say that, generally speaking, I can’t think of a single thing that occurs in classrooms at any level that I’d want to see legislated.

Even with these preliminary reservations, I’m willing to give all of these Wisconsin initiatives the benefit of the doubt.  Some could prove to be very good.  And of course, some may be dreadful.  Time will tell.

I want to be clear here that all of the aforementioned Wisconsin reforms appear to have benefited from input by individuals with expert knowledge.  But trust me when I tell you that I could share with you a list of questionable educational reforms, much too long to note  here, that have been driven by amateurs-at-best.  Equally important, there is NOTHING funny about any of these endeavors because they impact school children.

We Don’t Get No Respect

Either way, thinking about the reforms does give rise to a sentiment I’ve been feeling strongly for a long time, so that’s what I’ll write about here.  The concise and objective version is that too often educators at all levels are not treated like professionals.  The more resentful and pessimistic version pertains to how frequently individuals and groups who are not particularly expert about education can still impose their collective will on educational systems — whether it’s ultimately good for students or not.

Grandmother Knows Best

If I’m trying to write something serious, then why start the post with a goofy photo?  Well, some readers will recognize the title of this post as a line used in a stand-up bit called “Grandmother’s Song” by that “wild and crazy” comedian, Steve Martin.  The lyrics, sung against a banjo accompaniment, are supposed to offer life advice that he was given by his beloved grandma.  The sentiments start off plenty nice enough (Be courteous, kind and forgiving, be gentle and peaceful each day…), but eventually devolve into complete absurdity.  The actual verse with the key line is:

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus
Be dull and boring and omnipresent
Criticize things you don’t know about
Be oblong and have your knees removed”

OK, maybe you had to be there.  Even so, I’ve NEVER forgotten that particular line, and have marveled at how often that phenomenon occurs in real life.  I’ve also been impressed by how deeply telling its implications are as advice — in reverse.  In my personal and professional experience, I’ve often encountered people expressing strong and even harsh opinions on matters that outstrip their actual knowledge by light years.  It definitely puts one’s patience and tolerance to the test.

Oh, who am I kidding?  No doubt I’ve done the same thing myself.

However, criticizing educational things people don’t know about  strikes me as being particularly pervasive and acute.  When it comes to schools and teacher training, there is never a dearth of criticism or lay recommendations; it’s a shortage of knowledge that’s often in short supply.

Honestly, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to abide pure nonsense about education being uttered in my presence.  I’m pretty good at biting my tongue.  But every so often, against my better judgment and lacking in the discretion and decorum a good dean should exhibit, I call out the misinformed.  Worse yet, when I do, I tend to be, shall we say, impassioned, because it takes a great deal of insanity to flip my switch.  It’s like an out-of-body experience for me.  Typically I regret the emotional intensity, but almost always feel that they had it coming.

Let’s face it.  Nearly everybody has pronounced opinions and views on education.  Some of it is 100% right-minded, but too regularly, what some believe and espouse couldn’t be further from the truth.  It comes down to whether they genuinely “know whereof they speak.”  Sorry for the clichés, but they all work in this instance.

In truth, it’s not altogether clear to me why almost everyone feels comfortable rendering definitive judgments about K-12 and higher education.  Seldom if ever do these folks understand the full context they endeavor to change.  As far as I can tell, the extent of expertise in too many cases amounts to having gone to school.  In fairness, school experiences almost always includes graduation, and most of the time it includes some or even extensive college coursework.   But more often than not, it often amounts to exactly zero experience in schools and classrooms in any role other than as a student.

Think of it this way.  I’ve been in hospitals for a boatload of operations related to sports injuries, studied some anatomy, and my name carries a “Dr.” in front of it.  But it would be sheer lunacy for me to offer my take to a surgeon on how invasive, corrective procedures should be done.

Then why would we want amateurs teaching our precious children, administering complex school and district systems, or shaping public education policy?  Sorry, but I just don’t get it.

For that matter, although I was a teacher myself, have spent hundreds of hours in schools in various professional capacities, and earned a terminal degree in education, I wouldn’t dream of weighing in on a wide range of issues that are better left to teachers, principals, central office administrators, and superintendents.  They’re on the ground, the front line, in the trenches, doing the direct providing of services.  Why in the world would I (or could I) be so presumptuous as to think that I know better?  What would make my prescriptions credible let alone superior?

For me, there is a knowledge base, a set of skills, a science, a range of professional dispositions, and even an art to teaching and leading schools as well as directing the preparation of teachers and school administrators.  Direct experience matters.  And abundantly so.

To sum up, I want to believe that the vast majority of individuals pushing for educational reform have honorable intentions.  Many of them are really smart, too.  Even then, I’d feel better if more of them had truly expert knowledge informing their agendas.

A hallmark of a true professional in my book is knowing what you don’t know, conceding as much, and having the good sense not to put one’s ignorance and arrogance on display.

Admittedly, I’m as guilty as the next person in criticizing things I don’t really know about in other aspects of my life.  Hopefully I’m pretty good at catching myself, but sometimes I stumble.  For instance, maybe, just maybe, I’ll quit second guessing Buzz Williams, Bret Bielema, Mike McCarthy, and Ron Roenicke.

Seriously, could I be any more pretentious than thinking I know better than these professionals?  Where exactly does my copping a superiority complex come from anyway?   Just being an athlete isn’t enough.

Truth be told, each of these sports critiques is a case of a little knowledge going a long way toward deluding myself.

Let’s not make the same mistake with education.

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How much do YOU know about Marquette University and the College of Education?
Test your knowledge every Tuesday during Tuesday Trivia!

By Nick McDaniels –

If you are a first year teacher and you still feel completely overwhelmed, stop reading now, bookmark this post, and read it during the summer. If you are feel like you are getting the hang of it, here is a little bit of advice that will make you navigate the personal side of your career.

Most people will tell young teachers that they need to find a way to balance work with personal life so that free time maintains a reality. This is important. But mid-way through the first year, I see this as the perfect opportunity to begin making your professional and personal contacts who will help you in the future.  As the saying goes, it’s not what you know…

Here’s the list of people to know in a school system to make sure your professional life is making your personal life better. By knowing the names and contact information of these people, you will be able to fire off emails and get immediate responses when you have questions about various topics, rather than bouncing around on automated phone menus and between central office voicemails, before finally reaching the person you need to talk to. Take some time and learn how to contact:

1) The person who handles certification either for the state or your school district so you know exactly how to apply for recertification when the time comes.

2) The person who handles tuition reimbursement for graduate coursework if your district offers it. This is a typically complicated process, so know the right person can save you some time.

3) Your teacher’s union representative in case you have an issue that needs to be rectified.

4) The person who manages your health, dental, and vision insurance for your school district as this is something that will  need to be updated anytime you get married, have a child, etc…

5) The person who handles tenure for either your state or school district to ensure that you are granted tenure as soon as you are eligible.

6) The person who manages your sick time/vacation time/maternity leave for the unlikely event that you may have to be our of the classroom for an extended period of time.

7) The person who manages your payroll in case your check gets messed up for some reason.

8) The person who manages your pension/retirement fund for the event that you would ever leave the district, position, or field and would need to withdrawal/roll-over your funds or in the event that you would like to make changes to your contributions or the way your funds are managed.

Not only will knowing the names and contact information of these people help you, you’d be surprised how much you will be able to help your colleagues who also need to know this information. I cannot overstate the importance of knowing who to contact when you need something, especially as a young teacher. Not only are you dealing with the newness of a career, but many other things in your life are brand new as well, making any help you can get incredibly valuable.

By Bill Henk –

They say that a cat has nine lives.  They’re wrong.  They have one.

Where am I going with this?   Well, last night one of our beloved Maine Coon cats, Spock, passed away.  I found him cuddled in our closet in one of his many favorite places to nap.  He looked very peaceful, too peaceful.  When the nudge I gave him got no response, my heart just sank.        

They also say that bloggers should write about what they know, experience, care about, and feel, so that’s what I’m going to do.  Too often I find myself defending my choice of topics as being educational in nature.  I believe that learning and teaching about how to handle the loss of a beloved pet qualifies.  If not, just this once, I don’t care. 

Now my wife and I are faced with the prospect of breaking the sad news to our little daughter.  And we’re both looking for guidance.  We’ve never done this before, and we take the deaths of our pets so hard ourselves that being a source of strength for our little girl won’t come easily.  But somehow we will.   

The twist on this post is that I’m supposed to provide answers in what I write, but all I’ve got right now are questions.  The deed will be done by the time this story goes live, and I know our daughter will survive the experience, but any advice from parents about moving forward with her mourning will be welcome.

Pet Lovers Will Understand

As I write what amounts to a tribute to a “mere” cat,  I am teary-eyed and numb.  I’m still somewhat stunned although the harsh reality has indeed sunk in.  Although Spock  was older and I knew he wouldn’t last forever, I didn’t see this coming — at least not yet.   

Not surprisingly to pet lovers, I simply feel empty.  Spock’s death has taken me right back to 2005 when my amazing six-year old female golden retriever and best buddy, Delaney, walked into my office and dropped dead for no apparent reason.  I’ve never fully recovered from that loss, because I didn’t have time to grieve.  That process got put squarely on the back burner, because my daughter was a newborn, and she had to be my focus.    

I felt almost the  same emptiness when our cute little Persian cat, Pudge, passed away on the very day we moved our belongings from Illinois to Milwaukee eight years ago — once again for no apparent reason.  But we didn’t have to explain either of those deaths to our daughter.

For what it’s worth, I understand completely that some readers will think the feelings I express here are over the top.  That’s definitely their prerogative.  But believe me, pet lovers will get it, and cat lovers will REALLY get it. 

For those of us smitten by our pets, there is something almost indescribable about the emotional bonds of understanding we form with them.  Peering deeply into one another’s eyes, as I often did with Spock, Delaney, and Pudge, literally connected our souls — something I personally believe all God’s living creatures possess. 

Dealing With the Grief

Now here I go again with Spock.  I’m not the least bit better at coping with grief, although I handled my discovery of his lifeless body, still a little warmand both rigid and limp, far more calmly than I would have ever imagined.  Shock trumped my emotions and made me curiously rational.  I broke the news to my poor wife, Lisa, knowing that she’d be beside herself, and she was, yet somehow I kept it together. 

A few moments later, with Lisa’s permission, I picked up our beautiful cat and carried him downstairs to a confined place where our nutty but lovable lab, Lilly, and Spock’s younger running mate, Bones, our other Maine Coon cat, would not see or bother his body.  

But they definitely knew something was up.  Pets always know.  They read our emotions.   

Bones spent much of this morning scratching on closed closet doors hoping his best friend would be found within.  He’s smelling everywhere Spock used to sleep.  His meows sound more like cries – shrill and desperate, and he’s unusually clingy.  He wants reassurances, and petting him frequently seems to be helping.  As for Lilly, she’s just pouting and moping.  They all got along famously, and Spock’s pals loved the cleanings he used to give them.  It’s not surprising that they miss him already.  

For the record, I even held it together pretty much when my wife and I  dropped Spock’s body off at the veterinary clinic this morning and said goodbye.  We both drove there, my wife going directly with him in the back of her vehicle in a big box (because he was a VERY BIG cat).  In turn, I dropped our unsuspecting daughter off at school first, then joined my wife at the clinic.  

It was somehow fitting that the vet who had taken care of Spock, Dr. Taylor, was there to receive him.  He helped us pay our last respects, and understandably distraught, we left the office. 

My wife and I hugged in the parking lot for a minute and exchanged some heartfelt words of consolation, then both drove off on our separate ways, knowing exactly how the other felt. 

And that’s when I lost it.  Utterly.  Alone for the first time, Spock’s passing hit me full force, and sadness overwhelmed me.  I wept; I actually wailed. 

Saved By a Memory

Thankfully, not long afterwards I had this wonderful memory of how much the people who worked in that clinic admired our gorgeous cat, too.   He was quite the physical specimen — a real stud of a feline.   With his thick brown coat and lion-like face, he was truly impressive.  When we’d bring him out for guests to see at our home, they were as astounded  as I was the first time I laid eyes on him.  In fact, we’d have to caution any service folks who worked in our house about him.  That’s because his appearance was so intimidating they’d be legitimately scared if he emerged without warning.  Just think mini-mountain lion. 

Although Spock had a regal bearing about him, he wasn’t particularly bold or  courageous.  Mostly he was just plain sweet.  He definitely craved attention and human contact, and would stick around to receive it as long as it was offered.   

Anyway, as far as the clinic goes, one time my wife had to wait an excessively long time for him to be discharged after a routine check-up and grooming.  She couldn’t understand what was taking so terribly long and her irritation mounted.   When they finally brought Spock out, the staff sheepishly admitted that the delay occurred because they all wanted to have their photo taken with him!  He was THAT unique.    

Just How Special?

As for me, Spock was simply my special boy, and we spent countless hours together — through good times and bad.  I can still feel the gentle and soothing sensation of stroking his big, furry, soft body, and that’s what I want to, and will,  remember.  Nothing has ever consoled me more quickly or completely.  

Spock belonged to my wife when I first met her, and I eventually became his other significant human.  He followed me around a lot, and why not?  I always stopped to caress him.  We both enjoyed those calm, gentle, quiet  moments.  

Half a day removed from his demise, I still expect to see and hear him around every corner, and could swear that I do.  From past experience, I know these mind tricks will persist for some time, and the void of his absence will sadden me a little with each occurrence.         

So how special was he?  Now you’ve got to understand that I’ve been a dedicated “dog man” my whole life.  Spock made me a “cat guy,” too; he turned me.  Hopefully, I’m not a weird cat guy – just one who got to experience firsthand how remarkably a cat can add to the quality of one’s life. 

Did I mention how he would say something that sounded suspiciously like “Hello” when he entered a room?  I am not making this up; I have witnesses.  Did I mention how a cat of his massive size could squirrel himself away in places that made him almost impossible to find?  Did I mention that he remained playful to the end?  And, of all things, he always wanted his eyeballs and armpits massaged.  No point trying to figure it out.  He was a cat after all.   

The big lug would also sleep on the recliner in my office for hours on end while I worked.  It’s the spot in my house where I most like to read.  Many times I should have moved him so I could stay on task, but I rarely had the heart.  Instead I’d stay working on my computer or go somewhere else to read.  Right now I’d give almost anything not to be able to sit in that recliner.

All of this begs the real question at hand, “how do you help your child deal with the same sadness that is getting the best of you?”  

For the Love of Animals   

So you know, I come to this whole pet obsession naturally.  I learned it from my father who was simply great with animals.  He loved them and they knew it.  Even unfamiliar, ill-behaved critters responded to him like he was some sort of a beastmaster.  

Whether my dad set out to model the love of creatures for me or not, it had that effect, and it’s been indelible.  It’s one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me, and I hope we transmit it to our daughter.  Truth be told, I fancy myself to be something of a beast master, too – an inheritance I guess.  In any case, I still remember how any time one of our pets died, my dad would cry so much that he’d have to wear sunglasses for several days.  I could use a pair right now myself.  

How intense is my fondness for pets?  Keep in mind that I’m the same guy who dedicated his doctoral dissertation to the parakeet who sat on his shoulder the whole time he wrote it.  I’m also the guy who spent more than $300 on vet care he couldn’t afford trying to keep the little guy alive even though he was at the end of a typical lifespan.  Please don’t tell anyone, but I’ve even cried over the loss of fish when I had an aquarium.    

Most of all, my heart goes out to Lisa.  Her love for Spock  has always been profound.  The cat, whose big ears caused her to name him after the famous Vulcan first officer on Star Trek, was her friend through thick and thin, too. 

Talking about him in the past tense will be difficult for both of us, but especially for her, because their history is longer.  There is something special about raising a pup or a kitten, just as she raised Spock, and so they will always share that extraordinary attachment.     

Now What?

Having said all this brings me full circle to the same question, how are we going to convey to our daughter that our magnificent cat is gone?   I’ll do some Googling, because I know there are websites out there that will provide advice.  But mostly I plan to follow my instincts.

I’m going to tell Audrey that Spock has been called to Heaven (and if that offends anyone, I’m sorry).  I want her to envision him alive and joyful and playing with Delaney and Pudge.  Rightly or wrongly, I personally believe that no place could be Heaven if we humans don’t get reunited with our beloved pets there in the afterlife.  They are God’s creations, too, so I can’t help but think that they’d be more than welcome.

I’m also going to tell my daughter to imagine Spock being held in Jesus’s arms — safe, secure, and happy.  That image helped me immeasurably when my golden retriever passed away.  It is helping me now as well.  

And I’ll tell her about my dad and his love of animals, how he passed it on to me, and how I hope she comes to feel the same way.

Most of all, I’m going to tell her to focus on the many marvelous memories we have of our wonderful cat, and I’ll try hard to heed my own advice. 

For what it’s worth, I think Audrey will be fine, because Spock was more our cat than hers.  Bones is HER special boy.  His passing would have been much more traumatic.  In any event, she knows what death means, but does not really understand it.  She’ll take her cues from the way we seem to be handling it emotionally. 

So Long

Maybe cats only do have one life, but if loving and being loved is the measure of a life well lived, then Spock made the absolute most of his time here on Earth.  

Goodbye dear friend. 

Spock (1998  – 2012)  In our hearts and minds forever.

Thank you for enriching our lives immeasurably.

——————–

Special Notes:  I’d like to thank our friends, Alice Bluhm and her husband, Bill, for first suggesting the consoling image of a deceased pet in Jesus’s arms, and for directing us a few years ago to a beautiful poem of reassurance called “The Rainbow Bridge.”   I encourage you to read it now, but almost certainly when a beloved animal friend has passed.  I’d also like to thank Alice for the wonderful photos she’s taken of our pets over the years.

And yes, writing this post did help, although my heart is still aching.  Most importantly, we did break the news to Audrey much like I described, and so far she seems to be taking it well.  Time will tell, but I’m hopeful.  Today when I asked her if she missed Spock, her answer was, “Yes, daddy, but don’t worry.  He’s happy in Heaven with your daddy.”  Priceless.

By Jonathon Sumpter –

The New Year has become more about past regret and shame than future hopes and dreams. Maybe this is the New Year’s Resolution Effect, or, maybe I’m just cynical.

As I enter my final semester of my Masters program during the New Year, I find my head crooking backwards and forwards all at once. All the decisions that I have made that got me here have come under fire, as the “real world” knocks at my consciousness. Am I prepared,  will I pass the licensing tests, will I be able to support my family? The future is not here yet, but I seem to be anticipating the future with a lens shaded by the past. Will I be as successful in my future endeavors as my past, or was this all for not?

Just like New Years’ Resolutions, I’m seeing all that was not, rather than what can be. Instead of thoughts like, did I pay enough attention in Dr. Melchert’s Theories class, or did I take full advantage of supervision; I should be looking forward. I would venture a guess that the majority of my classmates are simply ready to be at May 19th, walking across to accept their diploma. However, I don’t know who all are really ready to jump into a career. I say I am. But, there is always a hesitance, a slight trepidation. So I set goals, or resolutions for my future. I will be here at this time, I will be doing this at this time, I will have it all figured out by then. But this is too future oriented for my comfort as well.

Even though the future is about to knock, it is not at the door yet. I think I will have to sit and enjoy the “December 31st” feel of my last semester. Not allowing the New Year Resolution Effect of past regret or future pressure press too firmly on myself that I simply “snoozing” through the present, just like  on January 7th at 6 am.

There’s plenty of time to worry, there’s plenty of time to be accomplished, right now, I’ll just be a student for a little while longer. This New Year will come one day at a time, I might as well do that too.

Welcome back!  Hope you all had a nice and relaxing break.

Now, it’s time to get back to work!

After so much time off, let’s exercise our minds, shall we?  Who knows the answer to the riddle below:

What is home to 11,000+ humans and is 93 acres, large, but could also sometimes be know as Pere, and was born in Laon, France 400 years ago 

What/ Who is it?!?

Claim your chance to win by leaving the correct answer in the comments section below anytime today between 7am – 6pm. And don’t be afraid to play, even if someone has already posted the right answer! One winner will be randomly selected from ALL correct answers after the close of business and announced the following day.  The winner will be posted on our Facebook page and notified by email.  Please note that you must have a valid email address listed in your comment or WordPress profile to win.

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By Ryan Manning –

But now, back to my job…

The first two weeks of January within Resident Life here on campus can be summed up in two words: Retreat Season. From what I can tell, nearly every division within the department takes a half or full day to get together early in the semester (and in the summer too) to renew relationships and get energized for the coming semester. Also, on Wednesday, the entire department spent the day at our winter retreat known as “Summit” (in reference to the top of a mountain to signify the halfway point of the year, not the fancy meeting of high-ranking officials. I clarify because my life’s ambition is to attend a summit meeting, so you can imagine how my hopes were dashed at the realization that this was not that kind of summit.).

As the only member of the department with experience at a Jesuit institution, the word “retreat” brings to mind a lot of  images of guided reflection, goal setting, team-builders and camping-like conditions. So, you probably can understand that when I learned that we weren’t going to a cabin, and we wouldn’t need to remember  to wear closed-toed shoes for ropes course activities, or anything like that, I was a little confused.

My first retreat of the year, for the professional staff working in the South Campus residence halls, took place in a swanky conference room in the Journalism building on campus, followed by a trip down to DC for a guided tour of the U.S. Capitol building. The day’s activities didn’t necessarily focus on reflection,  like I was expecting, but instead were centered on the topic of decision-making and leadership. In our jobs, we are all forced to make tough decisions that may be unpopular with the people they impact, or we may need to compromise our personal goals and values to meet the best interests of those whom we need to serve. We were able to talk to professionals with a wide array of experiences, from the National Mall to McKeldin Mall (the mall on the Maryland Campus, which flanks a number of academic and student affairs-related buildings. It got me really energized to get back to work and feel confident in the decisions I’d be making in my job.

Summit had a similar format, but with 5 times as many staff members from across Resident Life. Instead of meeting with a panel of experts, we had the choice of 4 sessions, all related to the shifting landscape of higher education: with college being so expensive, is it still a good investment? I attended a session with the Director of Undergraduate Admissions about how out student demographics will be changing drastically over the next few years. The afternoon consisted of a ton of loosely structured social activities, from Bingo to board games to a bake-off all designed to help the staff relax in preparation for a grueling semester, and for us to building stronger social connections.

Coming into these retreats, I sort of questioned how exactly these could qualify as “retreats” in the student affairs sense. To prove my point to myself, I looked up retreat in the dictionary, and the first words I saw were “a place for retirement, sanctuary.”  So, I may have been sort of off base thinking that some good old Jesuit reflection would be the best way to get focused on the spring (though I certainly do a lot of that on my on, especially with my new artistic hobbies). Instead of looking at goal-setting and planning, which we already do so much of, we were able to focus on one of the most important reasons why I come to work every day: we love our co-workers and we can consistently feel supported by them.

And that’s when I sort of understood why we called it “Summit.” To get down the mountain, you have to go downhill, and if you’re anything like me, walking downhill probably means tripping and falling a good chunk of the way. Even if I set a goal for myself to not fall, no amount of planning will probably make that happen (just like no amount of planning can keep something unexpected at work from getting the best of you sometimes). Sometimes, it’s more important to make sure you have someone to help you stand back up one you’re down than it is to think about how you can’t let yourself fall.

So, the next time you’re planning a meeting to talk about next steps or your vision for the future with whatever team you consider yourself a part of, ask yourself: “maybe we should just go bowling or something instead.”

By Bill Henk –

Yessir, the forecast for today calls for the first significant snowfall of the winter.   It’s been long in coming this year, which is fine by me, because I’m not a big fan of trying  to clear the white stuff in general let alone large amounts of it.

But I digress.  Let’s just agree that writing  about snow days is perfectly fitting for an education blog, particularly on the advent of a major winter stormfront.  So here goes.

Why So Happy?

Back in elementary, middle and senior high school, absolutely nothing felt more welcome, exciting, and enjoyable to me than a day off from school made possible by a snowstorm.  And for the record, blizzards were even better because:  (1) then there was no chance of school being held and (2) there was instead a good chance that it would be cancelled for two or more days.

For school-aged kids, then and now, every major snowfall carries the glorious  prospect of a snow day, and the rare opportunity to just goof off endlessly at home instead.   I don’t know how kids today would spend the time, maybe at the mall, but personally, I loved to devote these mornings and early afternoons to the great outdoors — sledding, snowball fighting, making snowmen and snow angels, watching the plows, and doing anything else my buddies and I could concoct that somehow involved snow and fun.  These precious days were regular snowapaloozas.

Afterwards, we’d go indoors to thaw, and we’d watch hours of TV on end, mostly game shows like The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, the Match Game, Password, and eons ago, even Queen For a Day.  Talk shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin would get a look and even soap operas.  My mother would make hot chocolate, tomato or chicken noodle soup, and grilled cheese sandwiches – pretty much anything consumable that would warm us up.  I thought of the entire experience  as Heaven in the real world.

How Awesome are Snow Days?

Snow days might only rank as #921 on the current List of 1000 Awesome Things, but they stood at or very near the top of my list, that’s for sure.  By the way,  the “Awesome List” distinguishes in zeal between the low impact pre-planned snow day (when there’s so much existing snow that school must be cancelled), the zippier, fully expected snow day predicted by the weather forecast, and the ultimate surprise snow day when you didn’t see the gift of a free day coming.  You just wake up in the morning, behold the blanket of snow covering the earth, and hear your parents tell you that school has been cancelled.  Oh, the joy.  Put differently, the more unexpected the snow day, the better.

However, trust me when I tell you that any of the three types would have been just dandy by me.  I’d take ‘em all.  As long as school wouldn’t be in session, I was a happy little snowman.

This reaction will not come as a surprise to our longtime readers who know from one of my earliest posts about my hate affair with school, mostly the latter.   The short version is that it just wasn’t my favorite place — a great irony given how much time I’d spend in them later as a teacher and even as a professor.

The Snowy Day

Truth be told,  I looked forward to snow days every bit as much as a teacher.  By then, I no longer hated school.  In fact, I liked it a lot.  But  I thoroughly welcomed the break from the grind that the occasional snow day provided.

I distinctly remember one magnificent snow day in my early years as a teacher.  Our school district was located smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania’s  snow belt.  Thanks to lake effect snow in the northwest (courtesy of Lake Erie), we were regularly dumped on in HUGE almost unbelievable quantities.

But here’s the thing.  I and some other teacher friends who worked in the district lived 30 miles to the west of my school, so our carpool drove through four other school districts to get to ours.  We often did so by driving between snow walls reaching as high as 10 feet on both sides of the road.  At some point each year, even industrial snow plows became useless; the snow had to be cleared with massive highway frontloaders.  I often thought that from the air the road must have looked like an Olympic bobsledding track.

Unfortunately, our school superintendent refused to call a snow day even when all the districts my fellow carpoolers and I had to cross did.  I think it was some kind of weird badge of honor for him.  Either that or he was nuts, a viable hypothesis seeing as how he gave the exact same half hour welcome back speech, word for word mind you, on the first day of school every year I worked there.  We were pretty sure that he didn’t remember giving the same remarks the year before and before and before.

Anyway, late one afternoon the region got hit with something on the order of the snowstorm of the century.   A small bunch of us commuting teachers gathered that evening to watch television after spending several hours just getting the snow off our designated cars and clearing a path through the parking lot of our apartment complex.  You see, we needed to be ready to head to school in the morning, because even though every other school district in the tri-state area would cancel, we’d have to brave the elements to put in a regular day of work — even if the kids couldn’t get there because the buses couldn’t negotiate the drifts.

Then suddenly without warning, programming was interrupted with school cancellations, and by a veritable miracle, it was announced that our school district would be closed, too.  At first a deafening hush fell over the room, and then all at once the place erupted.

We cheered and hooted and hollered.  It was a woo-hoo moment, and I am not kidding when I tell you that I literally did cartwheels across the apartment.  It was as if we had won the lottery or the Super Bowl.  (For the purposes of imagery, think of the scene in Ace Ventura when Ace leaves the monastery and his exit engenders an insane celebration).

The bottom line is that we were unbelievably relieved to be able to just take a day to regroup without the pressure of slipping and sliding our way to school for 30 grueling miles driving directly into the sun.  We could actually take a breath and relax.

At the time it crossed my mind that students probably had no idea how much their teachers looked forward to a snow day, too.

Thinking back to my childhood and adolescence and taking it right up to the present, some things never change.  I might not do cartwheels when Marquette cancels classes, and as an educator I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the gift of a day to spend at home (as long as it’s not all devoted to shoveling and blowing snow), is one I still very much treasure.

So, although today’s storm might not result in a snow day, I guarantee you that there are plenty of school kids out there wishing, hoping, and praying.

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Note to Readers:  I want to thank my wife, Lisa, for giving me the idea to write this post.  When I got back from the Marquette/St. Johns game I had exactly nothing I could write about and still meet my morning deadline.  The snow day angle enabled me to dredge up memories that I hope led to worthwhile reading.