List of Blog Posts from 2009-2017
Blog –First One
What Question(s) Would You Ask?
Homecoming: A vestigial organ, or an idea whose time has come?
Education for What?
The New Normal for “Night School”
Let’s take the “H” out of Housing: It’s all in a name!
An Alternative to “Housing” for the Higher Ed Lexicon
Students in Transition
Veteran’s Day Salute
Veterans Day Reflection: All I Ever Needed to Know about Orienting New Students to College I Learned in the Military
Why Does the First-Year Matter?
Power to the Peers!
How Long Has It Been Since You Were in a High School?
Can Your Thanksgivings Past Be Instructive for Your Students?
Ode to Thanksgivings Past: Part Two.
A Thanksgiving That Was Forever a Teachable Moment: My 9/11
Thankful for the Access We Once Had
Q: And what did you do over Thanksgiving vacation? A: What you did is who you are.
The Blog as First-Year Student Diary: Writing is for Life
The Times They Are A’Changing: our Friendly Regional Accreditors
I feel this coming: the four-year degree must go!
My Philosophy of Student Success.
Why We are In This Work.
‘Tis the Season: For Engaging Our Students in Taking Stock.
How is “change” affecting our students? Oh, in just a few ways!
An Unplanned Opportunity for Community
Happy Valley is Not the Norm
Happy Anniversary to My Adult Self
The Great Recession’s Toll on Our Students
Check List for Starting a New Term
MLK Day: What Does This Evoke for You?
Just Say Anything
Relevance: The Week That Was
The New Normal: The Transfer Experience.
Blog: The Art of Complimenting
The Merits of Being Stranded
Receiving is as Important as Giving: As in Compliments!
Keeping A Stiff Upper Lip: How Truthful to Be with our Students?
What’s Your Big Idea?
Wintering into Wisdom
What Do Students Really Need?
Surely, They Have to Know
Campus as a Microcosm: We Must do Better
How Students are Meeting Hard Times
What My Father Wanted Me to do in College
Encourage Your Students to Make Their Wishes Known
Child of the 60’s
How Do We Help Students Understand the Significance of What Just Happened?
So Many Teachable Moments
Does the sophomore year matter?
If You Could Give Your Students One Book
Beyond Passover and Easter: It Can’t Be Long Now
What Would You Like Me to Blog About?
Do You Know How Lucky You Are?
A Winning Combination
Oh No, “The Sophomore Year Experience”
What Will Our Students Remember?
What Are You Learning? How Are You Reacting to It? And What Are You Going to Do with It? Teaching for Reflection
Forget the Official Commencement: Your “Farewell Address” Is the One That Will Matter
Last Chance: Urge your Students to Stay Connected this Summer
Some Good News on the Retention Front
Learn More about Improving the Transfer Experience for STEM Students.
The “Correction”: What Could That Mean In Our Higher Education Context?
An Outcome of College: What We Do on Vacation.
What Has Been the Impact of the Great Recession on the First-Year Improvement Initiative?
An Annual Glimpse Beyond My Cultural Blinders.
An Obvious Opportunity and Suggestion.
Reminding Myself About the Importance of Having a Personal Philosophy of Education.
Never Enough Opportunities to Teach Leadership.
I Am What I Studied.
The New American Comprehensive College.
Could We Develop a Curriculum to Teach This?
Baptism as Ritual: What’s the Analog in Higher Education?
How About an Independence Day for New Students?
Just How Far Would You Go to Help Students?
What Do You Want to Be Remembered For?
How Could We Be Preparing College Students Who Want to Work in the Academy but Not for the Academy?
What is it That We Do For Students That Matters?
A New Beginning.
The New Normal
Empathetic Recall
Succession Plan.
What criteria would you chose to select your successor? What elements of your work do you want to leave as a legacy for your successor to carry on.
Life Begins at 80.
A First: A Student Success Plan for First Year to Graduate School
Important New Collaborator on My/Our Work.
Optimism: How are we going to teach it this year?
College Made Me Vacation Like I Do!
Freedom: A Subject for More than Just a Common Read.
Small Colleges Can Be Inspiring.
Where are the Men? Not Dealing with the Male Problem!
Blog: Memories are Made of This!
I Have Seen the Future and the Future is Us.
I Have Seen the Future and the Future is Us.
Reflecting on the Tragedy at Rutgers: A Tragedy for All
The Most Inspiring Meeting I Attend All Year
The Movement is Spreading and Deepening.
What Would it Take?
15 Triggers for Discussion.
It’s All About Social Justice.
I Have Seen the Future and it is Here #
For Campuses Who Can’t Go Greek, How Can They Do Greek?
Character Building Experiences: Bring Back the Paper Person.
Here’s to the Enduring Influence of the Faculty!
Texting as Surrogate Touch.
A Truly Invisible New Student
Our Words Do Matter
What Do Our Students Do for Privacy?
The Questions: They Are More Important Than the Answers.
How Might I/You Live Differently This Year?
Tucson’s Day of Infamy.
Announcing Additional Bloggers.
Thirtieth Anniversary Coming Up Soon: What’s Your Big Idea?
Remember: Our Impact Transcends our Own Country.
Let’s Hear It for South Africa.
Constantly Reassessing Individual Purpose.
What If?
Thirty Years and Going Strong.
Reporting From Down Under
Let’s Run the Campus Like the New Zealanders Run Their Customs.
Looking at the Campus Through the Lens of the Haves vs. the Have Nots.
Silence.
“Well, I have never thought about that before….”
Some Departing Thoughts upon Leaving Paradise.
My Luckiest Day.
Final Notes on Comparing Three Countries.
Readjusting to My Country: It’s Been an Adjustment
What Shall We Tell Them?
Just Look Around.
Learning to Be A Little Less American: Collaboration vs Competition.
Salute to Those Who Provide Tutoring.
Take a Student to Lunch (breakfast/supper) and See Who Learns the Most
What’s On Your Mind?
An Alternative to Cries from the Tea Party: Let’s Hear It for a Tax Increase.
Own Your Power
How College Affected This Student: Why I Make My Students Make The New York Times A Part of Their Daily Lives
Job # 1: Dispensing Wisdom.
The Tail Wagging the Dog.
At Last, We are Finally Asked to Sacrifice.
A Perspective I am Going to Keep Reminding Myself Of!
What Did I Accomplish Today?
Joining the Students for their “Journey”
“‘Til Death Do Us Part”
Commencements: What Would You Tell Graduating Students?
Musing Upon the Commencement of Annual Vacation.
How About Something Positive?
This Summer: What Are We Orienting Them For?
The International FYE Movement Continues.
In Some Important Ways I Have Not Left Home.
Acting Like A Full Professor with Tenure in Contexts Where You Are Not a Full Professor with Tenure Blog
We Have Failed This Generation.
Twelve Years Later: What Do I Miss?
College as Lab for Real Life.
What I Got for Firing All the Teachers.
How About A Curriculum for An Antidote to Societal Pursuit of Greed and Selfishness?.
How to Teach Big Picture Thinkers.
Dear Readers.
Retention is a Real Slog.
Why “dorm” and “housing” are terms that have long outlived their usefulness!
My “Dream Sheet” for Improving On-Campus Residential Living.
If Only the Campus/Country were a Symphony Orchestra.
We Produced These Leaders: Where Did We Fail?
Take Home to Campus Lesson from Debt Ceiling Debacle.
My Favorite Day of the Year
An Education Major for Anyone?
The Vacation Challenge to Technology Addiction.
Surely We Can Do Better
What Would YOU Do if Only You Had The Time and the Money?
Reunion Anyone?
Here’s A Goal for You: Make it ‘til your 50th.
Hedonism—or What’s the Alternative?
My 9/11 Was Not My Students’
Blog: What Do We All Believe In?.
What Would You Do If You Wanted to Understand Today’s Students?.
Let’s Get Them to Tell Their Stories for Posterity.
How Do You Talk to Students About Gender Differences?
On the Way to War with Teddy Bear and Memories of Mother
Inspired by Andy Rooney: What Do You See Your Role in Life to Be?
Moneyball? What Role Loyalty (versus money)?
What’s A One Liner Your Students Might Remember and Be Influenced By?
“What, Me Marry?”
Inequality Sinking In.
Fall: That Special Season for Beginnings and Endings.
Inspiration from Private Enterprise.
Veteran’s Day 2011.
Reflections from Italy.
Thanksgiving 2011.
Remembering the Power of Mentoring.
Rethinking the Value of Coaching and Athletics.
Critical Junctures: A Way of Thinking about Where We Need to Intervene to Support Students. 225
What Did I Learn and What Am I Going to Do with What I Learned?
Take a Look at Student Behavior: What Does it Tell You?
Looking for Signs of Hopefulness.
Higher Education Innovators (Like Me) Are Made Not Born.
A Guiding Framework.
“Feeling Overwhelmed” as Subtext for “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind”
Thinking of Martin Luther King 2012
A Quaker Perspective About Says It All
What Would You Like Me to Blog About?
Social Justice Redux.
A Day with Student Affairs Leaders.
Happy Birthday FYE
Retrospective: Planning Your College Career as If You Knew the Competencies You Needed.
Reporting Live from the 31st Annual Firs-Year Experience Conference.
Let’s Get Back to Basics: What is the Purpose of our Work?
Two recent perspectives for me on the purposes of getting students through follow below.
What is the Role of the President/Chancellor in Improving the First Year?
So Where Are the Men?
Let’s Hear It for Alma Mater
This Could Be Us—Or Is It?
One More Pressure Point on Retention.
Prejudice: The New But Not So New Underclass.
A Step to Mitigate the August Train Wreck.
We Weren’t Designed for These People: Discrimination against Transfer Students – Part One.
Transfer Discrimination: Part 3.
Transfer Discrimination, Part 2.
The End of the Term Calls for Some Silence
Reaching Out to High Schools and Our Future Students.
Academic Observations from Venice.
Remove One Given from Your Campus: What Difference Would It Make?
End of Term.
Here a College, There a College, Everywhere a College.
Difficult Choices.
American Higher Education’s Race to the Bottom.
Reflections in the Little League Baseball Park.
College Success: Misnomer?
80% of Success is Simply Showing Up—Or Is It?
The Commencement Speech as Reflection Tool
Joy Kills Sorrow.
An Upside of Higher Education’s Tolerance for Idiosyncrasy: Advocacy Flourishes.
The Grand Divide-What Can We Do To Come Over to the Other Side?
There Are Lessons from Penn State for All of Us: This Applies to You!
Penn State Redux: What Students Learn When They See Us Not Doing the Right Thing.
Give It to Me in One Simple Reply.
Let’s Hear It for the Completion Agenda.
What Have You Accomplished?
As Others See Us.
What Do Our Leaders Really Believe In?
What Would Your College/University Have to Do…to Have This Effect?
Four Sure Fire Ways to Kill a Conversation about Innovation and Change.
What Will They Amount To?
Reflections of a Departing Vacationer
“I Shall Not Tell A Lie”
Oh, If Only We Didn’t Have to Change!
Quiet Please: Student Thinking Space.
Mystery Shopping: What does it Cost?
Transfer Student Experience Déjà Vu.
Higher Educators Going Back to Class.
The American People Want a President Not a Professor
The Perfect Experiential Exercise for Linking Inside and Outside the Classroom Learning.
Students in Transition: What’s New? What’s Old?
Students in Transition: What’s New? What’s Old?.
Moving from “Access” to “Success”: Just What Exactly Does That Mean?
Policies Make a Difference in Student Success.
Watch this Place: Governors State University.
The Campus as Shelter
Exhibit A for How to Sustain an Innovation: Forty Years Old and Going Stronger Than Ever
Thanksgiving 2012.
Partnerships: More of what is Needed on Campus and in Washington.
‘Tis the Season.
What’s to Be Learned?
Addressing Retention: Only with a Slog!
Year End Reflections for 2012.
Thinking about the Year Ahead.
Zero Dark Thirty: Reflections on Persistence.
Risk Management for Students and Their Educators Too.
It Was a Very Different Time.
“Mobilize.” What Might That Mean for Your Work—My Work?
Still Remembering Dr. King.
A Good Way to Get “Up”: Go to a Talent Show.
What Does It Mean to Be an “Ideologue”?
We Are Committed to Equity.
How Would I Find A Mentor?
Everybody Gets It: The Completion Agenda.
Teaching Used to Make Me Sick.
Academic Probation: Getting On is Much Easier Than Getting Off!
Checking in With Students.
Travels with John.
Who Are We Doing this For?
Nobody Wants to Talk to Me Anymore!
Students Give Me Hope and Inspiration.
What Were My Observations This Time?
How Do We End the Term—for Ourselves? A Closure Checklist
Got A Plan for New Student Success?
Confessions of a Repentant Blogger
Leave the Place a Little Bit Better…
Seeing the Forest for the Trees.
Avoiding the Faculty is Not the Way to Go.
“Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me 35 Years Ago”
How Would You Feel?
Do We Want Them to Be Like Us?
This is the Best Time of Year
Seeing with Different Eyes This Year
I Had Never Heard Anything Like This.
What Can I Do? What Can YOU Do?
What Kind of Help Do You Need?
Your Friends, They Come and They Go …
The Need to Be Reminded of What You Already Know..
If Ever There Was A Teachable Moment!
The Tipping Point in the Beginning College Experience: For Some, It is Soon Too Late for a Second Chance
What’s in a Handshake? A Start.
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
Elephant’s Graveyard.
Let’s Try Going Wire[LESS]!
These are The Times That Try Men’s (and Women’s) Souls.
Like Some of our Students: Looking for the Meaning of Faith.
How Do I Learn What I Need to Know?
I am Right About…
Where Were You Daddy…?
Acknowledging One’s Mentor While You Both Still Have Time.
When and Why Should We Urge our Students to Get Engaged with “Service”?
Why Can’t We Do the Cool Stuff?
Focusing on the Metrics of Retention: Higher Education with No Soul
“Find A Good Company and Stick with It”: What Advice Do We Give Our Students These Days?
Looking Ahead to 2014.
One Person/One Policy Makes a Difference.
Talk about Partnerships and One Person Making a Difference.
Seven Principles of Good Practice for Student Success Partnerships.
The College Pipeline is Visible Long Before…
33 But Who’s Counting? I Am!
What’s Not to Like?
It’s All in the Shirt
The Intentional Tourist
What is Your Goal?
Using Vacation for Reflection on the Mundane and some Eternal Verities.
You Just Never Know What Students Will Remember…and Act On.
My Worst Fears.
It’s That Time of Year
“Back at You”
How Would You Handle This Student Success Challenge?
What Can Be Done Over the Summer to Improve Next Year’s Retention Rate?
Inspirations in a Concert
Salute to a Special Colleague in Transition: Is She or Isn’t She Retiring?
Reducing Failure Rates in Gateway Courses: All Aspirational Goals for Improving Student Success Depend on This!
Why Don’t We Make Gateway Course Student Performance A Higher Priority: Restated as Why Are We So Tolerant of Such High Failure Rates?
Fall Ahead 2014.
In Memorium: John J. Duffy.
What are Your Roadmaps?
A Preview of Coming Attractions.
Something to Aspire To.
The Power of Just One Educator
My October 1 Anniversary.
A New Profession?
Silos: A Must for Farmers, a Negative for Campuses.
What’s in a Ceremony?
Moving to Scale
Fall: A Good Season for Benchmarking and Transforming
Finding the Money.
Veterans’ Day 2014: What Brings Us All Together?.
Irrational Love…Or is It Rational?.
It’s All about Meaningful Work.
Two Great Universities Reputations Badly Tarnished: Is There A Common Theme?.
Year End 2014: Looking Back Looking Ahead.
ADDENDUM: “Year End 2014: Looking Back Looking Ahead.
The Unfinished Movement for Social Justice.
It’s High Time I Wrote!
Write Our Own Future.
New Frontier for the First-Year Seminar
Learning from the Mistakes of Our Rulers.
Ode to a Retiring Colleague.
Way Down South in Dixie.
Do It: Mystery Shop Your Own Institution.
The Gardner Institute Turns Sweet 16.
The Life and Times of Nelson Mandela: Who Are YOUR S/Heroes?.
The New Normal for “Night School”
Fifty Years Anniversary Posting—But Who’s Counting? I Am!
Why Chief Academic Officers Matter (and Now More Than Ever)
Good Things Will Come from Campus Unrest: They Have Before.
Returning the Gift: Never Know What a Student Can Do Unless You
Coming… a World Boycott?
Tenure: Look to Those Who Have It
The Transfer Experience vs The First-Year Experience: How Do They Measure Up? Here’s a Simple Toolkit to Answer This Question.
The Beginning College Experience: What Could An Engaged Board Be Doing About This?
The Big Disconnects.
What Do You Give Your Students to Read—to Get Them to Discover What Matters Most?
What We Tell our Students May Matter More Than We or They Realize at the Time…
What a Difference the First Year of College Can Make.
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