Halloween is the one time of year when wearing a mask is socially encouraged. But what if you’ve been wearing one throughout your doctoral journey without even realizing it? I’m talking about the ubiquitous academic mask that I see all too frequently. As a...
Think of someone you know who has a commanding voice. Perhaps someone who speaks clearly and enunciates every word. Or someone whose voice fills a room without seeming forced. Or someone who speaks quietly, yet with such conviction that everyone stops to listen. When...
One of my students recently shared something that perfectly demonstrates how our brains work. She’s taking a creative writing class that she absolutely loves. Before each class, she’ll spend hours editing her work and reading it repeatedly. She’ll...
A barrage of minor stressors had left me tightly wound by last Friday. I needed to unwind. But instead of automatically reaching for my iPad, I opted for an old-fashioned kind of quiet. I picked up a memoir I had abandoned months ago and finally started reading again....
“…with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees…I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again…” – F. Scott Fitzgerald There is something about the return of the spring light and the sudden...
Last weekend, I decided it was time for some spring cleaning. Not the overly ambitious “empty every closet in the house” kind of cleaning. Just a broad-stroke reset after a long winter. I cleared a stack of papers that had been quietly growing on my desk and organized...
