Archive for November, 2002

When Small Is Large

Well, I thought, after an exhilarating four days of learning at the Lilly Conference on College Teaching, today was going to be a quick-in for some administrative meetings and a quick-out tomorrow at the crack of dawn to West Tennessee for Thanksgiving celebrations with my sister’s family. When I came to the office early this [...]

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The Best Place To Be

I was sitting on a cool brick bench yesterday, taking in the invigorating afternoon chill, letting it help me get myself into a meditative mood as I got ready to go off to do my stuff at the Lilly Conference on teaching, when I heard a voice coming from my left. “Hey, doc,” I turned. [...]

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Go On A Fast

On this chilly, damp Sunday morning I was thinking about a person I only met last week. I wish I had meet him years ago. His name is Glen Touchton. He is the plumbing foreman for the University. He is a member of a major university strategic planning committee which I was crazy enough to [...]

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PC and All That

We had what I would call a little PC spat on my campus a couple of weeks ago over what I might call in modern technoligical parlance, a five minute sound byte. It made the university newspaper; it’s is being mumbled and grumbled about in the halls. It reminded me, as I recently told some [...]

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Hope Scholarships Offer Hope

This is a kind of different reflection. Many of you may have read a feature by Greg Winter that appeared in the New York Times last week on October 31 that was followed by an editiorial which appeared in the Times on November 4. Both pieces cast doubts on the merits of merit-based scholarships. The [...]

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Deep Teaching

Well, today is November 1st. It’s All Saints’ Day. The whole of Western Christendom is celebrating my birthday. I am finding birthday cards in the strangest places scattered around the house. My angelic Susan always does that even though she is convinced that Hallowween would have been more appropriate time for my entrance into the [...]

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