Pin your own topics, announcements, or questions. See what others have posted to the board.
Subscribe to email notifications, so you don’t miss a thing.
Celebrate Professional Teaching
Penn State English NTL Faculty
Pin your own topics, announcements, or questions. See what others have posted to the board.
Subscribe to email notifications, so you don’t miss a thing.
by Amanda Passmore-Ott
On the Trail
Trough Creek State Park, March 2016
Mid-morning sunlight filters through rhododendron and hemlock, setting Onoko’s coat into shades of wildfire. We’ve just dug our heels into the rock and moss of Ledges trail to come out at the junction of Copperas Rock. I’m reminded of an old Native American proverb about two wolves that battle inside our hearts. The wolves are always a dichotomy: love and hate, light and dark, life and work. They say the one we feed is the one who wins the battle. Today, life bites the belly of work and she wears the red-brown coat of a summer doe.
Overhead, a red-tailed hawk winds round thermals only she can see with the underside of wings. Sometimes, I wish I could also feel what she feels and pinch my shoulder blades together to feel the closeness of bone where wings might be. Today, we are grounded, feet pressed firmly to the earth and sometimes stubbing toes on the massive roots of trees that stood above this gorge for hundreds of years. I wonder if my Shawnee ancestors made it this far north, if they gazed out on these vistas and read the songs of the Great Spirit in the spine of mountains still a deep indigo this early in Spring. Up ahead, echoes of Abbot’s Run play their own kind of music over boulders rounded from incessant run-off and snow melt.
We rest here, at the cascade of falls into Trough Creek and tilt our heads back to the summit and Balance Rock; this rock has tilted in the balance for as long as anyone can remember, falling and not falling. And here is where I’ll be later this evening curled in my easy chair, my legs burning with muscle fatigue and satisfaction, and the mottled memory of light caught between the highest bough and mountain root. I’ll hold that boulder there, caught in the teeth of my two wolves, waiting for the tilt into the water below and knowing that I’ll rest there in that space behind open eye and eyelid until the next hike.
Author’s note:
Last spring I gave a PWR talk on the importance of maintaining work-life balance; as an EFT with a 5 course load per semester, I do what I must to keep my sanity for both me and my students. Most of my colleagues are already familiar with the main musical side of the scale I use to balance my sanity: fiddling in the Celtic rock band, Full Kilt (http://fullkilt.weebly.com). However, I perform enough shows each year that Full Kilt is also a time-consuming job (work, but fun work).
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” As a busy introvert, the only way I truly soothe my spirit is to get out onto the trail, often with my husband and husky, Onoko (you can follow her adventures at: https://www.facebook.com/AdventureswithOnoko/ and see more hiking photos by following me on Instagram @ huskymom7).
I contemplated for some time how I can also balance work and life outside of teaching. A friend and one-time professor, Steve Sherrill, told me upon graduating from Vermont College, “some recent grad students stay writers, but too many become teachers. Stay a poet above all else.” I never really understood what he meant until I became an EFT. I just don’t write my own stuff anymore. I write poetry in spurts, yes, but my manuscript, Human Wilderness, has definitely taken a back seat to just about everything. I need to write as much as I need music and the woods.
Sometimes, as a teacher, I just don’t have anything left to give to my own writing. I will use the trail to get back to my words (sometimes in the creation of a poem and sometimes in the murky waters of the brief essay), and to maybe share some inspiration to get out there and enjoy nature and seek balance in your own lives. As Muir put it so simply, “the mountains are calling, and I must go….”
One of my 202A students this semester is from Thailand, and we’ve been talking after class about the underuse of international student voices in the classroom. He was surprised to hear from me that some consistent feedback I’ve received from previous international students is that they feel very uncomfortable being asked by a teacher to give their international perspective in class, because 1) it calls out their difference and 2) they feel self-conscious about speaking impromptu in class.
Recently, this Thai student brought to my attention a 2014 study that deals with these issues and offers solutions provided by the affected population. The results point to specific suggestions about ways to bring out international students’ voices–for example, by setting up small group staged scenarios in which the student plays the role of the expert on China in a business transaction. That way they have time to prepare their words, and they don’t have to “represent” for their entire nation. Very cool ideas.
Urban, E.L. and Palmer, L.B. (2014) International students as a resource for internationalization of higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 18 (4), 305-324.
April Honey Badger
Honey Badger knows: 2FA is a pain in my striped hiney.
Honey Badger asks: “Does anyone know why a guy would bother coming to the State Theater international film festival if all he’s going to do is put in ear plugs and watch porn on his ipad for the entire two hours?”
Honey Badger wonders: what are toe hairs for?
Honey Badger says: whoever is microwaving the lunch that smells like wet socks after a through-hike on the Appalachian trail—you are welcome in my burrow any time.
Here’s a teaser from our latest columnist, Mx. Rate My Lecturer. Look for ze advice every month, and post any questions you want to ask ze on our new Bulletin Board.
I’m curious about your name and whether you’re able to tell me how I can get my students to give
me a chili pepper when they rate me.
Signed,
Probably appears too haggard even though I’m classy
You’ve answered your own question which is great because no, I will not give you tips on achieving
the “hot or not” answer you want. Stay classy!
Until next time,
Rate My Lecturer
The link below is aimed at students in communications, but the stats are relevant to all our 202 students seeking jobs after graduation. Most important points:
Your students can write a couple of business emails – and win big. See details:
2016 ABC Student Writing Contest
The Association for Business Communication invites undergraduate students to enter the 2016 Student Writing Contest by responding to this year’s case. A panel of academic readers will review all qualifying entries, and using the criteria below select up to ten contest finalists. Then, a panel of business professionals will read the finalists’ entries and select the winning responses. At ABC’s October 2016 annual international conference in Albuquerque, winners will receive a plaque. In addition, the 1st place winner will receive $300, the 2nd place winner will receive $200, and the 3rd place winner will receive $100. Entries must be received by Saturday, April 30, 2016, to be considered, and the winners will be informed during summer 2016.
Information for Students
Case Response: Read the 2016 contest case and compose two email messages, according to the case assignment. Here are the case and the information needed to complete the response.
Entry: Your instructor will submit the entry here.
For additional information, please contact:
Kelly Grant
A.B. Freeman School of Business
Tulane University
ABC Student Awards Committee
Phone: 504.865.5484
Email: kgrant@tulane.edu
Information for Instructors
The 2016 Student Writing Contest is open to undergraduate students enrolled in a business communication course during Fall 2015 or Spring 2016. Instructors must be an active member of ABC and are welcome to enter two students in this annual contest. Students must work independently to prepare responses; team entries will not be considered. Please remember that the response must be submitted to the Association for Business Communication website by midnight, April 30, 2016, to be considered for the contest.
Criteria
The winning entry will:
http://www.businesscommunication.org/page/2016-student-writing-contest?source=5
Heather Holleman explores overlooked and unusual Hebrew and Greek verbs in
the Bible and began publishing her findings with Moody Publishers in
Chicago.
Her first book, Seated with Christ: Living Freely in a Culture of
Comparison (October 2015) draws on her doctoral research on shame and
narcissism and invites readers to live differently in light of Ephesians
2:6.
Her next book, Guarded by Christ: Knowing the God Who Rescues and
Keep Us, hits the shelves this coming October and examines the verb
“guarded” and images of fortresses throughout scripture.
Since publishing, Heather has been a regular guest on Christian radio programs as well as at
conferences around the nation. Upcoming adventures include recording the
audio version of her books. She reports that the best part of traditional
publishing involves working with the publicity team and graphic designers.
Moody created a beautiful author website for Heather that you can find at
heatherholleman.com <http://heatherholleman.com/> where she continues to
blog daily at *Live with Flair.*
Robert Alderman and Alison Jaenicke were awarded top honors for the 2016 Center for American Literary Studies “Secret Writing Contest.”
This year’s contest was inspired by author Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, a work of historical nonfiction recounting the Civil War through the eyes of four different women whose intrepidity leads to smuggling secrets across enemy lines.
Robert won for his poem, “Watch for the Patterns, Watch for the Wires.” Alison won for her non-fiction, “Sisterhood of Spies.”
All the contest award winners were congratulated at “An Evening with Karen Abbott,” on March 16 at 7PM at the John Bill Freeman Auditorium, Penn State HUB-Robeson Center.
Based on the poetry of Mary Rohrer-Dann. Adapted for the stage by Cynthia Mazzant,
“Around her, this house, which saw joy and torment no more or less than most, trembles like the eggs her Baba painted at Easter, blowing out the yolk and watery white from a pinhole, the hollowed shell cupped in her palm waiting to be filled with color.”
Accidents of Being gives voice to the people of a Philadelphia neighborhood over the course of 150 years. From the railroad tycoon whose ancestor came over with William Penn, to the housekeeper who married his only heir and left the estate to the people of Philadelphia. From a fugitive slave passing through while hidden in a casket, to immigrants from war-ravaged Europe. Children who view the wooded park as a wilderness of dreams, frontier of possibility. Farmers, factory workers, homemakers, artists, schemers, and one or two ghosts.
Performing April 1-2 at The State Theatre, April 7 at Poets House, NYC and April 9 at Ryerss Museum & Library in Philly.
With Cynthia Mazzant, Elaine Meder-Wilgus, Lissa Ramirez and Mike Waldhier
Event Website: http://www.tempestproductions.org/#!in-production/c10js
You must be logged in to post a comment.