Higher Education Observer

 

People tell me I will know when it is time to retire.  I think I know it's time--almost.  Retiring for me does not mean filling out the paperwork and walking away. I am so deeply entrenched in so many things that I have to spend a year untying knots in those ropes that bind me to the institution and responsibilities and others.   But I have informed my supervisor that I will relinquish my chair duties on a specific date. Whether I remain for a while to teach is not decided.  I have worked in higher education since January of 1978, so "I've done my time." And there are other matters  1. The constant change, sometimes seemingly just for the sake of change, is stifling. This semester we are dealing with a new faculty evaluation system, new core curriculum, new assessment procedures, and new hiring/HR policies. We also have to vacate our building, completely, for a period of renovation, and relocate, and oh, yes, teach and serve and do research/professional development an

Podcasts have been around since the time of the iPod (2004 marks the first “podcast”) and have a longer history than our smart phones (born in 2007), the way most of us listen to them today. And we do listen to them. Depending on where you get your information (I used HubSpot DemandSage for this article), as of September 2023 there were 70 million episodes created by 5 million podcasters, listened to by more than 467 million people. That many podcasts gives a potential listener plenty to choose from: politics, literature, sports, business, religion, true crime, leadership, arts, marketing a small business . . . the list is endless. Some podcasts are very “niche,” while some are designed for a wide public. The most listened to podcaster? Love him or hate him, it’s Joe Rogan, yes, the Fear Factor guy. Finally, video podcasting is growing exponentially.    Let’s look four angles on podcasts.   PODCASTING AS EDUCATION   Ms. Amanda Triplett approached me last spri

 I am posting this here for more access. It is not typical of what I post here, though.   Yesterday I interviewed a person for my podcast. That is not unusual. However, this experience was. First, it was deeply spiritual and intellectual. It was in a stimulating environment—not a videoconference, but in her home. Third, it was with a visual artist, only the second of those in my podcast career. And this is a snippet: “I lived near the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and that had a big influence.” “You know, I was reading Psalm 143, and I think it was verse 5, where it says, ‘I muse on the works of Thy hands,’ and it occurred to me that that is what artists do. I know that in the original language it wasn’t the same, but in a museum I think we should muse.” “I was reading that this morning, too.” And discussion followed. Now, how unusual that we had read the same Scripture that morning! And that it came up in the conversation, and that it was relevant. The rest o

This is the outline for a presentation I gave at Toastmasters recently. It was to finish a pathway in their curriculum, but it also my life. There is no lack of books, articles, magazines, and speakers about leadership. A quick look on Amazon shows there are X number of books with leadership in the title.  Ive even written one. But I would venture to say all of them have one thing in common: the writer thinks they are a good leaders and have this leadership things figured out. Although my topic today is leadership I don’t think I have it figured out and recently I learned a lot about failure in leaders and in myself as a leader.  I was asked to lead a large part of our accreditation. I’ve spoken on this before that it’s called a Quality Enhancement Plan, whereby the institution has to pick a problem and construct a specific plan to address it.  I’ve had a year not to reflect—or not—on how it went and what I learned about myself.  I could share  lot, but in the time I have