Shaving by Candlelight

There was a scheduled power outage last night. It was supposed to be over by 7, but dragged on through the morning. Shaving by candlelight is not exactly like dining by candlelight, but does have a certain touch of elegance, with brass candlesticks on each side of the sink. The water was cold, just like in Sri Lanka.

Software upgrade update: I just sent a note to my wife that says it all.

The migration is "officially" complete, though we have set alarms to alert us to any stability problems that come up over the weekend. We migrated over 4,000 courses and zillions of associated files and records. This culminates a process we began last February and will, hopefully, avoid the new software implementation problems that have typically plagued AU in the past. In fact, our process could be a model for large upgrades, which are often problematic, not only at AU, but everywhere. We shall see. I feel still keyed up, edgy, and beat. And I hardly did any of the work. I was simply accountable for its successful outcome.

See you tomorrow, mit groceries and a log splitter.

Lookng forward to the long weekend, though there will be Paradise Poisoned page proofs to continue editing.

Life is Uncertain, Death is Certain

When I read this passage in Gems of Buddhist Wisdom, during my morning meditation, events in Sri Lanka were uppermost in my mind. Perhaps because I have no television, the impact of events in South and Southeast Asia have taken a bit longer to sink in. But this evening I scanned graphic images of destruction visited on familiar settings on the World Wide Web.

I have been particularly touched by notes from friends, who know of my interest in and regular visits to Sri Lanka, expressing concern, including concern that I might have taken time over the holidays for one of my regular visits. This blog's readers know, however that I am here overseeing the upgrade of new Blackboard software at American University. As far as I know, none of my closest Sri Lanka friends have died, but I am certain to have lost some from among my wider circle of friends and acquaintances.

Tonight, I corrected another seventy or so pages of the page proofs of my forthcoming book: Paradise Poisoned: Learning About Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars. One might hope that the devastation the island has endured might bring government supporters and Tamil Tigers together or at least contribute to greater unity among Sri Lanka's contentious Sinhalese political leaders (govenment and opposition), however it is hard for me to be optimistic.

The Morning Commute - It's Not Much Fun

· One of the reasons I live on campus is to avoid the morning and evening commute on Interstate 66. That was an agreement my wife and I made when me moved to the country. Generally, it has worked out well, though it can have its down sides for one or both of us.
· This morning was a good reminder of why I chose not to include commuting in my life, which so many Washington suburbanites do. I arose at 4:45 AM and was out of the house by 5:10 – a beautiful moonlit night, with just a faint dusting of clouds awaited me. Driving along a country road toward the interstate, looking alertly for deer crossing the road (a serious problem in lower Faquier County) I saw a distant gleam of headlights in my rear view, which quickly closed. The impatient commuter behind me zipped to within a few feet of my rear bumper and then crossed the double yellow line to continue his journey at 75MPH or more. I confess to the brief and most un Christian hope that he (or she) might encounter a deer or large bear on the road. Not very considerate of the bear or deer.
· Accidents and traffic accidents are routine on Route 66 after 5:30 AM, but I encountered neither. Thus (with a stop for gas, that included a small technical problem because the pump would not read my credit card) I arrive at my apartment about 7:15. Total travel time – door to door – under nearly optimal commuting conditions, with no accidents. 2 Hours.
· People have long commutes in Sri Lanka too, Sometimes the duration can be two and a half hours or even three, on crowded busses and trains. I have always wondered how alert and creative a worker can be after a trip like that. I wonder about Washington commuters too, some of whom may be directing the affairs of the worlds remaining superpower. That, at least, is not a problem the typical Sri Lankan commuter faces.
· But Sri Lankans have problems enough, after yesterday’s Tsunami. Pray for them.

Christmas without television

What, no television?
· When we moved to the country and I moved into American University’s Anderson Hall, we chose not to have a television in either dwelling. It was not a big statement, we simply didn’t make TV a priority. So there have been nearly three years without television (we do watch DVD films, occasionally). Thus, we miss the thousands of commercial images with which most people in the developed world are bombarded. I think this gives the holidays, which in America are so driven by the expectation: buying >>> giving >>> expression of love >>> happiness, a very different flavor. I am not against giving, or commerce for that matter. But how could we have been beguiled into the belief that providing material goods is the best way to express love and engender happiness. Thousands of television images each week, communicating that message, will do it.

The Children's Christmas Eve Service at Leeds Church
· Leeds Church, about which I often write, provides a very different view. Last evening, at about 5 PM, nearly two hundred of us packed into the tiny, more than 150 year old church, for the Christmas eve ‘children’s service.’ Our minister gathered all the children close to the alter – there must have been at least thirty – questioned them about the story of Christmas – and gave each a chance to place a figure on the church’s small ‘manger’. She knows every child in the congregation by name, and blesses them by name at communion. The children’s choir sang, two children played the piano during the collection and we concluded with “Silent Night” and then a joyful ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ as a recessional. Then we greeted each other outside the church in the cold winter evening.

The last hours of Christmas eve
· Later we shared dinner with friends in one of the beautiful homes with which this part of Faquier County is dotted. Our companions were a fire captain and his wife, a systems analyst, a newspaper photographer and her husband, a computer programmer, a stockbroker and two professors (my wife and me). We turned in early, with a fire still burning in the hearth for our cats and our horses chomping hay peacefully in their standing shed, awaiting the commemoration of Christ’s birth (if the knew or cared) under a clear, moonlit sky.

Professional vs. Personal - No Bermuda Holiday This Year

· My father called this evening. He is 93 years old, but amazingly fit, physically, and intellectually incisive. Tomorrow morning, he is leaving to spend 2 weeks in Bermuda, which has been a traditional vacation for my family for many years. We stayed at the Lantana Colony Club, a quiet venue, rich in Bermuda traditions, until an inter-generational family feud closed it down. For four years it has sat abandoned, surrounded by chain link fence, but still maintained by its owners, presumably while lawyers snarl at one another, to no good end for anyone.
· Now we stay at Cambridge Beaches, a spectacularly beautiful cottage colony near Mangrove Bay, where I first stayed as a college student with my family, more than 40 years ago.
· We will be doing a major software upgrade at American University, so I won’t be getting off the plane tomorrow with my father, in balmy tropical Bermuda breezes. I will be right here, either providing positive Karma if things go well or helping to solve problems if they don’t. Mostly, I will be communicating to the staff who work with me that I take their work seriously and that if they are expected to make sacrifices, I am prepared to make them as well. This makes a difference to individuals though it means nothing to the institution., American University, because an institution has no heart – no feelings. It only comprises individuals, a small number of whom do.
· I should be in a better mood tonight. I left the office at seven thirty, long before my usual departure time; came home and had a good dinner. But my father’s call unnerved me a bit as I thought about Bermuda.
· Anyhow, I will be able to join my wife tomorrow, joining my her horseback riding friends and the Leeds Church community for the holidays, with many social events. That will not be Bermuda, but certainly a gift and a privilege, given the privations many of my fellow human beings will be experiencing this holiday season. How dare I complain – or be sad. I should be ashamed of myself. If anything, I need to work harder, with greater self-discipline, and be glad of the opportunity to do so.

Quiet Descends

Quiet is descending on the AU campus as finals are completed. The anticipation, pleasures, and dissappointments of the holday season await. Before we know it the new semester will begin and the question of the day will not we "where are you spending your holdays?" but "how were your holidays?"

I am still in my office - a 9:30. I don't know if there is an accepted definition of a workaholic, but I suspect I qualify. I do get great satisfaction from my work and feel it makes a difference - usually - but I have never been particularly good at keeping it in balance with the other parts of my life. Probably it is best to simply accept that this is what is so and be comfortable with it - which I usually am.

It was Christmas pagent time at Leeds Church in Hume Virginia, with which regular readers of this blog will be familiar. The important thing about events at Leeds is that talent is not required for participation. Only enthusiasm and a willingness to serve. The pagent included about 40 children of all ages - amazing for a relatively small congregation. Looking at them gathered before the altar, we could all see the next generation and be hopeful that this unique community, founded in 1759 would outlive those of us who belong to be grandparent generation.

One of my very best staff members leaves today and I want to share an excerpt from my acknowledgement of him or her. I typically don't include names in my blog and won't do so in this instance.

Farewell to a unique human being....

This holiday season will conclude the service of an exceptional CTE staff member....

[He/she] insisted that achieving CTE’s mission could not come at the expense of staff members’ well being. [She/he] ensured that the logistics of CTE events matched the quality of the subject-matter being presented – and much more. In the words of one Management Group member, “when this person entered a room, you knew [he/she] was a force to be reckoned with.”

The opportunity to know and work with [this person] has been a gift and a privilege. We thank him for [his/her] dedication, [his/her] wit, [his/her] energy, his competence, [his/her] creativity and [his/her] commitment to CTE’s mission. The ideals [she/he] exemplified, combining the highest standard of professionalism with fundamental humanity and a compassionate heart, will continue as a beacon for all of us.

We will miss [her/him] and we will not forget him.

To those of you traveling this holiday season, I pray for your safe arrival and return. To all my neighbors, faculty colleagues, staff, friends and members of the human race... may peace and joy be with you

and those you love

and those who love you.

Bomb sniffing dogs, violent conflict and terrorism

On Thursday night, I attended a meeting of the Serindipity Group, a small, aging network of Americans who have lived in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan expatriates living in Washington. The group has raised money to sponsor a bomb sniffing dog, to help clear the thousands of land mines that have been strewn throughout Sri Lanka’s northern regions by both sides during the island’s more-than-twenty-year civil war. Dogs typically work in teams of six. It costs about $100,000 to put a single dog and its handler on the ground in Sri Lanka. Dogs train for a year. Private donors provide $20,000, which is matched by the US State Department, three to one. This is an example of a small, tangible program, with demonstrable results. It is making it possible for displaced farmers to begin using their land again, without fear of losing a foot, a leg, or their lives.
· But how sad that resources must be expended for this purpose in a poor country – or in any country. Reflecting on this program reminded me, once again about why I stopped focusing on global environmental programs, to devote my attention to conflict prevention and conflict development linkages. It is so much easier and cheaper to destroy than to build up. A few thousand dollars to strew farmland with land mines; hundreds of thousands to train the dogs that can remove them. Millions to create a power grid, bringing electricity to rural areas, a few thousand to blast the power pylons that can destroy it. Countless hours of a loving family to nurture, raise and educate a young man. A few blasts of an automatic weapon (wielded by another young man) or the explosion of a suicide bomb (placed and detonated by another young may) to destroy him or both of them.
· It just breaks my heart….

But the failings don’t eliminate the possibilities
For moments of depression like this, I have taped on the walls of my study, bathroom and kitchen, passages that are sustaining and hopeful. Many are from my friend and soul mate, Donella Meadows, who was either a Saint or human being who was closest to Sainthood that I will probably every know personally. Here is one of her writings (which I may have quoted before):

I know the examples of our failings surround us. Our mistakes and missteps are so many and so clear that they don’t need mentioning. But the failings merely coexist with the possibilities, just as a two year old’s fib or a fifteen-year old’s recklessness co-exists with the possibility of the woman she could become. Factory farms don’t diminish the possibility displayed in a lush diverse, organic farm. The existence of bigots and haters doesn’t erase the example of lives lived in peace for the common good. The failings don’t eliminate the possibilities. Only ignoring the possibilities or deciding they are beyond our reach can do that.

For AU Students - Don't forget that study break hours will continue tonight throught Tuesday night. Good luck on your finals and end-of-semester projects and papers!

Tennis in the Fridgid Morning Air and Libraries - On Line

· It is good to be healthy again, recovered from a flu that began the day after Thanksgiving, continued through a near-voiceless week and then through subsequent days of coughing and sinus – this seemed to pretty much the way it was for a lot of the campus, with end-of-semester sleep deprivation creating an environment like a petri-dish culture for flu germs.
· I celebrated by renewing a tennis competition of nearly 20 years with a close colleague – in other words we began before many of my Anderson Hall neighbors were born (have I written about this before). So long as the courts are not snow covered (then we move indoors) we play; heat or cold; rain or shine. We are exactly even and have remained so over the years. In fact, it seems to both of us that our respective games are getting better, however perhaps they are only deteriorating at roughly the same rate ( think I have written about this, before).
· Tennis has been a sport in my family ever since I was a small child. My father was a nationally ranked player and a natural athlete in virtually any sport he attempted – and he loved, and still loves to win. Like many ‘naturals,’ however, he was not a particularly good teacher. Sports were so easy for him, it was hard for him to understand why ordinary folk like me could not “get it” at once.
· I lost this morning – 8-6, and then, with complete loss of concentration, 3-0, before we had to return to the more mundane tasks of the University.
· I even rode my bike to AU’s computer center on Wisconsin Avenue, this afternoon – and didn’t fall.

Libraries on – line
If you listened to public radio this morning or read the paper, you learned that Google will be putting the entire collection of the University of Michigan’s great library on line. The implications will be profound and it will be interested to see how they play out at AU if they do. Libraries (and librarians) have a distinct, resilient culture, with traditions harking the great classical library of Alexandria and the Great Medieval Libraries of Paris, Cambridge and Oxford. Often it is a culture that seems resistant to change. To some degree I can understand this because I love the look feel and odor of books.

At Dartmouth College, where I was an undergraduate, I wrote my thesis in Medieval History, focusing on the rise of central government institutions in 12th and 13th century France. I relished the experience of going to the stacks, withdrawing musty books written in Latin and pre-renaissance French, blowing the dust of the pages, and reading on the charge card that they had last been withdrawn in 1928 (probably by my thesis advisor). This is not an experience that many students – even then – found arousing, or would today. I wonder if Google will be scanning tomes like Le Rois Thaumatage, Manuel de Institutions Francais, or the collected Documents Inedees sur L’Histoire de France. As I was bringing the project to completion, stumbling to bed with stacks of these books and similar ones on my desk, I would dream in French, which was not very restful.

Exploring issues at the intersection between feminism, spirituality and the envrionment: The TOPS program.

This is the time when Christmas (holiday) newsletters begin to arrive and this weekend I received one from a remarkable couple who have had a life-changing influence on my life and the world. They are authors/lecturer/ministers Elizabeth and David Dodson Gray. Years ago, they shared their lives and their home with me while worked together to produce a book that I edited (and wrote a good deal of) for the US Association for the Club of Rome, Making it Happen: A Positive Guide to the Future (1973). It was Liz, who in many personal conversations and her writings was able to communicate central ideas of feminist thought in a way that I could understand them. For many years, Liz as also been the leader of the Theogicical Opportunities Program for Women, which is hosted by Harvard Divinity School, though not officially part of the school. This year the program celebrated its 30th Anniversary.

Surprisingly the program has no web site, however a few quotations from the 2003 series will give you the flavor.
- "To Live Ethically: We must Understand How the World Works: Exploring the World of Privilege and Entitlement"
- "Whiteness as a Social Construct"
- "The Cost to Dominants of Their Privilege"
- "Celebrating Women 30 Years of Women's Lives: Women's Spirtuality and Feminism."

You can get information about Liz's books and the the TOPS program by writing to
Roundtable Press
4 Linden Square
Wellesley Mass 023412-4709

Googling her name will produce some information on her books, lectures and pamphlets. Surprisingly she, too, has no website.

If you are interested issues that fall at the intersection between feminism, spirituality and environment, there is no one who writes about these issues more movingly that Elizabeth Dodson Gray.

Up from underwater

· When I was young Naval officer, underwater survival exercises were part of our training. The one I remember, a sort of end-of-semester metaphor, was intended to simulate surviving a ship that had been torpedoed, so that water adjacent to the sinking ship was covered with burning oil. You jumped into deep water, swam an extended distance (the length of an Olympic pool or more) and then, when your lungs were bursting, you flapped your hands above your head, which was supposed to disperse the burning oil from a breathing space so that you could refill your lungs and take another lap until you had cleared the area of the burn.
· In our training exercises, there was no burning oil (we did do firefighting drills with actual burning oil and, even more fearsomely, burning gasoline), but the challenge of holding one’s breath for an extended period was a real one. What I remember is not so much the pain but the sweetness of the air, the blueness of the sky, and the intense greenness of the trees and shrubbery surrounding our training tank when I surfaced.
· The intensity of what we go through at university peak periods – end of semester paper writing, paper correcting, final exam writing, final exam correcting and, yes, budget drafting is a bit like survival training. It has elements in common with attempting to swim at top speed, for an extended distance, while holding one’s breath.
· … and eventually we know that our heads will break the surface. Our surroundings and relationships will take on a vivid intensity that was not apparent prior to our time of trial. We will appreciate them, all the more, by virtue of what we have been through. I believe that periodically stretching oneself to the absolute limit – mentally and physically – can be a cleansing experience. It can produce results similar to Zen disciplines that are intended to focus the mind and purify the soul.

In the interim, study break hours may help to get you through....
· Remember that dormgrandpop will be having study break hours with lots of coffee, tea, Klondike Bars, fruit and other energy restorers on the nights before final exams, from 10:45 until Midnight, December 14,15,16, 19,20,21.
·

CTE's incremental budget submission (executive summary only)

Sounds exciting doesn't it. Be for I share, remember that Sunday night is roast beef and yorkshire pudding night at dormgrandpop's apartment - yes their will be a vegetarian dish too.

I finally knocked a first draft of the budget at 4:30 AM on Friday morning and provided a copy to my boss, who seems to have nearly inexhaustible reserves of patience. Last night it was off the whole foods to pick up a seven rib roast and other goodies. Then to the Giant where they were having sales on cookies (99 cents a box), fun sized butterfingers, nestlie crunch bars and baby ruths (two for $5) and Klondike bars for $1.99 a six pack. I should be stocked up for study break hours - and even into the next semester (especially if there are no fire alarm evacuations -- I am praying for that!)

A kind student helped me in with my bags and, incidentally, if you see dormgrandpop lugging grocery bags in, I always welcome offers of help --- which will be rewarded with Klondike bars.

Well, anyway, here is the CTE incremental budget executive summary, with just a very few redactions. If you read it I hope you will conclude, as I do that CTE is a pretty neat organization, genuinely concerned with supporting students and faculty. That must be why I work so hard to keep it allive, well and - hopefully - fully funded.

Its off to the country --- finally !!

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Center for Teaching Excellence embodies American University’s commitment to Point 7 of the Fifteen Points, that “Faculty teaching research and service will have added meaning and resources.” Positive references to CTE in Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 and 6 of the American University Self-Study reinforce this. Though viewed by many as an organization that serves faculty, CTE’s largest clientele by far is students. Its five laboratories provide workspace and consulting services to literally hundreds of students each semester. Its revitalized training program is valued resource for students seeking to enhance their information technology and multimedia proficiencies, outside of the classroom. Thus CTE is also a key contributor to Point 3: “The undergraduate experience will become the central focus of the community.”

CTE’s expansion of its services and growing reputation for high-quality service delivery exemplifies ‘increasing operational efficiency’ (Point 5). It assumed its present configuration, under new leadership, in July of fiscal year 2002-04 and its budget has remained ‘steady state. During the ensuing twenty-six month period, CTE consolidated its operations in Hurst Hall, and created a popular new facility, the Faculty Corner. It managed a highly successful transition of the Mathematics and Statistics Laboratory to CTE management, expanding services and improving quality. Now it is undertaking a much more complex task: revitalizing and modernizing AU’s audiovisual services. CTE has orchestrated a three-fold increase it its training workshops for faculty. It has increased the utilization of the Blackboard Course Info system from less than 25 per-cent to more than 80 per-cent of all courses taught. It has become a principal resource for Blackboard Inc. staff members as they attempt to develop a more realistic understanding of how University faculty actually use their technology in actual classes. It has been a key player in the reorganization of AU’s IT services and played key role in AU’s distance learning initiative, lead by ........ It is become an active player in AU’s ABTI university project, with lead responsibility for developing the new University’s web site.

Now CTE is approaching budgetary constraints that will limit its ability to further grow its programs, contribute to the Fifteen Points and respond to the recommendations of the Middle States Report most effectively. Accordingly, I am requesting an increase of $23,700 for fiscal year 2005-2006 and an increase of $36,730 for fiscal year 2006-07 in CTE’s general supplies and special projects account in order to sustain further growth. I am also requesting that long standing shortfalls in CTE’s contractual expenses account be rectified. If approved these requests would represent an increase in CTE’s present non personnel base of 25 per-cent in 2005-06 and 21 per-cent in 26-2007.

In personnel area, I am requesting that a new position be created to share the present responsibilities of the Assistant Director and give increased emphasis to development and outreach. The rationale for this request is the expansion of CTE services, overall, and especially the budgetary and staffing complexities introduced by the addition of audiovisual services to CTE’s responsibilities. In addition, I have raised the possibility that additional funding may be needed to meet obligations that are presently covered by ....... contract with EPA.

There was an elderly man who always carried a little can of oil

Many, many thanks to Maeve for doing such a great job of putting up lights in my Anderson Hall Apartment and decorating with beautiful snowflakes that she cut out herself. If you stop by Anderson 101 for standing rib roast on Sunday night - 8 pm - you will get to see her handiwork. Don't forget to sign up on the bulletin board, though.

Maeve is supergreat but sadly for dormgrandpop (no for Maeve) is will be studying abroad next semester. So dormgrandpop is looking for a new assistant to help out in CTE and especially in Anderson, with dinners, bulletin boards, etc, If you are interested, shoot Maeve an email. maeve.reed@american.edu.

What managers do.... Completing the Audivisual budget yesterday afternoon created space for me to work on larger CTE budget tonight. Budgeting should be a foresighted planning too, but all too often it seems to be an adhoc patchwork process. I feel really good about the AV budget, but don't know if I can produce the same results for CTE. Unfortunately this work is hard to delegate. My budget officer is outstanding - maybe the best at American University, but he lacks the skill to present buget data and especially requests for additional funds as an effective marketing device. I

If only I had another week to work on this.... it's frustrating. Sort of like wanting to write a really great term paper at the end of the semester, but having five to write instead of only one.

The page proofs of my new book came back to day. Managers don't necessarily write books, but faculty members do. I will say more about my book.... lots more... later. The title is Paradise Poisoned: Learning about conflict, terrorism and development from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars.

How many meetings have you attended that lack a clear agenda? I attend a lot of them at AU, but I think an agenda is better. We have developed a format in CTE that enables to us get through a lot of material in an hour.

Possibly, you don't know much about CTE. It helps faculty with their teaching and is responsible for the Blackboard system, for the computer labs in Hurst Hall, for the faculty corner and now, for AU's audivisual services. It has sixteen full-time staff members and about 50 graduate students.

Here is a copy of this week's agenda. It always begins with some 'words of wisdom'.

Management Group Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, December 08, - 10:45 AM
Performance Management Reports Today

There is an old story of an elderly man who always carried a little can of oil with him, everywhere he went, and when he would go through a door that squeaked, he would squirt a little oil on its hinges. If he encountered a gate that was hard to open, he would oil the latch. And so he went through life, lubricating all the difficult places, making it easier for those who came after him. People called him eccentric, strange and crazy, but he went steadily on, often refilling his can of oil when it was nearly empty and oiling all the difficult places he found.
L.B. Cowman in Streams of Devotion (1925; 1997)


Good News
Brainstorming CTE Web Site Maintenance
Performance Management Reports
Really pressing upcoming items (no roundtable, apart from this)
Report from the University Library; Committee on Information Resources
Updates for the CTE Calendar -
Notes, announcements and urgent items for discussion
End of semester good stewardship – our first priority
Note to faculty on Service Pac II – my plan (JR)
Mid year retreat 24 Jan 12-6.
Scheduling of pre-retreat events. December 22 – Completing the past; what worked and didn’t work & progress toward goals set at Spring retreat. 10:30-12:30.
IT on the spot
The AV department budget submission
The CTE budget submission
New Projects

Update on retreat priority projects and other mission critical ongoing projects
· Customer Relationship Data Base (Bryn)
· Installation/upgrading to Blackboard 6.1 (Lyn/Jim McCabe)
Space – setting up the CTE training room (Kelly)
Year-long staff training and professional development (Kelly)
Integrating the Audio Visual Department into CTE
· Adding audiovisual to performance data base ; adding graphical summaries to performance data base
Ongoing projects (Completion dates after this week):
Bulletin Boards and Display Cases (John and Maeve)
Installation of ISDN line in Anderson Hall Training room
Ann Ferren Teaching Conference planning (John, Lyn and Kelly)
Upcoming Events and Dates
CTE Holiday Party. 12/10 Fri 12-2
Blackboard 6.1 Seminars. During Finals Week
Blackboard 6.1 upgrade Dec 27-30
JR 1/1 with Dean Broder. 12/2. 2:00
ANN FERREN TEACHING CONFERENCE. FRIDAY JANUARY 7
Classes begin. 1/10 Monday
CTE Retreat. 1/24 Monday 12-6.

I sure hope I can finish the CTE budget tomorrow. I need to get on with other things, including shopping for a standing rib roast.

On mentoring and words of wisdom

Wow! I finally finshed the AV department budget report about mid-day to day. Good news, though it as put me behind on everything else. Here is an excerpt for posterity. Pretty exciting stuff:

This report provides a snapshot of AU’s AV Department. It recommends changes that would provide services more efficiently, track performance, maintain equipment at a high level of reliability, plan for meeting capital replacement needs realistically and ensure business continuity. There are two sections (see also the detailed “Contents,” below.)
Facilities and Installed Equipment. This section details an inventory of portable equipment and equipment installed in instructional spaces, major venues (Bender Arena and other ‘major event’ spaces) and the Katzen Center. Estimates of the equipment’s capital value and operating/ maintenance expenses are detailed. Potential problem areas requiring urgent attention, especially the Kay Spiritual Life Center and the University Club in Mary Gradon Center are identified. A response to the Provost’s Office memorandum on Technology Enhancements via the Capital Replacement Fund is provided that places somewhat greater emphasis on enhancing existing instructional facilities, coupled with improved scheduling, before expending funds to equip new ones.

More interesting, perhaps, is the note to AU faculty members on the upcoming Ann Ferren Teaching Conference, a sixteen year AU tradition. Normally students would not be likely to seem the periodic, semi-personal communications I write to faculty, but they might provide a useful window. I will share others in this space if the sprit moves me.

Dear Colleagues,

Already, you probably know that AU’s Sixteenth Annual Ann Ferren Teaching Conference is upcoming, on Friday January 7th, beginning at noon (preceded by 10:30 technology workshops on “Blackboard for Beginners”, “Blackboard 6.1” and “Endnote.”)
The conference continues a long-standing AU tradition, but will differ from its predecessors in several respects.

Holding the conference on Friday, and beginning later in the day responds to requests from many colleagues. For some, Friday is a day of religious observance. Others simply prefer to spend Saturdays with their families. For last minute types, like me, who are still revising syllabi and course plans on the weekend before classes, the conference may provide additional grist for that creative process.

Even more than last year, thanks to Lyn Stallings’ leadership colleagues have been involved in a lengthy program design process that began early last spring. The emphasis on approaches that foster interactive learning, shifting students from being passive recipients of information to engaged, and discerning (even demanding!), learners reflects this. If you check out our website, www.american.edu/cte and click on the conference website (Faculty > Conferences and Workshops > Ann Ferren Teaching Conference ), you will see a number of variations on this theme, reflecting many contributions, from many colleagues, ffrom the vantage points of diverse disciplines and discourses.

If you heard Pat Aufterheide’s remarkable convocation address (or have heard her speak on any occasion) you know that the opportunity to hear her speak personally to us about teaching will, in itself be worth setting the Friday afternoon before classes begin aside. I expect a compelling, evocative keynote. I expect it to help me think newly about teaching. I expect to be supported in attaining a goal virtually all of us share: empowering our students to become engaged, passionate learners.

Finally I want to say something about the experiment that will conclude the Conference, beginning about 3:30, our Words of Wisdom reception. What is this all about?

Some years ago, a young colleague was my office neighbor while she was going through the most stressful time in an academic career, the last pre-tenure year. Having both been denied tenure and awarded tenure allowed me to share personal experiences as I tried to be a caring, supportive and yet realistic mentor. But it is not only elderly colleagues, such as myself, who have something to offer. When I want to learn about how to blog more effectively, I seek out Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. If I was going to teach a large undergraduate class, Mark Walker’s phone might be ringing off the hook. If I was planning to raise funds for a new CTE education project, Sarah Irvine Belson would soon be asking that I make appointments before dropping in to her office.

All of us have something to offer to each other in areas that might be termed academic mentoring, research mentoring, AU ‘culture’ mentoring, tenure-process mentoring, pedagogical mentoring, community-context mentoring, and the like. All of us – older community members like me, and dynamic young scholars like my ID Program colleague, Miguel Carter, have something distinctive to contribute that can improve the effectiveness and quality of life another one of us.

But all too often, whether we do or do not benefit from such potential contributions, is left to serendipity.

Our Words of Wisdom reception is intended to begin a process of changing this; of facilitating and empowering a more vibrant mentoring community among American University faculty members.

Seeking advice from many sources, Lyn Stallings and I are designing a process for the reception that is intended to seek out mentoring needs and begin drawing fourth a collective body of wisdom and experience that can respond to those needs. I could provide you with some of the details we have worked out so far. In fact, Lyn asked me to do so, but this message is already longer than I like to write. Suffice it to say that we intend to create an evocative, engaging process in an area of great need and great opportunity for all of us.

And it will be only the first step toward the goal of not leaving the mentoring needs of our community to serendipity. Among other things, we intend to follow up the reception by creating an on line Faculty-Community Mentoring Corner.

Serving as CTE Director has given me the opportunity to know many more of you personally than would otherwise have been the case. That is the job’s greatest reward. We are a rich, intellectually and creatively gifted, incredibly hard working, dedicated and caring community of scholar-teacher-performer-artist-activists. How few opportunities we have to gather together in the same space, sharing common concerns and each other.

This is the gift that the Ann Ferren Teaching Conference provides.

I look forward to being there, and to seeing you there.

John

Nearly 1 o'clock. How did it get to be so late!

Being at peace

I wasn’t going to blog this morning – yes the unfinished AV budget is still looming – but came across a particularly moving passage in Gems of Buddhist Wisdom during my morning reading. Juxtaposed against the news from Iraq, to which I was later listening on NPR’s Weekend Edition, it seemed timely. I have edited the passage to incorporate gender-neutral phrasing.

Human beings who are not at peace with themselves cannot be at peace with the world and external wars have to continue in order to hide the fact from individuals that the real war is within. The most important prayer of humankind today is for peace, but there can be no peace in this war-torn world until the conflicts of individual human beings with themselves are ended.

The Higher Power appears to have granted us a beautiful Saturday, to be conscious of , celebrate and enjoy.

Iron Plus Fire

· In an earlier blog, I may have shared that some months ago, I consulted my daughter in law, an evangelical Christian (my classification not necessarily hers) about a book of daily Christian devotions that I include in my daily (or almost daily) early morning reading. The book she recommended Streams of Devotion is one that she, herself, reads each morning. It is a happy thought for me that this is an experience we share together, thought a considerable physical distance apart, on most days.

· A common message, expressed in various metaphors, and supported by various Biblical texts is that life is challenges, which are, in turn, a source of strength. I found the following passage. read some mornings ago, so compelling that I transcribed it and have it posted in a couple of places where it will strike my eyes, periodically:

Very few Christians are willing to endure the suffering through which complete gentleness is obtained. We must die to ourselves before we are turned into gentleness and our crucifixion involves suffering. It will mean experiencing genuine brokenness and a crushing of self, which will be used to afflict the heart and conquer the mind.

This morning’s reading communicated the same theme somewhat differently:

Steel is the product of iron, plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat and the crushing of glaciers. Linen is flax, plus the water that cleans it, the comb that separates, the flail that pound it, and the shutter that weaves it. In the same way the development of human character requires a plus attached to it, for great character is made not through luxurious living but through suffering. And the world does not forget people of great character.

These passages provide a bit of solace as I continue to toil at the seemingly endless task of rationalizing AUs AV department budget, this Friday evening, as midnight approaches.

Tea, Honey and Lemon Juice

...is what the medical profession is recommending to bring back my voice - and it seems to be working. Kaiser Permanente now has a 24 hour medical advice hot line which is a most useful innovation since I never want to take work time to get medical advice during working hours, let alone go to the doctor. It may well be that the advice nurse is in South Asia, but I have respect for Indian and Sri Lankan medicine, so this is not a problem for me. And Kaiser now has their own after hours emergency service as well. Given the present state of the US health care system, this is probably as good as it gets.

My sister sent me this, and then someone else did too.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year's presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster's list of the 10 words of the year.
Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks," was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year.

And here is a link sent to me by the head of AU's web operations (and one of the university's most capable employees).
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Content_Creation_Report.pdf

The link discusses a range of uses on the internet.

The budget is still not finished. In case anyone is interested, here is an excerpt of a document that is now more than 10 pp long, complete with tables.

Estimated capital replacement costs for instructional spaces.
The estimated total value of equipment presently installed in instructional spaces is about $438,400. Assuming a 3 year average lifetime for most of the equipment and a 4 year average lifetime for overhead projectors and automatic wall screens yields annual capital replacement cost of $137,425, which would need to be adjusted upward for inflation. The capital replacement model I have constructed assumes an inflation adjustment of 3% per fiscal year, beginning in 2007. Based on this model, capital replacement costs of our presently installed equipment (excluding enhancements) would rise to about $154,500 by 2009 (see table below).

This will not win the national book award, but I am learning a lot about two previous areas of ignorance for me, audiovisual technology and capital budgeting.

Learning and doing new things, whatever they may be, is always valuable and especially so as one gets older.

Life will still be humming in Anderson Hall as midnight approaches. Time to close down the CTE night shift and see what's up.
¨

Gems of Buddhist Wisdom

I have put Gandhi aside, temporarily, and am devoting my early morning time to a publication of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist Missionary Society, Gems of Buddhist Wisdom. I purchased the book at the Missionary Society Kiosk, in Colombo’s International Airport on my last trip to Sri Lanka. Chapter titles in the section ‘Buddhism and Life’ will give you the flavor
¨ Facts of Life
¨ The Meaning of Life
¨ The Purpose of Life
¨ Life is Uncertain, Death is Uncertain

These are useful issues to contemplate, as I struggle to extricate myself from the complexities of the AV Department Budget. As with many of my projects, I am not very good at estimating how long things will take, which can put me on a frustrating and stressful “catching up” treadmill. Gems of Buddhist Wisdom has thoughts to offer on such matters, for example:
·
What is life so full of care
· We have no time to stand and stare
·
· No time to stand beneath boughs
· And stare as long as sheep and cows
·
· No time to see the woods we pass
· Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass
·
· No time to see, in broad daylight
· Streams full of stars, like skies at night
·
· No time to wait till her mouth can
· Enrich that smile her eyes began
·
· A poor life this, if full of care
· We have no time to stand and stare
·
“Why and earth would you blog?” my sixties and up contemporaries will ask, sometimes derisively.
·
Perhaps this form of communication can be a means of setting time aside to stay in touch with our own humanity.
·
·Back to my to do list, the CTE Management Group Agenda and, yes, the AV Department Budget.