Have you ever questioned why you work in academia? I have. In a particularly challenging part of the 2023-2024 academic year, I questioned my place in academia. I confided in a sister in Christ and shared that ‘endless emails and zoom calls’ certainly couldn’t be my calling. Her simple response gave me pause. She said, […]
Artificial Intelligence is discussed everywhere these days; it has both its “boosters” and its “doomers.” Some AI boosters dream of a trans-human utopia that populates the universe. AI doomers, on the other hand, fear that AI could instead annihilate humanity. A major headline in the Financial Times recently declared, “We must slow down the race to God-like […]
I count Fall 2021 as my second-worst semester in 23 years of tenure-stream teaching. A week before classes started, I rapidly assembled syllabi for two sections of ENGL 3950: Literature for Children, my regular offering to education majors. I’d stretched myself by ordering several books I’d never read. I hastily found an article covering feminist versions […]
Should my Christian faith be a factor in which research projects I choose? I was recently interviewed by a media outlet that was interested in covering one of my published papers in their magazine. During the interview, I had to discuss my research interests and provide an overview of my published research portfolio. A light […]
We are teaching in tough times. In our state, many of the schools in our university system are still reeling from the budget decreases that accompanied enrollment drops during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My university, one with a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) designation, was hit especially hard, suffering a 17% decline in enrollment. […]
As a new faculty member at a public university on the West Coast, I was curious about the different ways I could integrate my faith into the classroom. In addition to publicly identifying myself as a Christian on the first day of class, could my faith make a difference in not only what I taught, […]
I was anxious when our oldest child left for college. I was concerned about the challenges to her Christian faith that she would encounter. Midway through her first semester, she called home upset. She had an assignment that required her to attend an off-campus event whose goals conflicted with our faith. It was a required […]
I gazed in disbelief at the numbers on the pharmacy display: 146 over 82. My doctor’s office visit reading of elevated blood pressure from a week before was correct after all. Busted! While taking on a departmental leadership role, one of the two program support staff vacated her position early in the spring semester. I […]
Early last summer, I was wrapping up a grant proposal that had not been awarded the year before but had received positive feedback. As a project team, when we decided to resubmit, we knew it would require significant changes based on the recommendations.. And, because it was a multi-state, multi-institutional project, it was a significant […]
Early each Wednesday morning, I jump on a Zoom call with a small group of incredible women from my campus. We spend 30-60 minutes sharing life’s stories and praying for each other. When we started this group, a Zoom prayer gathering made necessary by the pandemic, I would not have guessed we would still be […]
