Art Show and Poetry Reading

Tonight, my Writing Fiction and Poetry students and Prof. Thomas's Illustration for Publication students had an art show and poetry reading at an area coffeeshop. We had a good crowd (~30 or so). I was very impressed with the work the students have done. I forgot to take my camera, so I'll try to get back over to the coffeeshop to take some pictures of the work and get them posted here.

Thanks, Dr. Colling

One of the strange things and yet great pleasures about coming back to work at my alma mater has been getting to work with some of the folks I had as professors. After getting past the awkwardness of figuring out how to address them, my appreciation for them and their dedication to their work and to Olivet has grown.

Last week, we had the annual salute to retiring faculty and staff members reception. I had the chance to shake hands and speak briefly with one of my favorite professors from my time at Olivet. As part of meeting my general education requirements, I had to take 8 hours of science courses. For one of my courses, I signed up for a course called Science, Technology, and the Environment. Dr. Colling was the lead teacher for this team-taught course that covered science issues for non-science majors. I have always been interested in science and briefly flirted with the idea of trying to get a teaching endorsement in science. Anyway, during this course Dr. Colling led us through several issues of the day - genetics, environmentalism, and others - and helped me to reaffirm my beliefs that science and faith (my dad was a physics and math major) are not contrary and Christians need not fear the findings of science.

Thanks, Dr. Colling. I hope to see you on the golf course soon. The weather of summer should arrive this weekend.

Out for a Morning Run

Saturday morning, the Office of Health Services sponsored a 5K run on campus as the culminating event of a 3 month long wellness campaign. Over 200 students, faculty, and staff showed up to run at 8:30. 5 faculty members from our department took on the challenge and completed the race.

Running has always been a bit of a mystery to me. It's what you did to get to a drop shot or a cross-court backhand. It's what you did after a made basket or to fill a lane on the fast break. My previous experience with distance running consisted of just going as hard as you can for as long as you can usually in the pursuit of a ball.

In my first race since 6th grade track, I managed to finish the race and beat the time I'd set as a goal. Seeing as I need to find a way to continue to be active and athletic outlets seem to be more limited as I get older or maybe it's my unwillingness to accept that I'm not in condition to do the things I used to do, I think I may stick with this running thing for awhile. I'm eyeing a 10K on June 6 in South Bend, IN (my hometown). It finishes at the 50 yard line of Notre Dame Stadium, so I guess if I'm going to run 6.2 miles, I may as well get to finish in the Stadium.

As a side note, my daughters Audra and Emilia were at the finish line to greet me. Apparently, Audra was cheering, "Go Daddy Go! Go Daddy Go!" for the 30 or so runners who finished before I did, but she ran out of "Go Daddy Gos" by the time I finished. I guess I'm glad I didn't finish in the 170s. While cheering for her dad lost her interest, the Toby the Tiger, Olivet's mascot, had her full attention. They exchanged multiple high-fives and hugs. Emilia participated with several of her friends in an ROTC sponsored kids' run. She's still wearing her medal this afternoon. After her run, she whispered to me, "Dad, I beat two of those army guys who were running with me." I didn't have the heart to tell her that they were running behind to pick up any kids who fell off the pace.

Hopefully, the Sunburst 10K in June has army men to pick me up if I become too much of a straggler.

Zukas

I've had a unique experience this year working with one of our senior English majors as she has been writing a novel as part of her departmental honors project. I've been very impressed with her work and how much her writing seems to be growing through the process of completing this project. We've been meeting on Fridays to discuss her work. She's spending this weekend putting the finishing touches on her story of a large family, the Zuckers, and their adventure in opening a family business selling Zuka shells on Zebedee Island. I'm excited to see how her novel concludes and the struggles of Isabelle and George and Lillian and the other characters she's created work out.

Always Impressed

I decided to tag along with the men's tennis team last night when they headed up north to work out in preparation for their spring season. I got a chance to talk with Mark, one of the players. Mark's a junior engineering major and a resident assistant in one of the dorms.

During the trip to the racquet club and on the way back to campus, we had a chance to chat about any number of topics - class work, life on campus, future plans, the upcoming season. I am always impressed with the ability of many of our students to articulate visions of their future that are not all about them.

While I don't have the opportunity to meet with many upperclassmen because the vast majority of the students in the classes I teach are freshmen and sophomores, it is exciting to see and hear how God's plans for their lives are being worked out. That's not to say that freshmen and sophomores aren't interesting or that God is only at work in the lives of students who are nearing graduation, but juniors and seniors are more aware of their dwindling days before graduation.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Communion

Our family just finished our Christmas tour. We spent the weekend before Christmas with my family in South Bend, IN, returned home for Christmas, and then left the 26th for Heather's family in Abilene, KS.

Anyway, on Sunday the 28th, we attended church with Heather's parents, her three brothers and their families. In all, there were 18 of us. The 2 youngest spent the service in the nursery, but the other 6 spent the service sharing markers and making all sorts of creations. The service concluded with communion at the front of the church. Heather's dad worked it with the usher to ensure that our three rows could take communion together.

As we were kneeling at the altar and the elements were brought to us, I glanced over at Emilia, my 6 year old daughter, who was kneeling next to her cousin Katherine. They brought the bread first. At this particular church, they had bread cubes instead of the hard, white, rectangular, fingernail-sized crackers we use at our church. Emilia reached in the basket with both hands and pulled out multiple bread cubes. I watched curiously to see what would happen with the juice. She decided on one cup.

She might have just been a little hungry, but I'd like to think that perhaps she is just reminding me to desire more of Christ in my life.

A Break from the Piles at the End of a Semester

There seem to be multiple piles in my life at the moment...the thankfully still small piles of snow I can hear my neighbor making with his snow shovel, the pile of books I intend to read, the pile of laundry I need to get put away, the pile of papers that still need to be graded. I'm sure with enough time I could find a few more piles.

However, a few faculty and staff friends and I decided to see if we could still play basketball, so we entered a team in the intramural basketball Holiday Tournament. A couple of us are former varsity athletes, but now we're all over 30, and we have children to put to bed before our wives let us out of our houses to go play ball. One of our players, Mark Holcomb, is a grandpa. As we've advanced in the tournament, we've started to play some teams with current varsity athletes, and it's been interesting to see their reactions to seeing those they might see in the pulpit at College Church or on a visit to Student Development or in front of their English class guarding them.

After our game on Thursday night, one of the students who was just there watching the game said, "Hey, aren't you an English teacher?" as I was leaving. Other times there have been some cat-calls and hoots from other students I have had in class when I manage to throw up an airball or actually pull down a rebound. While I've enjoyed hanging out and playing with my fellow faculty and staff members (Matt, Corey, Paul, Craig, Dwayne, Mark, and Justin), I have also enjoyed seeing my students outside of the classroom.

Isn't part of being a member of a community being able to put aside the piles for a few moments (even if it's just for 2 20 minutes halves with a running clock when I'm normally headed for bed) to see each other in a new and different way?

By the way, we play Tuesday night for a chance to play in the championship game. The championship will be played in McHie Arena (home of Olivet's varsity teams). The students are excited to play in the arena, but all I can think about is dreading the extra probably 20 feet we'll have to run each time down the court.

Reflection on an Election

Yesterday morning as I was getting Emilia ready for school and Audra ready to go to her friend Kate's house, I happened to catch the footage of Barack and Michelle Obama and their daughters going to vote together in Chicago. The girls and I watched the footage, and I fielded a couple of questions from Emilia about what they were doing and why all the people were waiting in line. I explained that today was finally the day that we get to vote (Emilia's been interested, so I've let her watch a couple of the debates with me even though they're after her bedtime) and that in our country we believe that it is important to give everyone the chance to have a say in who our leaders are.

After dropping off Emilia at school, Audra and I stopped in at our polling place and voted. She played with a soccer ball with several of the poll workers while I completed my ballot. As we were voting, a man and a wife and their daughter came in to vote. He was carrying a stool and the daughter had a copy of the voter's guide, which had a sample ballot. As they voted, she stood on the stool and filled out her sample ballot while they filled out their ballots. They were just finishing up as Audra and I walked out with our "I Voted" stickers.

Later that afternoon, Emilia told me that her class voted. She told us she voted for Obama because she says, "He has ears like Uncle Cody's." She probably also had picked up on her father's running commentary as we watched the debates.

The role of children in our election is more significant than the obligatory references to the world we want our children to live in. We should take our children to the polls, we should watch the debates with them, we should let them hear our conversations, we should let them fill out ballots.

Just The Lorax and Me

Last night, Emilia and I had the chance to read as part of Sigma Tau Delta's (the ONU English Honor Society) Dr. Seuss celebration. We read The Lorax. Emilia, who is in Kindergarten, read the Lorax's words and the Once-ler's instructions at the end of the story while I read everything else. I've got to brag a little bit and say how awesome she did particularly on those Seussisms like scholppity schlop and gluppity glupp. Many of our students were there as well as some faculty colleagues and their children. We had a great evening, and I hope Sigma earned some of the money they were hoping to raise to pay for attending their national convention this spring. They've done some great work over the past couple of years. For example, they won a national award for their service project, which was putting together packets of articles for Dr. Belcher-Rankin's students from her time spent as a Fulbright Scholar in Burkina Faso.

Recent Conversations

I love great conversations, and conversations are one of the best parts about being in a community. Here are a few favorites from the last week...

Saturday, we had dinner with the Claborns. While the conversation about whether the Red Sox winning consistently and paying players at a rate only exceeded by the Yankees starts to cause them to lose their appeal and a debate about the performance (read the multiple meanings of performance here) of running mates in the debate were fun to engage in, I was drawn to watching the four little bodies flopping, gyrating, sprinting, hugging and just enjoying each other's company as the big folks sat around the dining room table.

Sunday, Heather and I had the chance to share some reflections on our trip to Portugal this summer. Feel free to check out our blog of the experience. Unfortunately, Heather and I seem to get so busy being professors and students and parents and and and and that we haven't had much of a chance to sit together and reflect on the experience. We both shared with our class and with each other the challenge of pouring out all of what you have without knowing the end result of what you've done or even seeing the progress that is being made. We both are confident, however, that our students whether currently attending EUNC in Switzerland or back at home in Paris, Barcelona, or Madrid will have the chance to influence the lives of many that we will never meet because of the very small role we played in living and learning together over the summer. I wrote about our experiences at http://50daysinportugal.blogspot.com. Feel free to check it out.

Everything's Better with Buddies

As you can probably gather, one of my favorite activities is getting the girls ready in the morning and dropping them off at school and daycare. The other day, Emilia decided that the time was right for her to walk from the car up to the school door for the last time. Tomorrow was going be one of those all important first steps. As we were approaching the path up to the school, one of her classmates Sam was walking up at the same time. Emilia offered him her other hand and still held on to mine as we continued up the sidewalk. It wasn't long before a minivan door opened behind us, and we heard a shout, "Emilia!" I could tell from the loosening of Emilia's hand that I was about to be replaced. She offered Madelyn her newly emptied hand, and the three of them made their way, hands linked, up to school.

Last fall, some of my students convinced me to start a facebook account. I was a little hesitant because I didn't want to have one more thing that I had to check and make sure I kept current. I don't keep it current, but it has allowed me to keep track of many of those guys I joined up with as together we sorted out some of those long walks of growing up. Now, we're husbands and fathers, teachers and doctors, pastors and businessmen, and we still share those challenges of growing up. I got messages from a couple of those guys from college the same day I was traded off for a couple of buddies on a walk into school and was reminded that it seems to make life seem easier when we can walk through it with someone.

I Miss Dr. McGuire

After my 1:30 class this afternoon, I saw Lyra, a junior English major I had in a freshman composition class, and Tim, one of the students I advise (an official sounding word for helping schedule classes and navigate the academic side of university life), sitting down at the end of the hall waiting for their next class to start.

#2 on my list of what I enjoy about the students being back - Getting to have all sorts of conversations

Anyway, Lyra said something to me and I walked down and had a seat with them. Tim and I are trying to work through a conflict in his schedule, so I mentioned the possibility of doing a study abroad program at someplace like Oxford and taking classes that could replace one of the classes that's a conflict right now. A couple other students were in the area and both piped in their opinions about studying abroad. Ashley and Joel, both seniors, have spent semesters abroad. Ashley was at Oxford for a semester last year and Joel spent a semester in Russia.

As we were talking, the conversation shifted to many different subjects, but the one that stuck with me was how we miss Dr. McGuire. Dr. McGuire retired at the end of last school year after, I believe, 30 years of teaching at Olivet. We shared favorite stories about her and her teaching, particularly her teaching of British Literature. Joel, Ashley, and Leigh talked about projects they did in her class and the unexpected reactions they got from her. We all remember reciting the Lord's Prayer in Old English at the beginning of class. I told them about The Festival of British Literature, a project we did in her class, that involved marching across campus in costume performing stories from Canterbury Tales, eating a British dinner, and then each person in the class performing another story after dinner. They talked about her bringing coooookies (always pronounced with an extra long o) and cucumber sandwiches. I shared about the songs we sang about Beowulf as she played along on her lap harp. These stories reminded me of what great teachers do...they figure out a way to connect with their students and create experiences that help them to better understand a particular subject area.

Dr. McGuire, from six of your former students, thanks for a job well done.

Classes Start Wednesday

Sometimes it's not easy to pause in the midst of the busyness of the beginning of the semester (meetings, planning schedules, cleaning up those things I should have put away at the end of spring semester, meetings) to soak in the energy that having the students back in town brings.

I'll try to share over the next couple of weeks a few of those beginning of the year moments that help get me back in the school has started groove.

#1 - Playing the how many students we'll see at Target (or any other store) game
My wife Heather (also, an ONU professor) and I played on Saturday. The rules are simple count the number of students you know. Most names wins. I guessed I'd see three going in. I counted five and had a chance to at least say hi to four of the five. I think I may concede victory to Heather because, while I saw more students, she was asked for nutrition-related advice by a couple of her former students. By the way, we also saw three other professors at the local ice cream shop. Maybe we're all trying to hold on to summer a bit longer.

First Days

Well, it has happened. I'm officially the parent of a school age daughter. Emilia dressed in her new sandals, the dress her mom picked out for her in Portugal, and the necklace they had negotiated wearing marched through the front door of the school at 8:45 on Tuesday morning. I have to admit to having shed more than a few tears as I drove around the neighborhood waiting for her mom come back out from the school.

My tears are the same ones that parents have been crying for all sorts of happy, proud, and, yes, kind of sad moments. While I don't remember my parents' tears on my first day of kindergarten, I do remember them on other days...orientation at ONU, dropping me off at school each year, my wedding, after helping us pack up and move to Kansas, before we left for Portugal. I think I understand their tears a little bit better now that I've started to cry them, too.

I also couldn't help but think about the many other firsts that I'll get to experience with my girls and the tears I'll probably cry once their out of sight. I'm sure they'll catch me crying at some point. I just hope they understand that the tears, while they may be shed out of sadness that my little girls are growing up, are really ones that flow out of the excitement I see as I look out at their futures.