20 goals for 2020
Amid the debates about whether we’re starting a new year or a new decade, I saw a Twitter thread last week about …
On classroom alchemy and awkwardness
If I were a basketball coach, they would’ve sacked me mid-season. They would’ve blamed the lack of chemistry, the apathy, the mediocre …
Taking my grumperature
Me: “But it’s 100 degrees outsideeeee.” Mr. T: “Yeah, and you’ll go from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air …
The emotional roller coaster of graduate advising
I wasn’t supposed to be in the office that Tuesday morning, but the deadline for a conference paper was looming, and I …
That time I invited my class to negotiate the syllabus
“So how did this work in your other classes?” Gulp. “Well…” And then I admitted to my senior seminar students, on the …
On teaching the day after the election
I’ve never really dreaded my job before. I’ve been more and less excited to teach, of course. Handing back bad grades or …
The Cubs won! And other things on my mind.
“How many innings are in baseball?” “Why does baseball take so long?” “A RAIN DELAY?” “Will this thing ever end?” Mr. T: …
My patronus is a class of budding feminists
Driving through pea soup on the way to work this morning, you could have convinced me that dementors had taken over Sacramento. …
Talking feminism and controlling my face. Kinda.
We’d just finished watching the eight minute trailer for the documentary Miss Representation, a film about harmful gender stereotypes against women, and …
10 ways to celebrate the end of grading
Like most college professors the day after finals week, I should be grading. The paper piles, more than half-vanquished but still huge, …