When feeling the pressure of writing blogs regularly, and not being inspired by the good, the bad and the ugly of higher education headlines, I often have to resort to general pondering on topics.  Often there is an indirect link referenced somewhere in the blog, but these blogs represent musings not easily categorized in any other way.

September 12, 2024: September (Poem on the relative calm that is September in academia)

September 6, 2024: The First Week (Poem on the chaos that is the first week of a semester)

August 26, 2024: Exile From The Hippodrome (Poem on not being part of faculty/staff orientations)

May 15, 2024: A Retiring Sort of Reflection (On my retirement and retirement in academia overall)

December 12, 2023: Bullet-In Boards (Poem on congressional hearings of college leaders)

August 12, 2023: Grades Of The Cliff (WVU's program reviews and cuts)

June 17, 2023: When Sartre Meets Satire (Reflections on an Op-Ed piece that Higher Ed is facing an existential crisis)

May 5, 2023: A Mountaineer Stands At The Edge Of The Enrollment Cliff (WVU announces cuts to meet declining enrollment)

March 21, 2023: Can't A Guy Eat His Lunch In Peace (The junk email at work)

September 23, 2022: Welcome To My World (The hiring of a Chancellor for Florida system seems eerily familiar to my search issues)

August 22, 2022: Around The World Of Higher Education (Weird HE news from around the world)

June 3, 2022: Standing In The Crumbling Train Station (Maryland abandons Bachelor Degree requirements to work for the state)

April 30, 2022: A Robe Looks At 40 (On reaching 40 Commencement ceremonies)

April 25, 2022: April's Cruelty (The challenges at the end of another academic year)

April 15, 2022: Everybody Can Be Bought (Provost paid off for a complaint not being investigated)

April 4, 2022: 20 Observational Recommendations From Being At Conferences (Self-explanatory)

March 25, 2022: How To Piss Off A CAO (In 10 easy steps and in just 5 days) (Feeling undervalued at the Community College)

January 27, 2022: When Back Scratching Leads To Head Scratching (Why accreditors can't fix transfer problems)

October 7, 2021: The Following Has Been Made Possible By A Donation From Spam (When Harvard UP books end up in my spam mail)

August 19, 2021: The Vaccination Fight Song (Do we penalize or reward to get everyone vaccinated?)

July 26, 2021: Fault Lines (The changing landscape of college athletics)

June 9, 2021: Industrial Jackhammers (As academics destroy academia)

April 28, 2021: Hearing Disorder (Surviving the onslaught of budget hearings)

February 26, 2021: So, Where Were The Spiders (Spider infestation at University of Michigan Library)

April 7, 2020: The Work From Home Employee Manual (Self-explanatory)

March 12, 2020: Moment of Truth (First thoughts about COVID and colleges)

February 19, 2020: A Walk Among College Cottages (Higher Ed's Cottage Industries)

January 7. 2020: The Great Read ("The Great Pretender" and academia)

November 24, 2019: Artifacts & Academics: Paper (Fourth in series of four reflections on artifacts in academia)

November 10, 2019: Artifacts & Academics: The Drive (Third in series of four reflections on artifacts in academia)

October 30, 2019: Artifacts & Academics: The Award (Second in a series of four reflections on artifacts in academia)

October 23, 2019: Artifacts & Academics: The Sea Cloud (First of a series of four reflections on artifacts in academia)

July 28, 2019: It All Makes Sense (Making sense of the Open Syllabus Project)

June 27, 2019: A Kind Of Article Review (in PP) (Responding to Op-Ed piece about overuse of PowerPoint in the Humanities)

May 23, 2019: The History of Higher Ed (As Told Through Limerick) (Fairly self-explanatory)

April 11, 2019: How To Put Your Budget Down (Budget deliberations)

April 7, 2019: Reflections In A Stagnant Pool (Conference reflections)

March 11, 2019: Long-Range Missives (When long-range visioning goes awry)

January 31, 2019: Stupidity Studies (A curriculum for teaching about stupidity)

January 28, 2019: Snow Falling On Seniors (Winter weather and dual enrolled students)

August 19, 2018: Making The Cut (How universities and colleges make decisions about cutting programs)

July 5, 2018: Irresistible, Not Irritable! (How can higher ed be more like addictive technology)

May 16, 2018: Confirmation Age Bias (Academics can't even heal themselves)

May 3, 2018: Outcomes Assessment In The Dark (Challenges with assessment)

April 10, 2018: Verbal Kin: The Academic Conference Title Template (Another HLC conference wrap-up)

February 21, 2018: No Moral Higher Ground (None can take the moral high ground)

December 14, 2017: Thoughts To Wrap Up A Really Bad Year, Although Not Really (Random observations)

November 28, 2017: Because Lumps Of Coal Are A Bit Obvious (Give an administrator the gift of a guest lecture)

August 8, 2017: Ebb Tides (Nothing changed while I was out of education for two months)

June 20. 2017: Look At That Cow . . . In The Field (Cow herd research)

May 30, 2017: We Are All (Not) On Drugs (Academics using smart drugs)

May 8, 12 and 21, 2017: We're Not Like Everybody Else (But, then again, Neither is Everybody Else) (Distinguishing institutions who don't make the headlines)

April 6, 2017: Color My World With Hope (Observations from the annual HLC conference)

March 31, 2017: Navigating the Future; Ignoring the Present (Anticipating the annual HLC conference)

December 1, 2016: Deliver Us From More Elements (The periodic table keeps gaining more elements)

October 18, 2016: In Kind (Lack of civility in academia)

September 27, 2016: Insert Joke Here (College marketing through external websites)

May 31, 2016: The Sidewinder Enrolls Tonite (Endangered snake spotted on college campus)

May 9, 2016: Sitting, Not Standing, On Ceremonies (Reflections on 30 years of commencement ceremonies)

May 3, 2016: Is Ten Months The Gestation Period of a College President (Dayton's 10 month transition plan between presidents)

April 18, 2016: Trying To Make The "H" Stand For "Hip" (Notes from the annual HLC conference)

March 31, 2016: She's Giving Me Less Citations (A new MLA handbook in an era of Trump)

March 23, 2016: Mobster, Terrorist, Scholar (Research shows links between higher education and both terrorists and mobsters)

November 22, 2015: Snappy Answers to Questions of Stupid (On research studies about stupidity and sarcasm)

October 29, 2015: The Mission Here, Man (The sacred cow of institutional missions)

October 20, 2015: Come Together, Go Dutch (Use of word of the day in higher education stories)

October 6. 2015: Needs Assessment (What everybody seems to think colleges need)

September 29, 2015: The Full Monte (Elite colleges creating admissions' website)

May 30, 2015: The Brand. The Bland. (Branding campaigns)

March 28, 2015: Failure to Staunch (listing poorly performing colleges)

February 5, 2015: Meditation on Recent News (Escaped Snakes and Frozen Buddhists)

January 13, 2015: Hitting an All-Time (Mas)low (College support type services after students graduate)

December 29, 2014: Vision: 2015 . . . and Beyond (Predictions for the next year in higher education)

September 23, 2014: On Journeys To (And From) Summits (Annual Michigan Student Success Summit Conference)

September 2, 2014: Lebanese Blunder (On the closing of Lebanese College in New England)

June 27, 2014: I Know That I Don't Know What I Don't Know (Ignorance and knowledge combined)

January 22, 2014: "I Find This Scenario Quite Disturbing" (On students no longer able to find themselves at college)

August 8, 2013: Mysteries Of The Unengaged (On student and faculty engagement)

July 11, 2013: Building A Better Casket (Trying to fix higher education's woes)

May 15, 2012:  In Search Of (Using search firms to hire executives in higher education)

January 12, 2012:  Badges:  We Don't Need No Stinking Badges (Online credentials)  

December 20, 2011: The Wheels on the Campus Go Round and Round (Trends, or lack thereof, in Higher Education)   

October 22, 2011: Trending (Surviving Academic Conferences)

October 3, 2011:  A History Lesson (On finding history graduates jobs)

September 15, 2011:   Burn Down The Mission Statement; or, Pass The Mission Template (On the lack of originality in mission statements)

March 24, 2011:  An Annual Rite of Spring (The dreaded evaluation process)

February 28, 2011: So, which is it? (High School/College Relations)

February 4, 2011:  Step Right Up: It's the Only Product You Will Ever Need* (Not everyone needs the four-year degree)

February 2, 2011:  Snow Day Thoughts (Private Institutions and branding)

January 27, 2011:  So You Wanna Be A Chief Academic Officer (On an Inside Higher Ed article about academic leaders)

October 7, 2010:  A Gulf War (On entering the world of blogging about higher education)