Dreams for the New School Year – Choosing Persistence
August 5, 2024
I really love sports. Sports brings out the best in us. Teamwork, communication, dedication, persistence, and excellence become the norm when you play them. Dealing with failure and overcoming increasing challenges are just part of the experience. The valuable lessons that are taught stick with you over time, especially those related to choosing persistence. What a summer it has been for sporting events. For a sports lover like me, this summer has been a…
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Seventy-Five Summers
July 3, 2024
Talk to anyone in my family, and they’ll tell you that I’m wild about the 4th of July. Not in a decorate the house in bunting kind of way, but in being part of the quintessential American Independence Day celebration. I have lots of options in my hometown since both Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia, hold huge fireworks displays attended by tens of thousands each year. One in the colonial capital and one on the…
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It’s Graduation Season
May 31, 2024
Summertime Feeling Throughout May and June, millions of students across the nation reach that major life milestone of graduation. Some are leaving school and moving on to other educational institutions; others are heading into the workforce. But, to a person, I can guarantee that they are nervous about their future. This is why this is such an emotional time for all these students and their families. I participated in this rite of passage this year…
Read more“Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy,” Or, Optimal Engagement in the Workplace
April 10, 2024
When I first heard Michael Stipe cry out that line from the R.E.M. song What’s the Frequency Kenneth? something about it stuck with me. And it still resonates with me today. I was relatively new to the workforce, and that one line said a lot about what I saw every day in my workplace. I was surrounded by incredibly bright, capable people who, on the surface, seemed at best apathetic. Were they really apathetic,…
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A Managerial vs. Entrepreneurial Approach to Leadership
August 31, 2021
You might have seen the recent Inside Higher Ed article published in March of 2021 titled “Colleges a ‘Juicy Target” for Cyberextortion.” As if mask mandates (or lack thereof), vaccination hesitancy, the Delta Variant, and all the other disruptions that we’ve seen over the last 18 months aren’t enough, now cybercriminals have our schools in their crosshairs. And it’s not just higher ed institutions that are at risk. Someone could soon find my 5-year-old niece’s…
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