Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend – the bookends of summer. Recently I mentioned to a colleague that we started school after Labor Day when I was a kid in part because schools weren’t air conditioned. She was astonished. She was even more amazed when I told her we still had residence halls that didn’t…

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “comfort zones” lately. Last week, the OU College of Nursing had a two-day All College Retreat. There were sessions for faculty only and for staff only, as well as sessions that brought everyone together. In one of those sessions, I led the entire college through the Leadership Dance. There…

It’s May which means it’s graduation season. Since I’m back on campus, it also means I’ll be attending graduation ceremonies this week. Because we are a nursing college, we will also have pinning ceremony making a very full week to come. And a fun week filled with celebrations. Since I haven’t yet attended any of this…

Sunday was a lovely day  in Oklahoma City and I went for a walk that afternoon. It was a beautiful spring day, temperature in the 60′, sunny, fresh breeze, well, it’s Oklahoma so closer to wind than breeze but still a pleasant day to be out and to walk around the neighborhood. It reminded me yet again…

I’ve written about Walker Tower, the location of my first room as a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. It was one of the three twelve-story towers OU built in the 1960s. A year or so ago, University leadership decided it was time to tear down this bit of my campus history and now all…

Milestones. Sometimes they show us the way. Sometimes they show us where we’ve been. Sometimes they feel more like millstones around our necks because we have expectations about when and where we are supposed to be at some perfect time or place. But milestones can also be interesting ways to notice the world around you.…

Those of us who went to college in the 1970s may have been the last of the lucky ones. We were lucky because most of us didn’t think our lives, our entire futures, depended on whether or not we were admitted to whatever school we had decided to apply to. That has certainly changed. One…

When it comes to roommate stories, I was lucky enough to get the Goldilocks and the Three Bears version. Roommate #1 was too much alike, roommate #2 was too different and roommate #3 turned out to be just right. Luckily for me, and it’s probably true that it was lucky for many of us, there…

“Don’t worry. Remember, she was a slow starter in high school and that turned out okay. It’ll be fine.” That was my younger brother reassuring my mother who, apparently, was worried about me during my first year of college. I learned about this conversation long after it had taken place. When I did learn about…

The former dean of the Dedman School at SMU had one of the best roommate stories I’ve heard. He would show up to speak to incoming students wearing a seersucker suit and bow tie and looking like the nerdiest professor ever. But it didn’t take long before the students and their parents were enthralled as…