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Monday night I attended the opening banquet for TACUSPA (Texas Association for College and University Student Personnel Administrators). As always I saw friends, former students who are now professional colleagues, and a few people I’ve known many, in some cases, many, many years. TACUSPA was my first professional home and therefore the place I have…

Before last week’s technical difficulties, I was writing about some of my experiences with sports. First and foremost, is that my experiences with sports are almost entirely of the spectator variety. As I once put it in response to an interview question about the value of Recreational Sports programs, “I don’t really know why anyone…

The first professional conference I ever attended was held by the Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators – there’s a reason we shorten it to TACUSPA (ta-coo-spa). It started on a Sunday night in a rustic resort outside of Wimberley, Texas. The location meant I didn’t have any meal options. There was…

As you can imagine I had to look for a while to find a positive quote about meetings. Quote, after snarky quote from, “The longer the meeting, the less accomplished.” to “People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” Leadership consultant and educator, Peter Drucker believes “Meetings are a symptom of bad organizations.” And of…

The list of reasons to stop using social media may be nearly endless, but I’m still on Facebook and Twitter and every once in a while I look at Instagram. (And yes, I know I just told you something about my age.) I spend less time and post less than I did when I was a…

A few days ago, I enjoyed the daily post of Matthew Dicks. His title was, “How to transform your child into a writer.” While his example and suggestions were specific to writing, they could apply as easily to any creative endeavor. Actually, they could apply to any attempt to try something new, especially something that…

Or in more formal style, ‘to whom are you listening’? Whichever version you prefer, it seems to me that the question becomes more important each day. Today I was part of Laura DeVeau’s Fireside podcast Think Tank https://firesidechat.com/lauradeveauand I found myself talking about listening. Laura does a weekly hour on topics of higher education and once…

Early in my career when I worked at UT Austin, first in student conduct and later with services for students with disabilities, I spent a lot of time working on systems, procedures, process, rules, regulations, guidelines – you name it we were trying to understand, create, refine and define it. After I had been there for…

When was the last time you felt like the child in this picture? There’s a large chance he’s a bit unsure about what’s going to happen when the pitcher throws the ball, but he’s determined to handle it. He’s new, doesn’t know much yet besides the fact that at some point if the baseball gods…

Last week, I got a text from my mom asking if I was ready to travel with “to act Italians.” Now my family has known for a long time that Siri doesn’t speak “Oklahoma” and we’ve become reasonably adept at deciphering my mom’s text messages. Usually, reading it out loud makes it possible to understand,…