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Walking with the Law
As you might remember, I have a goal to move thirty minutes every day. Occasionally, I do laps around the house for half an hour, but my preference is to walk outside around the neighborhood. At this time of year, that means I have to get up early enough to beat the sun. I don’t…
Read MoreThis Week in History
There’s a part of me that thinks being an investigative reporter would have been a wonderful career. I’m probably dogged enough. I like sorting out puzzles and learning about new things. However, I didn’t have the nerve to ask the tough questions until later in my career, so I wouldn’t have made it very far in…
Read MoreReflections on … Learning from Others
One of my first workshops when I started consulting on my own was on the topic of the intergenerational workplace. I found and used a book called The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace by Lindsey Pollack (2019). I’ve written about it in the newsletter before. She has a chapter on…
Read MoreSoftball Lessons
It’s unexpected but I’m immersed in softball lately. I blame Suzanne, the administrative assistant I worked with at OU. She’s an all-year OU softball fan, not merely a championship fan, and her enthusiasm for the players and team got me involved. I watched some of last year’s Women’s World Series and all of this year’s…
Read MoreCreativity, Generosity, and Leadership
On Monday, in his blog*, Seth Godin used two phrases that caught my attention. The title was the newsletter heading, “The hubris of creativity.” The second phrase was near the end of his short post, “Generous creativity is the only way things can get better.” If you search on the second phrase, you’ll find a…
Read MoreReflections on….
“‘Leadership’ is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community,…
Read MoreTaking a Risk
Things have changed since I left, but when I was at UTSA, we had five graduation ceremonies in the Convocation Center (the basketball arena). The processional order was students, faculty, then the platform party. I was in the platform party, usually seated front row, stage left. Our line of faculty and campus leaders was in position…
Read MoreSpringtime is Tough on Campus
1986-87 was a busy year on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin – that’s what’s known as an understatement. I had told Sharon Justice the Dean of Students I was interested in the opportunity to learn new things in this position. We were only three weeks into the semester and I was…
Read MoreReading Time
Friends who’ve known me for any length of time might have been surprised to see that I listed reading time as one of my yearly goals. For most of my life, the challenge was to stop me from reading, reading, and more reading. But life gets complex, doesn’t it? And no matter how important something,…
Read MoreStriving for Fairness
Last week, I wrote about the ideas behind paying taxes and student fees for programs and services that we might never use. I see it as paying my fair share even if in the case of taxes my fair share may be different that someone else’s. This of course raises the question, what share is…
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