Time to Move

In 1997, I went to work as Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at SMU. The Vice President was Jim Caswell. I had seen Jim at my first TACUSPA about fifteen years before that and he had become a friend and mentor over the years. I had worked in my new position for about…

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Friends, Conversation, and Writing

This past week was a difficult week for a variety of reasons that don’t matter here because just like this week’s quote, the week passed and this weekend was delightful. A friend from college came into town this weekend. We’ve been in touch again for a few years now, but we don’t get to see each…

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Unreasonable Goals

Because I’m not silly enough, and there’s not enough going on in the month of November, I decided I would give NANOWRIMO a try again this year. For those who don’t know that particular acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and the idea is to draft the first 50,000 words of a novel…

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Halloween Stories

My early Halloweens were in Oklahoma City. That meant that about half of the time, we had to wear coats over our costumes because it was so cold. But those Halloweens took place so long ago that one of the best places to go was down the street from our house because the woman who…

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What’s in Your Filing Cabinet?

What’s in your filing cabinet? Or perhaps saved to your hard drive or Cloud storage? Are the drawers or folders filled with wonders that you return to daily? Or are they cluttered with junk you don’t even remember finding interesting or useful? I have to admit, I still like paper for many things and a…

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Shared Stories

Once upon a time… Magic words because they signal the beginning of something special – a story is about to be told. According to Wikipedia this phrase has been used in some form since at least 1380 and was the traditional opening for “oral narratives” by 1600. Wikipedia lists equivalents in about 60 languages (Habia…

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What Were Your Clues?

When did you find your career? Did you know what you wanted to do from a young age or are you still trying to discover the answer to the perennial question of what to do with this life of ours? I spent all of college not knowing the answer to what came next. When I…

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What’s Your Hobby?

This past weekend, I spent three full days with a group of writers at a retreat. We wrote in the morning, had a class in the afternoon and a couple of author chats over lunch. It was great fun! As I drove home Monday thinking about this weekend and the newsletter, I began to wonder…

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Community Matters

A few years ago, when I was still at UT Austin, I joined several campus deans for an interview over lunch. We were meeting with a candidate for the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This particular candidate was in an unusual position in that she also knew the person who had…

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Gifts That Eat

I’ve always been a fan of sports. I’m a great spectator though, not a participant. When my dad coached little league, I learned how to keep score with all the stats. I grew up watching OU (University of Oklahoma) football. In college, I could go to OU games, but, even better, I could attend world-class,…

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