The Virginia Tech Massacre happened between when I finished grad school and when I started my first post-graduation teaching position. When I went to orientation for that position in August, the massacre seemed to be on many instructors’ minds, and for good reason. There was some programming in the orientation about what to do in order to defuse bad situations on campus, but there didn’t seem to be any talk about trying to move classes online in the wake of concern about campus shootings. Even…

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For all the stories during the pandemic of animals “taking over” spaces that had been largely abandoned during our collective self-isolation, I have to say that I wasn’t expecting to wake up today to news of a bear roaming on our parent campus. Our semester ended a couple of weeks ago, so there would have been a skeleton crew there even without the pandemic going on, but stories like this have a way of sticking with me. Platteville is over an hour’s drive from here,…

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The worst end to a semester I ever had was the fall semester of 2017. My last day on campus was just four days before I flew to Colorado to begin so much of my life anew, and as I sat in the teachers’ lounge late that night, after everyone else had gone home, I started bawling my eyes out. Parts of me were definitely looking forward to that plane ride and the opportunities waiting for me at its end, but I was also frightened…

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Today marked the start of the second week of online classes this semester. I’ve gotten some good feedback from some students who seem to be engaged as much as they ever were with the course material, but I also haven’t heard from a lot of students. I know that some of them are having difficulties right now — we have a high percentage of international students on this campus, and some of them are still stuck in limbo when it comes to returning to their…

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