HERA 2010 - My First Conference

Today was a long day...well...it's been a long week. Work has been insane - I've been going to bed late and waking up early, and since I've had little time to prepare my presentation for the conference, my Friday night and Saturday morning were more of the same.

Anyhow, today was my very first presentation at a conference! The HERA (Hawaii Educational Research Association) Conference proved to be a wonderful venue for me to get my feet wet. It was at UHM's campus center (which I knew my way around). My audience was a small, but friendly and supportive group - I felt completely comfortable presenting. I have to say, I feel that I have been bitten by the "conference bug" - is there such a thing? The experience of presenting my research to other researchers is incredibly exciting, and learning about the research that others are doing is really neat. Oh, not to mention the networking opportunities!

Though I'm glad my proposal was accepted for the conference, I wish I had some of my own research to present - not just a lit review. -Well, this definitely whet my appetite, and I look forward to doing my own research and sharing it at conferences in the future!

After this long week, it's so nice to have a chance to just relax at home, though it will be back to work tomorrow. I've got cases and the text to read for class, websites to check out, and fellowships/scholarships to write statements for. Hopefully I'll be up for all this tomorrow. Right now I just want to curl up and listen to Cecilia Bartoli sing to me.

Thoughts of higher ed law so far...

First of all, though I am incredibly busy at work, I have reason to believe that I manage my time better when taking more than one class. With this one course, I feel like I have all the time in the world – though in reality, I don’t. I guess the pressure of knowing I had a ton of reading to do really just got me fired up. Now I’ve got a case of the “oh, I’ve just got to read a couple cases and read a chapter in the text…I don’t have to do that right now…..”

Class is entirely amusing, and though I love this course and enjoyed my philosophy of law course as an undergraduate, I’m glad I’m where I am and decided not to pursue law. It’s just not my thing. Cases can be amusing, but the legal jargon frustrates me. Not to mention that I just love social theory too much. I’m more interested in the sociological ramifications of law than law itself. Darn you, Supreme Court and your ruling against restricting campaign spending by corporations!!! (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). SO peeved about this. Makes me think that maybe the world WILL end in 2012........

I love that our class is co-taught by a lawyer…you feel like you’re really getting some solid info. He’s not trying to kill us like we’re in law school, but he’s really getting us to think about cases. It’s so amusing to learn about the way decisions are rendered and finding that sometimes, their disagreements (or agreements) have nothing to do with the core issue of the case, but the way it is presented…or some other small and seemingly irrelevant thing.

Right now we’re in the middle of the whole public vs. private thing and learning about cases where there is argument about whether a person at a private institution or a private institution itself is acting "in the color of the state"– very amusing. Makes me think back when I worked at Brown Med School. They're a private institution, but had the only medical school in the state of RI…at one point, they were accepting state funds but had to agree to allow students from RI to attend Brown med. Then, they cut financial ties with the state to have full run of the med school admissions process.

A few decisions.....

Well, I've heard that if you really want to make a commitment to yourself (and keep it), a good way of going about it is to announce it to people you know. -If you leave it to yourself, you can let it slide, but if you tell others, it might provide some external motivation to do what you're saying you'll do.

So, I'm going to officially announce that I am going to apply for PhD programs next academic year to (hopefully) begin in Fall 2011. I'm also going to put in an application for the advanced women's studies certificate program here. I may decide not to do it (the courses are at very inconvenient times), but I figure there's no harm in applying and seeing how I feel about it come fall 2010. Plus, I'm almost done with my program - a few extra classes will keep my brain going. Since the advanced women's studies program requires three letters of recommendation, I finally got stuff together. -I asked three professors for letters of recommendation, and I created a password-protected professional website with my resume, biographical information about me, academic interests, goals, links to .pdf's of my transcripts and links to writing samples. I also let those three professors know that in a year I'll be asking them for letters for PhD programs as well.

So in addition to surviving work (insanely busy), class (higher ed law is awesome), and working on my presentation for the conference next week (ack!), I've got to make sure I stay on top of the whole PhD program search thing (though I'm pretty sure I know where I'd like to apply...and almost all are west of the Mississippi), not to mention the GRE's.

I also got a late start on my resolutions. I didn't make them outright, they just sort of fell into place and felt right: take better care of my skin (it's gross to be 28 and occasionally break out like a 14 year old), and to take the time and effort to eat more fresh foods.

Here's to 2010!

Fall Semester, Admin Leave, The Beginning of Spring Semester

I can't believe the following:

• I survived last semester being a full-time employee and full-time student
• Admin leave went by so quickly
• Spring semester is starting!!!

Fall Semester Recap

I thoroughly enjoyed my fall. True, I spent less time recruiting prospective students for Mount Holyoke College, but I'm acutally only 9 credits away from being done with the program! It's actually kind of sad. I'm not ready to be done! Maybe I should apply for that advanced women's studies certificate program......

I am also incredibly satisfied with everything I learned from each of my courses this semester: Intro to Higher Ed, Multicultural Issues in Disability & Seminar in Student Affairs. I feel like, I am really finding my place in higher education with regards to the research I enjoy and would like to be doing. All signs do seem to be pointing towards a PhD and as I am finding my niche, certain programs are standing out more and more.

In both Intro to Higher Ed and my Seminar in Student Affairs, I was able to focus on my love of technology in higher education. For my seminar course, I reviewed three higher ed news articles - all relating to social networking in higher educaiton - to go in depth about the role of social networking in college admission, alumni relations, and the privacy issues raised by social networking. I prepared a proposal for an "online workshop" - more of an informative website, titled: Engaging Digital Natives through Social Networking. It's honestly a good start, but I've got more I want to add to it. I also did a proposal for this website - which got accepted for the HERA conference! I'm also thinking of submitting it to another conference that takes place online in April.

In my intro to higher ed course, I did my lit review on two primary research articles on college students and Facebook. I was thinking of continuing with that theme for my final paper for that course, but I really wanted to pull in as many class readings into the paper as possible, and decided to look at the "big picture" of the role of technology in higher education.

While I learned many things in both of my EDEA courses, perhaps the best things I gained from these courses was a better sense of where I'd like to focus my educational attention in the future. Dr. M had us thinking a lot about professional development, which was very salient to me, and I think my research topic in that course really helped me clarify this. In Dr. C's course, the combination of my interview, the panelists, and my research helped me realize that I think I would really like my future to be in the academic realm of higher education (teaching and/or research) and less so in administrative functions (i.e. institutional research). I also came up with the idea to do some research on online pedagogy which I am so excited to be doing this semester with Dr. E!

My multicultural issues in disability course was fabulous. My only gripe is that it was online, and I just think this is a course more suited to meeting in person. Some of the readings got me so completely fired up that I would end up frustrated that I had nobody to talk to about the readings! There was a TON of reading for this class (as it really should be for an online course), but I really feel I've got a solid understanding of some of the frameworks of working with people with disabilities, and the many other factors (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality) that intersect with disability issues. The final was a 10 page case study and we were required to use both in class texts, as well research several sources that were not part of class. I can honestly say I had fun doing that assignment! (I didn't think I would.)

Overall, a fabulous semester...and believe it or not, when it was over, I didn't curl up and hibernate. I was still completely jazzed and very disappointed the semester was over. I am also so proud of myself for managing to balance sleep. I don't think I pulled any all nighters and I think I managed to go to bed by 11pm most nights!

Admin Leave

Admin leave was SO nice. When I was working at Brown, we had the days between Christmas and New Years off, and I really missed having that. I seriously don't mind the pay cut and getting those days off. Though I spent half of it being really sick (why do I always get sick during breaks and on weekends?) I read some great books.

"Push" (the book that the movie "Precious" was based on) was great. It moved quickly, and had a good mix of intensity and humor. A book sitting on my shelf for awhile is "The Gatekeepers" about admissions at selective colleges. Of course, this is what I'm most familiar with, so I just ate it up. My guilty pleasure was Dan Brown's most recent book "The Lost Symbol." In my opinion, it doesn't come even close to reaching Da Vinci Code or Angels and Deamons, but I like that it takes place in DC (a city I've actually been to), and I liked an ancillary topic this book introduced me to: noetic science. Noetic science is basically the study of human potential and the power of human thought (think about - the power of thought in healing, the power of multiple people thinking the same thought, meditation, etc.) - something I find very interesting. So as a follow-up to this book, I thought the Dalai Lama's "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality" was an appropriate follow-up. I'm not finished with it yet, but it's great! He compares the similarities and differences of scientific and spiritual thought as well as modes of inquiry. -And while I can see this book being used for a religion course, I actually can see some of these chapters being used in a research methods course as he does a great job of explaining about things like inductive and deductive reasoning, and scientific and buddhist inquiry. (I recommend it to any fans of research methods.)

Spring Semester

I have to admit that I was completely spoiled by admin leave, and got used to my time off! At the end of the fall semester, I was still totally jacked up for classes and now, I'm like, "Really? Classes start on MONDAY?" Not to be worried, I'm sure once I go to my first class I'll be inspired for the new semester to begin! Then there's the insanity at work...we're upgrading and I will be insanely busy for the first few months of this year. I hope I can manage taking four credits and working 'round the clock. Speaking of which, I know it's Saturday, but I need to get back to work. Not schoolwork, but WORK work. *sigh*

Just a thought.....

There was a time when mirrors weren't everywhere and reflective surfaces were few and perhaps not so clear. I wonder if back then, people were nicer to each other...because the only reflection of yourself you really had was the way others treated you.