Back in the USA

Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog for the past 6 weeks. The first 3 weeks were spent back in the UK for a medley of Christmas parties, regular check-ups with the NHS (making the most of being back!), and time with family and friends. Most of the rest of the time since returning to the USA has been spent working super-hard on finishing my book manuscript and co-teaching an intensive January semester course on the Masters in Higher Education at Elon University.

I did manage to have a lovely quiet celebration of New Year with my house mate Kristen and her friend Jill, that included watching an amazing Korean movie – Parasite, which I can’t recommend highly enough, and we decided to celebrate UK New year so we didn’t have to stay up until midnight (lightweights!). I’ve enjoyed a few lunchtime walks in lovely January sunny weather (sometimes very warm and sometimes very cold!), which has kept me going during my writing.

My latest book manuscript is at the publishers – hurray! It will come back to me for proofing and with some possible final editing in about 6 weeks time, but in the meantime I can try to catch up with a lot of other things I had put on hold while I was concentrating on the book! For a sneak preview, here’s a link to the publisher’s web pages where the book is advertised.

The course I have been teaching is called High Impact Practices (HIPS) and Student Engagement, and I’ve been co-teaching with Peter Felten and another colleague Jessie Moore, both from Elon’s Center for Engaged Learning. There have been 12 students on the course, and the idea of teaching a class of 12 is pretty luxurious, the idea of there being 3 of us to teach the course is also completely luxurious. It doesn’t necessarily represent the reality of teaching in the US or the UK for most lecturers, but it was an amazing opportunity to bring three of us together who work on HIPs and student engagement to teach together. Anyone wondering what HIPs are – they are essentially key experiences that have been demonstrated through significant research to have positive impacts on students’ outcomes at university. They include for example, study abroad, undergraduate research, and service learning, but there is a list of 11 HIPs at the moment, although we have been enjoying discussing with the students possible other HIPs that might not yet have been identified but which show promise.

One great experience we have had on the course is that we all had dinner at Peter Felten’s house. I made my friend Katarina’s Swedish apple pies for desert and they went down very well! Having dinner at a faculty member’s house, whilst not listed as an official HIP in the research, is still considered to be a significant experience for many students. I find it fascinating that this is something that is much more frequently done in the USA than in the UK, and I am not entirely sure why. There are all sorts of considerations about some faculty not being in a position to invite students into their home, but also concerns about crossing professional boundaries. Yet, several of our students have said how important this experience was for them in seeing us as more human, and in therefore, relating to us in a more positive way.

I enjoyed my book group again last week meeting up to discuss a book called The Alice Network by Kate Quinn, about female spies during WW1 and WW2. Having finished the book last week, I enjoyed a wander around downtown Burlington on Saturday. I went to check out the railway station, where I’ll be picking Allan up in March when he comes to visit. It’s where I first arrived to visit Elon 10 years ago! I also had a look in the tiny old tourist office in the old station building, as well as in a nice arts and crafts shop, the local public library, a second hand book shop and coffee shop, and finally a thrift shop (charity shop to folks in the UK). I was invited for a delicious dinner last night at Pam and Liam’s house – Pam is one of the book group members and is an Attorney and Liam, her husband, is a Chemistry Professor at North Carolina State University. Peter and Sara Felten were also invited, and along with Alec, Pam and Liam’s son, we had a great evening of food, drink and good company.

Due to the fast and intensive nature of the January semester, we only have two classes left, tomorrow and the day after. Then on Wednesday afternoon, I fly to Washington DC, to go to the Association of American Universities and Colleges (AAC&U) Conference, and to give a Public Lecture at Georgetown University. I’ll only get a small amount of time for sightseeing on this trip, although I hope to be back in DC for longer in May with Allan, and with the sole purpose of being tourists. I also have the small matter of some marking to do for the HIPs and Student Engagement course while I’m in Washington this week, and I also need to do some planning for another course I’ll be teaching on my own in February ‘Co-creation of learning environments: partnership in and beyond the classroom’. So needless to say it’s as busy as ever.

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