This week’s extra-curricular activities started last weekend when I was invited to Kristen my house-mate’s parents’ house for a delicious lunch. Her mum and dad were delightful and are already plotting their trip to Scotland to visit! Kristen’s mum, Melanie also joined us for a shopping trip to buy some bedside cabinets for my room and a few other bits and pieces.

On Tuesday I went to a talk by Miss North Carolina. My reaction on seeing the advert for this event was that I don’t normally have anything to do with beauty pageants, but when would I get the opportunity to go to something like this? So I went along to what turned into a fascinating evening. Alexandra Badgett is Miss North Carolina 2019 – an intelligent graduate of the University of South Carolina. She is also a black African American, which puts her in the minority when it comes to winners of beauty pageants – although the statistics are improving. One of the key things I learned from the evening is the differences between Miss America (which is the competition that Alexandra is part of) and Miss USA. So for Miss USA, you pay to enter, you do swimsuit competitions and you win cash, and you get to compete in Miss Universe. Miss America in contrast, you don’t pay to enter, you have to do a talent competition, there are strictly no swimsuits, the emphasis is on academic work and community service and if you win, you win scholarship money – that is money you can use to pay off student debt or to enrol in graduate school. I have to say Alexandra blew away many of my pre-conceptions.

Another highlight of the week was experiencing the US version of Halloween. I think we stumbled upon the epicentre of Halloween by going to a party at Woody Pelton’s house. He lives in a great area of Burlington where there are lots of old houses with porches. Every year apparently he invites the international scholars, students and staff of the Global Education Center to

come around for drinks and food – in exchange for sharing the duty of handing out sweets and chocolate to the children who come trick or treating. This was Halloween on an epic scale, there were literally hundreds of kids in costumes, at times queuing to come up the path to the front porch! Apparently parents who live out of town also bring their kids to this area because every house takes part. So we gave out

approximately 1000+ sweets… that’s a lot of sugar! There were some amazing costumes. My favourite outfit of the evening was the girl dressed as Mac n Cheese with a white pot around her middle and then lots of cardboard toilet roll holders painted yellow for the macaroni – sadly she was away before I managed to take her photo! But there are a few other pictures here to capture the scenes.

Early in the evening Elon University sent out messages to say we were on tornado watch – that is one down the scale of seriousness from a tornado warning. Apparently with a warning, a tornado is heading your way, whereas with tornado watch, you have all the right elements that mean you could have a tornado. So as the evening progressed, it was only the very hardy kids that remained out as we were battered by torrential rain, tropical storm winds, and spectacular thunder and lightning.

Nov 1, 2019

The US election debate hotted up last week with a big democratic candidate debate on CNN, on US TV. It was fascinating to see each of the candidates answer a range of questions and to hear what were considered to be the key hot topics. It seemed like a lot of candidates to me! Now we wait to see who will progress to the next stage.

Meanwhile, there is a serious Trump supporter whose house I pass on the way to the supermarket. I stopped to take this photo and noticed he’s flying the flags at half mast – I’m not sure if that is anything to do with the threat of impeachment! North Carolina is a swing state, so I’m expecting to see and hear a lot more discussion of the election in coming months. I noticed that the Sheriff lives next door to this ‘dude’, so I didn’t  loiter too long in case I was considered a troublemaker, or worse, a Trump supporter collecting campaign related photos!

On Thursday 17th October, I was proud of myself because I drove to downtown Greensboro – about 40 minutes away – on my own and with no SatNav – to go to the theatre. That’s my furthest drive solo so far – I returned in the dark, afterwards and despite getting lost in Greensboro’s one way system I made it home safely eventually.

When I heard I’d been successful getting my Fulbright Scholarship, and I knew I was coming to North Carolina, there was one thing near the top of my cultural list of things I wanted to do – to see David Sedaris live. I am a big fan and although Allan and I have seen him at the Edinburgh International Festival, he’s always talking about his family in Raleigh, so I thought it would be good to see him on his home turf. It was lovely to meet up with good friends Victoria and JP, (who live in NC, but had been living in Glasgow for 3 years) to share the experience. David Sedaris was on great form at the beautiful Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, and sure enough there were quite a few local references. He as hilarious, my face ached afterwards from laughing. He referenced artwork his partner Hugh had done on the side of the wall of their beach house on the East Coast of NC, and described him as the ‘Outer Banksy’ 🙂

I arrived slightly early for the theatre on purpose to give myself time in case I got lost, but also I had noticed there was a book store around the corner. Scupperong Books is a lovely independent book seller with a coffee shop, so I’m sure I’ll be back. I also discovered a yarn store across the road by chance, so that was me happy: David Sedaris, books, coffee and wool in one evening!

The following day I set off for Charlotte, the biggest city in NC. I was given a lift by Deandra Little, Assistant Provost, Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and Professor of English. Also with us was Kelly Reimer, Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies. What lovely people to share the drive with. We were all heading to Charlotte for the Elon University Board of Trustees retreat, which happens every 10 years when Elon writes a new strategic plan.

The next few days consisted of a number of business meetings to discuss the draft strategic plan. These were fascinating for me, to be able to observe how the Board of Trustees works and how Elon staff and faculty interact with the Trustees. I was able to spend time getting to know more people and develop a deeper understanding of the ways Elon operates.

There were several very nice buffet dinners and good  musical entertainment from the South. One of the dinners was also held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, so needless to say those into fast cars were very happy! We were located on the outskirts of Charlotte, so unfortunately I didn’t really get a chance to explore the centre. It’s 10 years since I was in Charlotte when I was at a conference and once again, I didn’t get a chance to explore the centre!

Although the temperatures here are holding up in the 20s Celsius, with 28C predicted today and thunderstorms, we are starting feel a bit more autumnal as the leaves are starting to turn wonderful colours and the mornings are a bit more chilly. I don’t think I’ve introduced you to Elsa, our house dog. She is very lovely natured and has been enjoying the autumn sunshine! Last night, Kristen, Babu (my housemates) and I headed to an El Salvadorian restaurant locally for a house meal – it was quite similar to mexican food and extremely delicious.

Oct 27, 2019

I am settling in well at Elon, so just to keep me on my toes, I headed off to Atlanta Georgia from Tuesday 8th to Saturday 12th October, for the International Symposium for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Conference. Atlanta is the largest city in the state of Georgia, and although Atlanta was largely burned to ruins during the American Civil War, it reemerged as a commercial hub as well as a significant focus for organisation of the Civil Rights Movement.

While in Atlanta I was presenting three papers at the ISSOTL Conference, with colleagues from Elon University, Bryn Mawr College in Pennslyvania, Trinity University in Texas, McMaster University in Canada, and the University of Queensland in Australia. It was a great opportunity to meet colleagues I know well, and to meet new colleagues.

It’s important of course to ensure that I balance work and play, and I had wanted to visit the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. It’s an impressive museum but pretty hard hitting. I watched the movie Selma on the flight from Glasgow to JFK, which I think was probably good preparation for the museum. The recreation of the horrendous treatment of black student activists from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, who took part in the 1960 sit ins at Woolworth’s in Greensboro (just 40 minutes away from Elon) was as clever as it was disturbing.

All the more reason for a therapeutic trip to the Atlanta Aquarium afterwards. I really enjoyed the visit with a couple of colleagues. Highlights were definitely the jellyfish (I could use their untangling tentacles techniques for when I’m knitting!), the white spotted box fish, sting rays, sea otters and the opportunity to touch sea anemones and starfish. We visited in the evening, which was a good time to go. Most of the sea creatures were still active, although the sea otters were settling down to sleep, but it was all very calm and serene.

Sadly some of my serenity disappeared the following day when I managed to spill coffee on my work laptop!!! I was assured by many people that the best way to treat a laptop with a spillage is to cover it in uncooked rice, as the rice absorbs moisture. Many a laptop and phone has apparently been rescued…but sadly not my laptop. According to the local computer repair shop it has irreparable damage and I’ve been told the rice is an ‘old wives tale’ …hmm.  I’ve been borrowing laptops from Elon University library, but now the School of Education has kindly offered me one I can borrow for a while. In the meantime I’m sorting out an insurance claim for the work laptop, which I hope can be replaced at the University of Edinburgh. It’s been quite bit of hassle having 3 days without a laptop and then lots of to-ing and fro-ing to the library to borrow laptops, so it feels wonderful to be back online properly. Anyway, after visiting the National Centre for Civil and Human Rights, I am trying to remind myself, it’s only a laptop in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t help being annoyed at myself, as it’s another thing to sort out, just as I was starting to get through all the arrival admin!

I’ve been continuing to enjoy the beautiful Elon campus. I’ve been attending campus lectures and meeting lots of people, most recently from the Global Education Center – Woody Pelton Dean of Global Education, Rhonda Waller Director of Global Engagement, Mark Dalhouse Director for Global Experiential Initiatives and Dianna Shandy an American Council on Education Visiting Leadership Scholar, visiting from Macalester College in Minnesota.

GEC supports students to study abroad as well as supporting international students and scholars coming to Elon. I also had a great meeting with Kelly Harer Assistant Director for Sustainability for Education and Outreach, where we shared some of our different university approaches to embedding sustainability – some good ideas I’ll be sharing with folks in Edinburgh! I will be meeting with many more people over the coming weeks. My next big event is on Friday I’m travelling to Charlotte, the biggest city in North Carolina, to attend the Elon University Board of Trustees retreat. More about that in my next blog…

Oct 17, 2019

I’ve continued to settle in, and in case you thought the title of my blog means I’ve been catching up with Donald Trump, instead last week I met Elon University’s President, Dr Connie Book.There is an amazing photo wall of pictures in one of the new buildings on campus and I liked this picture of Dr Book connecting with one of Elon’s students. it also demonstrates a US tradition of fist pumps, which I believe are as popular as high fives. I will need to practice these new greetings as I believe they can occasionally be mismatched when one person goes to fist pump and the other tries to high five, which leads to a slightly awkward version of rock, paper, scissors! Dr Book was very welcoming, (she didn’t fist pump me on this occasion – I suggested we didn’t shake hands as I’ve been suffering from my first US cold). She has apparently been reading my blog … I’d better watch what I write!

Another interesting picture on the wall, was discovered completely by chance. I wandered into the wrong building by mistake, only to find on the second floor, a picture of the cover of my book that I wrote in 2014 with Peter Felten (from Elon) and another colleague Alison Cook-Sather at Bryn Mawr College, Pennslyvania (more of Alison in due course as I hope to visit her in November). Someone offered to take a photo for me – so that’s how I met Gabie Smith, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology!

So my final piece of Elon wall art for this blog demonstrates that they don’t just put nice pictures of Dr Book and nice pictures of my book (see what I did there) on the walls. They also have a wall of inspiring global citizens and informed leaders. However, when I saw that David Cameron had a spot, I wasn’t sure whether I might need to have a chat with the Elon interior decorators. Let us not forget the mishandling of a referendum and the current Brexit dogs breakfast is all down to this ‘informed leader’!

Oct 14, 2019

You can tell I’m settling in because I’ve joined a new book group! I know it was fast, but Peter Felten’s wife Sara invited me to join her book group within my first week (Sara is wearing the wonderful mustard coloured trousers in the picture), and it sounded really good and the people sounded interesting, so of course I said yes. The book for the first meeting was Ruth Reichl ‘Tender at the bone’, which I found out 2 days before the meeting! I managed about a third of the book once I got hold of it, but I figured they might forgive a newcomer for not finishing the book the first time. Sure enough I was forgiven – maybe it was down to the shortbread I took with me – it was Heather’s delicious recipe (mother-in-law)! The book was a funny set of stories of Ruth Reichl’s growing up before she became the restaurant critic for Los Angeles and New York Times.

I spent Saturday 5th October with a colleague from Elon and visiting colleagues from the National University of Singapore (one of whom, Huang Hoon Chng I already knew well, bottom right in the picture). We were taken for a day out by Eleanor Finger, Assistant Vice-President for Student Life (centre in the picture).

Eleanor gave us a fantastic tour of the Elon campus, and even though I’d already had a campus tour and spent a week getting to know my way around, this tour introduced me to quite a few new spaces on campus. This included the maker spaces on campus. The University of Edinburgh also has a maker space but I think it is mainly focused on 3-D printing technologies (I’ll need to explore it more on my return). The 2 maker spaces at Elon have 3-D printers, but also many carpentry tools, laser cutters, sewing machines, badge making kit and other tools. Needless to say I was very excited by the fact they have sewing machines available to use!

Following our trip to the Elon downtown maker space, we drove to Glencoe village. It is a little less hilly than its Scottish counter-part, and was one of many old mill villages in North Carolina. We had time to look around the little Glencoe cotton mill museum which was great, with lots of ‘plaid’ fabrics and beautiful, old, wooden bobbins, just like my grandad used to have at home (he and many of his family worked in the cotton mills in Lancashire, UK).

From Glencoe we drove to Burlington, which is the nearest town to Elon. It was Burlington where the community event was and photo was taken with the Elon Phoenix mascot and cheerleaders mentioned in a previous post. They have a metal heart that they have installed to replicate the padlocks people leave in Paris and Moscow and other cities on bridges, but this time celebrating people at the ‘Heart of Burlington’. Eleanor surprised us all by having arranged to have a couple of padlocks engraved with our names so that we could add a padlock to the heart!

I was given one which celebrates my time as a Fulbright scholar, while Huang Hoon, Jessie and Siew Mei from the National University of Singapore had a padlock to commemorate their visit to Elon. So if you are ever in Burlington, North Carolina, you can see the location of the padlocks if you follow me pointing them out in the previous picture. I’ve brought the keys away with me as there was an absence of a river to throw them in (as they seem to do in Paris and Moscow). Maybe I can ask someone to bring it home in years to come if they visit!

Oct 14, 2019

I am finally here in the USA! I arrived late on Tuesday at Raleigh Durham airport and was collected by the Dean of the School of Education, Professor Ann Bullock. I’m staying in a University house with 2 others, Kristen, an international officer at the University and Babu, a PhD student from Assam, registered at the University of Tartu in Estonia – he is here until Christmas.

This is the house where I am staying. It’s about a half hour walk from the University campus, but it’s a hot and sweaty walk at the moment as it’s about 34 degrees Celsius and very humid. Apparently we have about 3-4 more weeks of the hot weather before the temperatures will start to dip a little. Being used to the Scottish climate, the slightly cooler version of North Carolina will be welcome! I will face the heat again next year from March onwards, but my Fulbright Scholarship will finish at the end of May so I’ll miss the really sweaty months of July and August!

Elon University have also provided a set of wheels! It does feel a bit as if I’m driving a taxi as I’m more used to driving a small hatchback! It is fantastic to have the car to get around locally, as the US is set up in ways that expect you to have a car. So I can get to supermarkets, meet colleagues and friends (including my first book group meeting next week!), and get to local towns relatively easily. I just need to practise driving on the right hand side of the road.

I visited Elon University for a few days, 10 years ago and since then there has been significant building – the campus has nearly doubled in size! The style of the buildings is all pretty harmonious and the grounds are maintained impeccably. Not surprising then that in the Princeton Review, Elon is #1 in the country for the most beautiful campus.

On Wednesday this week I was given a tour of the campus by Francois Masuka from the Global Education Center (the Center is one of my hosts while I’m at Elon). It was great to find out all the important parts of campus including coffee shops and eating places, a post office on campus, an ATM, the library, gym, theatre, and the Mooney Building, which houses the School of Education, where I will have an office from Monday 30th September.

Meanwhile, I’ve been opening a US bank account, and sorting out lots of official paperwork, sorting out a new Elon email account and staff card etc. Yesterday, I had lunch with Prof Peter Felten, a good friend and colleague who I’ve known for a while and who co-wrote a book with me a few years ago. Then later in the afternoon, Peter’s wife Sara, and I went to a huge convocation on campus where Senator Nikki Haley was speaking. News on the ground is that if Trump is impeached, she plans to run as a republican candidate for President.

She was pretty coy about such plans when asked questions, but she certainly seems pretty ambitious. I was curious to be there to hear what kinds of messages she would give, and I must admit I was pretty angry throughout a lot of what she said. In a nutshell, she spoke of all the evil and bad regimes ‘out there’ that we shouldn’t give in to, and how the USA was pretty much the only country that stands up to these evil regimes.

Unfortunately she seemed unable to see that many of the things she was accusing the evil regimes of having done (e.g. separating children from their families, meddling in other people’s elections etc.), have been, and are being, done by the USA. I wanted to lend her a copy of ‘Why do people hate America?’, which I finished reading before leaving the UK. Interestingly it was an almost entirely white audience at the event. It was fascinating to be there, and it’s the first time I’ve experienced the star spangled banner being sung live at an event so far.

I finished the day by spending the evening with Peter and Sara in downtown Burlington (the main town next to Elon), at a community event run by the local community and Elon University, where there were food stalls and events taking place. The photo shows me with the Elon Phoenix mascot and cheerleaders who cheer on Elon University athletics and sports.

I’ll leave you with some pictures of the amazing Magnolia grandiflora outside our house (thanks John for the plant ID). It’s fruiting just now but I’m expecting great things in the spring!

Sep 29, 2019

I fly to the USA on Tuesday 24th September at lunchtime from Glasgow Airport. I’m pretty much packed and ready to go, with a modest sized suitcase and hand luggage – what do you really need for 9 months in a country with shops and Amazon?! I’m so excited there have been times this week when I’ve not been very effective at concentrating on what I’m supposed to be doing!

In my last week, I’ve been making the most of lunch time walks around Lenzie Moss, which is a lovely 45-60 minute round walk from our house. It was looking particularly lovely this week in the last splash of sunshine as we head into autumn. There was good bird-watching this week too with long-tailed tits and a treecreeper in evidence.

Last night, I was at a meeting of my lovely book group, where friends sent me off in style with the US flag on prominent display and the Star spangled banner playing in the background!!

I commented that I don’t know the words of the US national anthem and that maybe I should learn them, only to realise it’s yet another anthem with overtones of ‘we beat you in a war, aren’t we great’ – in this case victory over the British in the War of Independence. However, Scotland is no better with it’s ‘we beat you in a war, aren’t we great’ anthem of ‘O flower of Scotland’.

Anyway, if anyone has ever heard the Whitney Houston version of the Star spangled banner, sung at the Tampa Stadium, Florida for the Super bowl XXV in 1991, I think I’ll give up any attempt to sing along, as no one is ever going to hit it out of the park the way she did 🙂 (Those checking out the Youtube clip, yes I did notice the description of Whitney Houston as ‘just a woman’! Grr.)

Sep 21, 2019

Many people I’ve spoken to have not heard of Elon University in North Carolina or have asked why I am going to Elon University and not Harvard, Yale or Columbia. Elon University regularly comes top of the US National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE – prounounced Nessie – the Americans beat Scotland to using that name for a Survey of Student Engagement!!). In contrast, the University of Edinburgh does not do as well as it would like to in the UK National Student Survey (NSS). Elon University is also very proud to be listed as a top 100 US University, coming second in the USA for Teaching Excellence.

The two institutions couldn’t be more different, Elon is a medium-sized, private university with a broad general first year curriculum in contrast to Edinburgh which is a large-scale and research-intensive university. There will always be an advantage for smaller institutions when it comes to creating a sense of community and belonging for students, but there is still much we can learn from Elon University’s approach.

Elon University’s symbol is the acorn, and indeed from little acorns mighty oaks do grow. Elon University does not have any relationship to Elon Musk as far as I know – a question I have been asked frequently! Rather, Elon is the Hebrew word for oak tree. I recently read George Keller’s book, Transforming a College: the story of a little-known college’s strategic climb to national distinction, which tells the story of how Elon has risen to its current place within the US higher education sector.

“Four decades ago Elon College in north central North Carolina was described to me by one North Carolina scholar as “a small, unattractive, parochial bottom-feeder,” struggling to fill its freshman class and pay its bills. Today Elon University is a beautiful, medium-size university attracting students from forty-eight states, with a new library, student center, science facilities, football stadium, and fitness center. Parents, visitors, and students often come away from the country club-like campus with something approaching awe. College guidebooks now list it among the three hundred finest undergraduate institutions in the land.” (Keller 2014, pxvii)

Sep 9, 2019

It might be understating things to say that I am very excited to have been offered a Fulbright Scholarship! One of my colleagues, on hearing the news, sent me the words from Paul Simon’s song ‘I know what I know’

“She moved so easily all I could think of was sunlight,

I said, ‘aren’t you the woman who was recently given a Fulbright?'”

A friend said to me “I thought it was just presidential candidates who received Fulbright Scholarships”! In fact there are 370,000 Fulbright alumni around the world. Many of them are US citizens going to other countries to study and work. Each year the UK selects approximately 40 Fulbrighters in a highly competitive process (approx 25 students going to study Masters courses and PhDs and 15 Fulbright Scholars including me, who are people going out to research, teach and work). Biographies from this year’s Fulbrighters will be available soon on the Fulbright Commission web pages. I’ll post a link in a future blog as soon as these are available because my cohort is made up of amazing people.

© Leo Johnson 2019

Here we are having on our Fulbright orientation days at Goodenough College, London. In case you are wondering (which many of us Fulbrighters did), the College is named after a Mr Goodenough, and focuses on providing accommodation for postgraduate students – nothing to do with the calibre of students and staff who visit! The orientation days included each Fulbrighter presenting about the particular projects they will be working on. It was a fantastic way to get to know one another and find out the things we have in common as well as the diversity across our group. One of the highlights of the orientation days for me was a panel What is America Talking About? on US culture/society/current affairs for which one of the speakers was James Naughtie from the BBC. His astute analysis of American politics and culture was inspiring, and I hope to listen to his advice to all of us for our time in the USA – “travel, travel, travel”.

 

Aug 6, 2019