We Need More Flutter Over the last several months, as part of my political campaign, I have knocked on over 5,000 private residential doors in my community. This effort to reach voters has given me the chance to make unplanned observations of differences in “flutter activity” from one property to the next. I’m defining flutter […]

Last April, I decided to run for public office in my community in the United States – specifically, School Board Director. The experience has given me a front row seat to how our process works both explicitly and behind the scenes. While I am not surprised to learn that there are structural inequalities stabilizing the […]

For a number of reasons, I struggled to select courses this term that I thought had anything to do with my interests. Specifically, I thought Power, Data and Inequality in Value Chains would be the death of my motivation in this program. So far, I love it. To be fair, this first blush comes only […]

I’m inspired by Rhi to talk about my reading this summer. A book I was surprised to find myself reading was Improving School Board Effectiveness: A Balanced Governance Approach, edited by Thomas L Alsbury and Phil Gore. Not my typical beach read, ha! Public school education started to pique my interest during second term due […]

Some Key Term Takeaways Remote/online learning spaces are incredible progress toward access, inclusion and equity but they cannot completely replace the benefits of synchronous in-person learning, such as social cues, social connection, focus/immersion, and the work/discussion/collaboration that occurs outside what’s defined/controlled by instructors. This is an important consideration as I start to explore the impacts […]

Come Again!? Of the 20+ articles/chapters I read this week (plus podcasts, videos, slides, etc.), one line grabbed my attention the most, “…women computer science graduates in the United States peaked in the mid-1980s at 37 percent, and we have seen a steady decline in the years since then to 26 percent today.” 2020. “The […]

A Much Needed Break American culture does not value balance and breaks once you’re in the workforce. It’s go, go, go and show up unless you’re bleeding from the eyes. Two weeks off a year is standard (3 max) if you get paid time off at all. Over break, I was reminded of why this […]

  Submission Receipts = Celebration The past few weeks have been mostly production —  converting the reading, listening, discussing, watching, struggling and thinking from first half of term into inventions, papers, presentations, code, feedback and blog posts. The ‘what’ of this was a decent challenge, but the more significant hurdles have been the ‘how’ of […]

The Influence of my Coursework In my last post, I talked about (virtually) attending a planetarium show during my Coloniality of Data intensive and having a primarily auditory experience. This got me thinking about which sense(s) we rely on, given our ability, access, etc., which guided my contribution to an Interdisciplinary Futures discussion board the […]

The most significant shift in my understanding of society has come from the Coloniality course. The readings and discussions frequently come back to the concepts of and processes of social categorization and othering, and the reciprocal reinforcement between them.   During the intensive of this class, there was a little field trip over to the […]