Ahhh, Spring...

 

Spring Not Seen

In memoriam, Marcia Chesbrough, and for Ron

 

1.

Discussing "The Spell of the Sensuous"

Merlot glow, sunset, lake -

A loopy book - looking

For something to say.

 

2.

Tarot cards on your bed, divining

What can't be said ("She

Won't see spring").

 

3.

"Still make me laugh," you said

Last call.  Deep, echoing cough.

Laugh at what though.

 

4.

Giving "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" to Ron

Art's mirror held

To Nature, clear of your last breath.

So?  No help at all.

 

5.

Full moon.  Wakes

In his half-full bed.  Too early to get up.

Too late too.

 

6.

Apple trees, breeze.

Moony dowsers dip and bow.

Dance of the lost and found.

 

 

This poem and personal tribute, written by friend and former colleague Robert Hahn and published in his 2001 collection entitled 'No Messages,' (2001, University of Notre Dame Press), always gives me pause this time of year to appreciate the unfolding of another spring.

 

My recent "Spring Revival" meetings (who named those, anyway...) have been refreshing, uplifting, and enlightening in that regard.  I am reminded in these meetings of what an amazing place we inhabit here at SCC and of how thoughtful, devoted, and full-hearted those who serve and work here tend to be.

 

And the events of spring, designed to bring us together in celebration and acknowledgment, health and fun - student awards banquet (which was lovely last night); run, live, learn; spring fling, recognition luncheons, rhythm & ribs, commencement itself - these and other events remind us of both the importance of what we do and the need we have for one another as colleagues and friends.

 

This entry is devoted to an acknowledgment - simple and keenly felt - of a special collection of individuals who comprise a special learning community.  As we get to see this spring unfold with all of its storms metaphorical and real here and elsewhere, we should pause and give one another a nod of thanks and appreciation.  Thank you for all that you do and for all that you bring to our collective mission. 

 

In some ways life is always the 'dance of the lost and found.'  I am grateful to be in that dance with each of you. 

 



 

 





Time Flies

Where does the time go, I wonder as I look at the length of time since my last post here.  One minute I am wishing us a positive and productive Spring semester and the next I am sheepishly posting a scant month prior to the end of that very same semester.

We've all been busy, of course.  There is always that mea culpa fall-back.  Or is it in my case that I have less to say in this venue of late?  It may frankly be a mix of these factors.  Which brings me to the purpose of this entry.  When one is new in a new environment the impulse is to share and to accelerate the 'get to know you' phase of adjustment to that environment. 

This blog has served that purpose for me of sharing more personal thoughts and stories in an attempt to become more known to readers as a person and colleague rather than as president.  And while I have no fewer personal thoughts and stories to share in recent months, these have been edged out by the more formal demands of the job, if you will; there is more of 'the president' in my communications and less of 'Ron, the new guy.'

With this post I would like to prompt myself to return to some regularity of sharing in this blog space.  One can lose one's self in the job - any job - and that is not an entirely bad thing.  A little bit of personal sharing of thoughts, opinions, stories, though, is a healthy addition to overall communications and I will pledge here to do better in the coming weeks and months.

I hope that you have fared well during this semester and I look forward to the remaining weeks leading up to Commencement 2013.

What A Difference A Year Makes

 

 

Some of you may remember the photo at the top of Charlie attempting to take Mocha for a walk.  As you can see from the bottom photo, they've come a long way.  What a difference a year makes.

 

As we prepare to launch a new semester let this serve as a reminder that anything is possible with the right attitude.  Have a great Spring 2013!

I Wish you Peace

"Repeated upsetting memories and nightmares of an event;  strong, uncomfortable reactions to situations that remind you of an event; feelings of detachment or agitation, anger and irritability; difficulty sleeping; startling easily; hypervigilance; feeling your heart beat in your chest."

These are some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  These are also words and phrases that could be used to describe how many of us have been feeling in the week since the killing of so many children and teachers in Newtown, CT.

There has been, it seems, an almost hysterical feeling in the air as a nation comes to terms with this type of violence.  Arguments about gun control, mental health treatment, violent video games, whose fault it is pound into one another and pile on top of one another.

We are agitated.  We are frightened.  We are angy.  We are profoundly sad.  And we ultimately, deep down, feel helpless to understand or to act in ways that might be helpful in avoiding another tragic day of this sort.  We are not yet resigned.  We are not yet desensitized.

As we prepare for our holidays with family and friends we still wish that it had been different, that it had not happened.  But we wake up every day and find that it did. 

As difficult as it is I think we must continue to remind ourselves that it did happen and that it is not impossible to think about ways as a country and as individuals that we can respond, and we must respond.  Our efforts need not be global; they might be as simple as listening more intently to a friend or family member or co-worker, being less impatient the next time we feel frustrated with another, sharing a positive sentiment every single time we are moved to think one.

I wish us all a glimpse of peace and calmness, gratitude and optimism this holiday season.  I wish us fortitude and courage, grace and kindness.  And we will all, I am sure, count our blessings, for they are many.

Lessons in giving thanks

My youngest daughter Mia has a remarkable way of viewing the world and expressing herself in words and pictures.  Mia will sit for hours making cards for family members.  She also will say things that both stop me in my tracks and make me smile and laugh.  And she makes her bed cheerfully first thing every morning, a skill and inclination that I have never been able to instill in her four older sisters.

Last night Mia walked up to me in the kitchen and said "Dad, come here."  I leaned down toward her and she said "no, closer."  I leaned closer.  When I got close enough for her to put her hands on the sides of my face, she whispered "I love you" into my ear and then skipped away, adding "that is for your self esteem; I don't know what that means but I just saw it on TV."  Ah Mia.  If I had a dime for every Mia'ism... 

In "Have A Little Faith" by Mitch Albom ("Tuesdays with Morrie," "Five People you Meet in Heaven"), dying rabbi Reb, in sharing some of what he has learned in his long life, remarks that harboring resentment is a bit like taking poison and hoping that the other person will get sick.

I recently wrote a letter to the physician who cared for my first wife in the last weeks of her life 15 years ago, thanking him for everything that he tried and did to help her and my daughters and me through that difficult passage.  He probably recalls feeling helpless and powerless to change the course of things.  I recall him doing everything that he could.

Awhile ago I tracked down and called Mr. Jim Sweeney.  Mr. Sweeney was my high school guidance counselor.  In 1974, my senior year in high school, he asked me what I planned to do after graduation.  I told him that I thought that I would try to get a job in the metal plant where my father worked.  He said I should go to college, something no one in my family had ever done.  For nearly 40 years I have told the story of how Mr. Sweeney changed my life.  I decided that it was time to tell Mr. Sweeney.  And despite the fact that he insisted on calling me Ronnie during the call, it was a wonderful chat for both of us.

On my way back from travel to the Northeast last week the pilots of the plane that I was on averted sure disaster when they put the plane into a steep climb a scant 100 feet from the runway at Midway, missing the plane below us that had not cleared the runway.  This may happen more times than we know, but it was a first for me.  I heard passengers complain that they would be late for their connection as our plane circled around for another approach.  I stopped as I left the plane to thank the pilots for putting us on the ground safely.

The older I get the more I understand the healing and enriching power of expressed gratitude and appreciation - the simple giving of thanks - and the more I feel the harmful effects of holding back these expressions or harboring negative thoughts and emotions.  We get, after all, a finite time to say and do the things that only we can say or do.  And there is only so much space to take up with resentment, anger, and regret before these are all that we see and feel.

My wish this Thanksgiving is that we all take a lesson from Mia.  That we say and do those things that make us and those around us literally feel better.  What a wonderful use of time, don't you think?  So for all those who read this, thank you - for reading it and for being someone who has the singular power to say and do those things that only you can say and do to make life better.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Reflections at one year - and those Cardinals

I am tardy in a promised one-year reflection blog entry, although technically today's date - October 15 - marks the true one-year anniversary of my taking the full helm as solo president of SCC, as Dr. McGuire and I overlapped for a couple of weeks at the start last year.  So, with that in mind, some reflections.

Let's start with something having nothing to do in any direct way with SCC or the presidency - those St. Louis Cardinals.  When I arrived last fall the Cards were just starting their post-season magic leading to their improbable crowning as World Champions.  Now here we are again, although by now we all know that there is nothing improbable about this group of players.  Once again they play night in and out with their backs against the wall and once again they find a way to win. 

They look for all the world like a group of guys who just love the game and want to play baseball.  In the age of the prima donna professional athlete, the St. Louis Cardinals breathe fresh air into the baseball post-season win or lose - no excuses, no fanfare, no showboating, no whining - they just come to the park to play ball and then get ready for the next game.  They see challenge as opportunity.  You have to love the rarity of this approach to the game and the sport.  Baseball fans or not, we can learn a lot from how the Cardinals approach their game and their work.

While we have no win/loss columns to starkly measure our progress through the year, and we have no identifiable winner-takes-all prize to aspire to at the end of a season, we have our challenges and we have our hopes and aspirations.  And like the Cardinals, we're also stuck with a first-year manager.

If fiscal challenges were strikes we'd be facing a third strike as we look at the sinker that is state funding, the slider that is local property tax revenues, and the curve ball that is our recent enrollment decline.  But we're still at the plate.  Like the Cardinals, we are looking at ways to turn challenges into opportunities.  Unlike the Cardinals, the home run is probably not going to get us there.  For us, smart hitting and stringing some good at bats together is the way to go.  I look to our long range planning initiative as just that - a way to string together some good at bats.

But I get too deep into the baseball metaphor and not deep enough into reflection.  Most of my reflections you have heard before in this space and elsewhere.  These include my constant pride and amazement at the quality of everything that we do here at SCC.  They include my equal amazement at the quantity of what we do and accomplish.  And they include my deep appreciation for the many fine examples of heroic work that I see here all of the time.  As I look back on my career in education I can honestly say that I have never worked in an environment more steeped in excellence and aspirations to excellence than here at SCC.

And like the Cardinals, much of this work is done quietly and in a workmanlike fashion with no expectation of special notice or accolade.  Here is my chance again to tell you how much this work is appreciated.  It is this very work ethic, in fact, that gives me the confidence to know that we will rise to our challenges and create new opportunities as we go forward.

As I watch the Cardinals work their post-season magic I want to distill their grace under pressure, their determined look in the face of adversity, and their quiet confidence in the midst of the noise surrounding them.  Win or lose, that is the right way to live, work, and play the game of baseball.  We'll look to the same grace and calmness here as we continue to build our future, and the same confidence in our collective future.

Go Cards!  Go SCC!

The importance of starting well

It has long been the case that community colleges have been the preferred starting place for students going on to college.  This article points out just how prevailing a choice this is for students in recent years.

More students start at community college Sj

It is a little known fact that students transferring from SCC to four-year institutions in Missouri are the most successful transfer students at these institutions as measured by academic performance and persistence to graduation.

We should be proud of the start these students receive here at SCC.  Even as we strive to encourage more of our students to complete the degree at SCC, our outcomes speak for themselves in the four-year success of those who go on.

This is a testament to the good work of our faculty, advisors, learning support professionals, and many others.  Thank you for your good work with these and all students.