And in that moment, Dr. West employed Dr. King’s life and work as a metaphor for a simple but challenging point about living well: Composing a meaningful life for oneself is a function of one’s efforts to make a meaningful life for others possible. This is not a simple call to a volunteer spirit; it is not about community service. It is a far more complex call to intelligent action, to the recognition that I cannot live well unless all in my global community also live well. It is a call to justice as well as to service.

In 1993, Dr. West argued that the best American philosophers are “organic intellectuals” who recognize that their thought comes from and feeds into the challenges of human living – and who speak to and listen to all kinds of people and take into account all kinds of cultural and intellectual perspectives. American philosophy is most effective, said West, when it is “prophetic,” that is, when it calls each of us — all of us — to justice and service.

Dr. West clearly recognized that both his message (serve justice) and his medium are uncomfortable. But growth is a function of challenge, not comfort.

Both President McNairy and Dr. West are saying more than “get involved.” They are telling us that we each have a responsibility to “respect, protect and correct” those in positions of authority, and the only way we can do that is if we are in the community, engaged in its life and its challenges.

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Last Thursday we heard Princeton Professor of African American Studies, Dr. Cornel West who delivered the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Lecture in Pucillo Gymnasium to a crowd of more than 1200 people. Just a look at Thursday evening’s audience made it clear that the MU family and the Lancaster region had come together in a moment of community engagement.

And in that moment, Dr. West employed Dr. King’s life and work as a metaphor for a simple but challenging point about living well: Composing a meaningful life for oneself is a function of one’s efforts to make a meaningful life for others possible. This is not a simple call to a volunteer spirit. It is a complex call to intelligent action, to the recognition that I cannot live well unless all in my community also live well.

Dr. West is serious about “prophetic pragmatism,” a phrase that he made famous in a 1993 book about American philosophy. He argues that the best American philosophers are “organic intellectuals” who recognize that their thought comes from and feeds into the challenges of human living. Dr. West argues that American pragmatist philosophy is most effective when it is “prophetic,” that is, when it calls each of us to justice and service. And Dr. West’s prophetic temper was on display on campus. Dr. West spoke in a cadence stimulating an active response from his audience. Some in the audience may have found him too much for an academic sensibility, but I assure you those surrounding me were ready and willing to hear his call and respond.

His call is too challenging to cloak in comfort. But growth is a function of challenge, not comfort.

Dr. West said that it is far more than “getting involved.” It is that we each have a responsibility to “respect, protect and correct” those in positions of authority, and the only way we can do that is if we are in the community, engaged in its life and challenges.

MU’s various annual lectures invite each of us to interact with people who have changed the world for the better. Dr. West went one step further this week to embody not only his own message but also the message that represents the best of the university as we move into a new and challenging decade: Intelligence employed in service to the least among us serves justice.

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First, alter student course load to four courses each semester and faculty teaching load to three courses each semester. This means compressing the curriculum to create different sized “chunks” of learning. Instead of an academic major requiring 12 courses, give them 9 or 10. A major that now requires 15 courses gets 12. It can then be up to the faculty in the department to determine how many class hours are involved for the students in each course and to distribute those hours among lectures, tutorials, labs, etc. In other words, decouple Carnegie units and student learning.

What does this get us? Do the math.

Assume that we offer 1000 courses per semester now (using 300 faculty members teaching 12 credits each), that number would be lowered to 800 courses per semester if full–time students needed four courses each. To staff 800 courses at three courses per professor, we would need fewer than 300 faculty members, thus saving money. Call each course “four credits” for purposes of the contract and we’re all set.

Of course, there would be some details to work out. Currently, some forms of student contact (e.g. science labs) are fully recognized contractually while others (art and ITEC labs) are partially recognized and still others (meetings with student PR groups doing professional projects) are not recognized at all. In fact, I’d say that calling each course simply a course, whatever it involves, would go a long way to redressing some of the workload inequities built into our present contract. But more important, it would lower total student load (TSL) for faculty members.

TSL is the one factor that seems to make a difference in the quality of student learning. When faculty members have fewer students overall (that is, lower than 80 students with whom they have regular pedagogical interaction), students flourish and faculty members can think straight.

Now I get that we’re not likely to get the number down to 80 even if we go to three courses for each faculty member. So I combine my 4-3 proposal with another suggestion. Hold departments responsible for identifying some elements of the major curriculum that can be offered en masse on an intermittent basis rather than every semester or even every year. Preserve 80 percent of the major study as a truly personalized educational experience for both faculty and students while recognizing what kinds of competencies can be taught and tested using efficient technological tools. Combine large group impersonal experiences with small group personalized experiences intentionally.

And hold the entire faculty responsible for identifying a general education curriculum that is focused and offers the same kind of combination of the large, impersonal but compelling courses (I think fondly of the impression “Art in the Dark” had on me as an undergraduate as one of 250 in the room) with the close coaching and relationship building needed in a first year inquirty seminar. Our “new” general education program takes care of the interests of various departments but does little to insure a coherent and common background for our students.

And by the way, when we staff large lectures and big number on-line extravaganzas, let’s be sure to recruit and reward people who have a talent for working in these environments, because the simple truth is that not all of us do. Some of us are pretty darn good in intimate settings but would be boooorrrring on a stage with little interaction. Recognizing that is all part of the deal.

Finally, of course, decisions about staffing major courses must be made by department faculty who know what they are teaching and what they are trying to accomplish — but also with an eye toward students’ educational experience and not only faculty convenience. This means that departments should be given the resources available to support their work and given the responsibility of designing a defensible program using those resources. The Japanese taught the auto industry that subsidiarization works. We can learn too. And to be sure that faculty don’t get myopic in their decision-making, I’d appoint a “ombuds(wo)man” (ONE person, not endless committees) whose job it was to review faculty plans and determine whether those plans provided students with a challenging and supportive (and do-able) educational program.

In fact, I’d charge my ombudsperson with the task of determining whether any and all of our programs at the university take good care of the human beings whose lives they impact. We are careful enough to resolve our financial challenges. We are smart enough to uphold educational quality. But neither of these will matter if we don’t take care of ourselves and each other in the process.

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I want to encourage you all to join me there – and to ask the questions you wouldn’t usually ask. Here are some samples:

Is the budget crisis over? I read in the paper that Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education is getting far more money that we expected for this year. I know that the funding gaps for this year and next will be largely subsidized by federal stimulus money and that we can’t rely on them down the line, but why are we proceeding with skyrocketing class sizes, increased advising loads, and other cuts if things are better than expected?

Is it true that the state’s share of public university funding was 64 percent in 1974, but only 34 percent today? And why is tuition set at a level that doesn’t allow us to meet our negotiated commitments and the rising costs of energy, technology, health care benefits, and needed financial aid for students? What can we do and are we doing to tilt against the values that prompt these political decisions?

What are other SSHE schools and other states’ universities doing to maintain academic integrity in the face of this “new (budgetary) normal”?

We’ve known for years that the State Employees Retirement System contribution formula was a political and financial powder keg. Why didn’t we invest the same percentage for employer contribution that we were investing in Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) employees so that we would have the funds for projected dramatic increases in 2011?

Why are we continuing with ambitious facilities improvement plans when our academic plans seem to be going up in smoke?

Are we all sharing the pain (1)? Faculty have more students and more advisees than ever. Staff are juggling balls and student inquiries as well as the demands of increasingly testy faculty and administrators.

Students are finding that once-faithful faculty don’t have the time to return their email messages. How are we rewarding – and taking care of – the folks who are torn in multiple directions and working more hours? How long can we keep stretching them until they snap?

Are we all sharing the pain (2)? Raises went through this year despite early summer scare tactics, but will earned sabbaticals be granted? And faculty and staff raises over the past 10 years have not kept pace with administrative increases in salary. Will faculty and staff be asked to sacrifice yet again – as we did six years ago in what was portrayed as a political rather than budgetary crisis?

Are we all sharing the pain (3)? Class size data make it pretty clear that class size increases are being imposed across schools and departments unevenly and without obvious pedagogical justification. Why are we increasing class sizes across the board in only two schools while holding steady in the School of Science and Math? And why across the board rather than determining and following a departmentally approved plan for insuring that all students and all majors have at least some of the “close encounters” with faculty required to persist and succeed?

Are we all sharing the pain (4)? The Middle States report suggests that women are bearing the burden of the increasing workload; is that fair?

Are we all sharing the pain (5)? We have more students attending the university than we did 10 years ago, but no more full-time faculty and no more departmental support staff, and we have more Assistant and Associate Deans, Vice Presidents, Directors and assorted other functionaries than we used to. Everybody’s workload is increasing for all kinds of complicated reasons, but only some of us have the option to shift that workload to a new assistant or associate.

Is the crisis over? Can we think together about how to move toward the future?

I don’t know if these are the right questions. In fact, lots of my questions – and perhaps some of yours — are not technically budget questions at all, but budgets are the embodiment of priorities and so are these questions.

The American Association of University Professors said this in their 2008-09 Report on the Economic Status of the Profession,“It will be critically important for faculty members to participate fully in the difficult budget decisions to come. They must insist on full access to information, and take a critical look at claims about the need for immediate action that will result in further demands on already strained human resources.”
Students and staff can join faculty in insisting on access to information and in taking a critical look at actions cast as urgent. Happily, the open budget forums offer just that kind of opportunity. See you there!

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Two weeks ago, in an unexpectedly abbreviated column, I commented on the present “financial crisis” and the way the administration is framing it, and then suggested some alternative strategies that might alter our curricular and staffing habits in cost effective ways that did not sacrifice the quality of an MU education.

[If anyone wants to read the entire text of the essay, go to http://thesnapper.com/2009/09/23/millersville-financial-woes-do-not-shake-faculty/ or email me for a copy.]

I will talk more about that in the weeks to come, but it seems useful to understand how we got here before trying to figure out where to go next. As you will see, key financial incentives in the state system are stacked against educational quality.

Start with SHHE’s “Allocation Formula.” Each of the fourteen institutions is funded annually through a formula based on enrollment of PA resident students, economies of scale, student support costs, and relative physical plant costs.

The formula compensates each university more for some students than for others. Students majoring in science, health and art programs bring at least 40 percent more state funding than students in other disciplines.

Upper level undergrads bring more money that intro level undergrads and masters students bring greater state subsidies than do bachelors students. The thinking at work here is that instruction in some programs is more labor intensive (and equipment intensive, but to a lesser degree) than instruction in other programs. What’s the impact of this?

1. MU gets a certain amount of money per student (determined after the System office takes its cut for various system initiatives and performance funding), but only for in-state students.

It may not make financial sense to accept out-of-state students even if highly qualified students apply.

2. More money is rolling in for science students, art students and health professions students than for history students or education students.

I confess I am unconvinced that the development of a scientist or an artist requires more instructional time and attention than the successful development of an historian or an educator, but I’ll save that for a future column.

3. More money comes to us for each graduate student, and we charge them about 20 percent higher tuition, again because those students supposedly require greater faculty resources.

So now I’m left trying to figure out why we have just raised the cap on graduate classes to 30 if the funding formula “knows” that graduate students require more attention.

If you read the document that outlines the allocation formula (go to http://www.passhe.edu/executive/finance/Documents/Allocation%20Formula.pdf), you’ll hear the siren call of “entrepreneurial” revenue loud and clear.

Universities are encouraged to find ways to raise and retain revenue that does not rely on the state. Novel graduate programs, especially those that employ distance learning formats, make financial sense. So do plans that grant credit to adult learners for life experience.

Another tone struck clearly in the Allocation Formula document is that of “performance funding.” Universities get more money when they do better.

Upward of $40 million is divided among the fourteen SSHE institutions each year for “high performance.” What counts as high performance?

Performance money is awarded to universities based on some defensible success indicators (e.g. the number of degrees awarded, student retention rates, including second year persistence and four and six year graduation rates) on which we hold our own and two on which we do quite well (faculty terminal degrees and employee diversity). But not so hidden in the list of performance indicators are three “efficiency” metrics that can wreak havoc with educational quality.

The first is faculty productivity (total credits per FTE faculty). The second is personnel compensation as a percentage of total expenditures. The third is instructional cost for undergrad and masters costs per FTE student. Taken together, these measures reward larger class sizes and greater use of (cheaper) adjunct faculty.

Think about all of this. The university gets more money if it has larger average class size.

The university gets more money for in-state students and sciences and art students, even if those students don’t bring the highest averages and scores. And the university gets more money if we enroll more masters students no matter how we treat them.

The kicker is that those national rankings of colleges and universities we are so proud of, and that keep our profile high, generally reward those who admit better qualified students, mix in- and out-of-state students, and keep their student-faculty ratios lower (for both instruction and advisement) rather than higher, especially when they can do so at a reasonable cost.

What’s a president and her cabinet to do?

It is tempting to just to follow the money. The educator in me thinks it is also dangerous.

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Without warning, five, or ten, or fifteen students were added to most sections, often necessitating additional work on the part of the faculty member to rework syllabi and assignments.

Each student brings with him or her additional grading time and interpersonal interaction.

All this is happening for good reason. As Dr. McNairy eloquently documented in her Convocation Address, we are swirling in a “perfect storm” of fiscal elements: a state budget agreement of uncertain detail for the current fiscal year and a precipitous rise in university contributions to the state retirement system to accompany steadily declining state support over the past two decades and a tuition setting mechanism that responds to political winds rather than educational need.

Of course we are experiencing an economic climate so pain-filled that our students’ plans to pay for college are in jeopardy.

Those responsible for the “stewardship of state dollars” have cut back spending on furniture and equipment, trimmed student work hours, and reduced departmental operating budgets to meet expected shortfalls.

Here is what we all know well. Roughly 80 percent of any university budget is personnel costs.

The only way to save serious money in the short run is to reduce the number of employees. So what Dr. McNairy did not dwell on in her talk is the phenomenon faculty are acutely aware of: more faces turned expectantly toward each faculty member.

This year we froze faculty and staff (though often not administrative) slots, eliminated temporary positions, and added approximately 100 students to a student body that had already grown by nearly 30 percent in my tenure at Millersville, with faculty complement unchanged.

The deterioration of faculty and staff work conditions is undeniable and worthy of our attention. Something is going to give. It is slipping away from us as I type this essay.

That something is the quality of a Millersville education.

Dr. McNairy and other members of the administration are exhorting us to give more of our time and effort so that we can meet the needs of our students.

But for the faculty members I know, there is no more time and effort to give.

We have neglected our significant others and our children and sometimes our own physical and mental health for the sake of our students and the love of our work.

Class sizes have grown, curricular, governance and accreditation demands have exploded exponentially and artificially (sometimes, self-inflicted as faculty subject each other’s proposals to undue scrutiny), and mentation of the change.”

Her wording suggests that the direction of change is already set. I suggest that our best ideas are not yet on the table.

Here are four ideas I’ll say more about in the weeks to come:

1. Completely reconstruct the curriculum, shifting to a four course load for students (following the lead of the best private and public liberal arts institutions)

2. Implement a radical principal of subsidiarization, so that departments and programs determine curriculum and class size and delivery system within set fiscal parameters.

3. Balance class sizes so that students have truly small classes as well as large lecture courses.

4. Implement demand scheduling so that we offer all and only the courses students want and need.

I know all the reasons why these suggestions are “impossible” (past practice, system structures, politics, union contract, etc.). I don’t care. Dr. McNairy is right. We’re Millersville. Let’s prevail!

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At least, that is what Hans Georg Gadamer thought.  Gadamer, a premier European philosopher of the 20th century who is best known for drop-kicking the field of philosophical hermeneutics into existence, insisted in his old age that this was the point he had been making throughout his entire philosophical career.  I think Gadamer is right.

Let’s think about it for a minute.

Here you are at Millersville assigned to take courses with august persons like me with decades of learning and life experience and letters backing up our names.  We are supposed to be educating you, right?

You expect to receive the wisdom handed down from on high.  You walk into class with fresh notebooks and some sort of writing utensil all set to copy whatever you must know (especially if it is “on the test”) and you lean back in your chair in a position designed only to catch whatever the faculty throw.

I do hope that you also expect to internalize — and perhaps even remember — both the arcane and practical lessons you are learning.

As helpful as all this might seem, it does not sound much like self-education to me.  Gadamer was pretty skeptical about the “sage on the stage” model of teaching and learning.  He called lectures “a dangerous atavism of our academic lives” and insisted that all learning occurs through conversation.

While there is a lot of lecturing going on at Millersville, most instructors believe that faculty-student and student-student interaction enhances understanding, and all instructors know that if a student is not working at least as hard as the faculty member, then a lot of learning is unlikely.

The “education as conversation” view is why we employ a common reading as part of our MU orientation.  We asked you to read “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” and offered to engage you in conversation about it.

Of course, maybe you were too cool or too busy to bother, because after all nobody is watching you now and you can lay around, play Guitar Hero, get a pedicure or drink yourself silly whenever you want to and you will not get detention for it.

Well, you are right that you won’t get detention, but you are sure-as-shooting wrong that you do not lose out by not showing up.

I do not care whether or not you like the book, though I do wish you had read it.  It is witty, engaging and right on the mark with respect to the inner and inter-working of thought and feeling in one’s mind.  What do you gain by showing up to talk with others – any others – is the kind of encounter of minds and hearts and bodies that (I hope) you imagined college might be about.

This habit of bringing all of yourself to the educational table your instructors are setting is not something most of you have experienced before. And you will not start wrestling with interesting ideas and hard issues on cue. It is not a habit formed overnight.

Like any other disposition, it requires time and attention and the reinforcement that interest rewarded offers.

First, of course, you have to get to the table.   Millersville sets a remarkably rich table of curricular specialties and extracurricular fare.

For those who attend class faithfully and take advantage of film series, concerts, and nationally-recognized speakers, there are innumerable opportunities for the kind of conversation that Gadamer commends as integral to education.

There are important places and spaces for substantive conversation outside of the official MU program – in dorm rooms, over cafeteria meals, on street corners, in the library stacks, at any gathering where diverse others come together. The table is set.

Getting you – all of you — to the table is the first step; it is a step nobody but you can take.

Once there, there are risks.   Some subjects and skills are acquired tastes; they will not look, smell, feel or taste quite right at first.   Keep chewing.  Take a second bite.

Do not leave the table just because something is new or difficult to appreciate.  Eventually you will figure out what you like and do not like, but you’ll also see some things that seemed unappetizing become a regular part of your intellectual and professional diet.

There are financial troubles in the world and in the university that will limit educational possibilities in the days to come (more on that in a future column), but this one thing costs nothing and pays off big time:   students, staff, and faculty will talk among themselves about the world, about their lives, about the ideas they use to make sense of those lives.

If we do that, we will all be and become educated.  And that’s why we’re here.

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Carole, who is a food anthropologist, is teaching this semester for the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche.  She is my valued friend and that is one reason I visited.
But my other purpose was to investigate USG for my daughter who is considering studying there for a masters degree in food and culture.

So we set off last Monday on the bus from Parma to Colorno, a 25 minute ride.   Carole introduced me to Paulo, a charming Italian man and an Associate Director of the masters programs at the Colorno campus who showed us around the facilities, explained the program and answered all the questions an academic – or a mother – might have with respect to a daughter about to invest a fair amount of money in an overseas adventure, an academic boondoggle or a very rich educational experience – depending on your point of view.

As our conversation went on, and as I encountered more and more of the USG staff and students, I had a revelation.

Our Dr. Counihan is a “rock star” in Colorno.   I had known of Carole’s involvement with this relatively new university (a program philosophically allied with the “Slow Food Movement”) for five years, but did not realize that she has been a central figure in the development and credibility of the masters programs that draw students from around the globe (literally).

In conversation about the faculty for the programs, Paulo was trying to describe Carole’s contribution to me.

He speaks English extremely well but hesitated, taking a long pause to find the right word.  I filled in his blank with “Rock?”  because he seemed to be acknowledging the strength of Carole’s presence each year as well as the stability her teaching and guidance has lent the programs.

Just as I said “Rock,” someone said “Star,” and we decided together that “rock star” was just the term we needed — even if it felt a bit incongruous applying that term to a silver-haired mother of adult men.

I know well Dr. Counihan’s prowess as a teacher; I have observed her in the classroom and in conversation with individual students.

I have long been impressed with her prolific scholarship; I have talked with her about her work as editor of Food and Foodways and cheered on each new book manuscript as it approached publication.

I love having her as a colleague and a friend; if my credibility as someone associated with this university depends at least partly on Carole Counihan, I’m in pretty good shape.

But I don’t think I ever realized so clearly how much scholars and students outside Millersville value Carole and how fortunate we are to have her.

So this is a shout-out to Dr. Counihan as well as to the dozens of other MU faculty members who have vibrant and accomplished academic lives beyond Millersville and whose work in this wider world lends credibility to my reputation and value to your degree.

But it’s more than a shout-out.  It’s also a plea to continue — as an academic community — to encourage and support faculty as they reach out and seek out the kinds of opportunities Carole has at USG.

As any university faculty member knows, our responsibilities are three-fold.
We must teach well, serve the university community through shared governance, curriculum development and program facilitation and continue to grow as scholars contributing in a modest way to human understanding.

But teaching and service are squeaking wheels that often, and even deservedly, drown out the call of scholarship.

Though understandable, this is not a state of affairs any of us ought to accept.  In truth, we all benefit when faculty members are active scholars; we don’t want them to be exhausted ones!

Financial and administrative support that can be provided to faculty members who take their research agendas and expertise “on the road” – to be scholars in residence and guest teachers and speakers at other institutions and in other countries — will return dividends in terms of institutional status as well as the quality of teaching and service.

Folks like Dr. Counihan return to Millersville ready and able to help other faculty members find the support that they need to be a “rock star” in some other domain, in some other venue.   The effect is cumulative and generative.

As we separate for the summer, let’s remember that Millersville is a pretty good place to be – and that what makes it so good is the intelligence and experience and openness of all the people – faculty, staff and students  — who share themselves and their knowledge so willingly.

Let’s enjoy Dr. Counihan’s success as our own.  And let’s not forget that wherever we go, we represent each other.

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So I arrived at Bucknell University nearly 40 years ago as a government major.  I chose physics to fulfill my science requirement and spent my first year complicating my understanding of the world around me.  This was not “Physics for Poets”; this was physics for physics majors, complete with killer labs and problem sets with more formulas than any math course.

An older female student advised me how to get through physics lab.  Patty said that I should go in that first Friday morning, find the nerdiest looking guy with the biggest slide rule, and ask him to be my lab partner.  He would get me through.

It was easy to find a “him.”  There was only one other woman in the entire 100 student lecture.  But there were quite a few nerd-type males there, so selecting just the right one was more difficult.   One special fellow had a slide rule attached to his belt, so I bypassed quite a few good-looking athletes to select my savior.

Alas, Patty’s theory had a flaw.  Neither nerdiness nor maleness was enough to guarantee success in physics.  I ended up carrying that poor boy through physics lab for two semesters.

Of course I studied calculus too.  My grades in both physics and calculus earned me a higher GPA than my other liberal arts courses did.  In other words, I was female, interested in science and good at it.  I still am, I suppose, though I’ve since channeled my professional interests into epistemology, ethics and education and reserved my scientific musings for “multiverses” and “dark matter.”

So you can imagine my dismay when 10 years ago, a male science faculty member stood outside my office door and told me with a completely straight face that girls lost whatever science ability they had in puberty.  “Pardon me?,”  I said in disbelief.  He didn’t seem to recognize my concern.  He said something like, “Don’t you agree?  I think hormones just get in the way of scientific thinking.”  I looked at this human testosterone-making machine and wondered about his unscientific lack of precision with respect to hormones. And I wondered how his prejudice impacted his female students.

You might also imagine my distress in 2005 when former Harvard President Larry Summers told an academic conference of women scientists and economists that innate differences between men and women could account for women’s lack of representation (and success) in science and engineering.   I could only wonder just how dumb this man was – both because his analysis was un-nuanced and because he chose to make his proclamation to this particular audience.  His defense was that he was told to be provocative and I am actually sympathetic to his intention to provoke.   We ought to be exploring all the reasons – genetic, physiological, hormonal, psychological, cultural and developmental – why women tend to shy away from, fail at or are chased away from learning science and choosing careers in science-related fields.   And we ought to understand the complex ways in which nurture interacts with nature to deny women the delights of science and to deny to science and social well being the insights of half the human race.

But Summers didn’t ask about societal pressures for femininity or the press of family responsibilities or the lack of child care on campus, nor did he ask whether the dominant (masculine) linear models of scientific thinking are the only successful models or how hormonal variations (in males or females!) “taint” findings.  Nor did he suggest any affirmative actions that might encourage females to stay a scientific course.

So now you can imagine my delight in learning that a group on campus has been working in recent months to consider ways to encourage girls and women – and persons in racially underrepresented groups — to engage science.   And that recently, female faculty members across all the sciences designed a flexible course that integrates specific content in scientific disciplines with the stories of the women who made this understanding possible.  You can imagine my desire to support these efforts.

This week I broke my sabbatical seclusion to join more than 115 students and faculty at a dinner/discussion themed “Telling our Story:  Women and Underrepresented Faculty and Students in the School of Science and Mathematics.”  This is a conversation I want to encourage because it matters to all of us when any of us is discouraged from pursuing interesting fields of inquiry.  There is room in the world for all kinds of pointy-headed people.

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