NCHC Conference

Sorry for the delay in posting -- Since Wednesday night, I have been in Kansas City, MO, for the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference (NCHC). I gave a presentation on the honors program I coordinate for SWIC earlier today -- and I think it went really well! (I titled it "A Van Down By the River: Reviving a Community College Honors Program"). The best thing about these academic conferences is that you walk away with all these great ideas that you want to implement as soon as possible! Personally, I would say that our honors program is struggling, mostly because I just don't have the time to properly make sure that our program is vital and strong. To make it work, I know that I will have to approach my Dean (again) and try to argue for more release time (again). Honors is such a great program that helps to recruit and retain students -- but to do it right there are so many things that I just can't get to on the limited release time that I have (and this has gotten even more difficult with the tiredness from the breast cancer treatments). And I suspect that the whole asking for more release time is a political issue and I won't get very far. But, if SWIC wants to truly be behind this program, we need to make some BIG changes to how we organize and run the program.

And so for the last few days my head has been wrapped around the honors program. Also -- I feel a little lucky that I have had a few days away from SWIC because I am spending my evenings (and the gaps between conference sessions) catching up on essay grading. And there is a lot to be done! Somehow I accidentally set up conferences for my ENG 102 (research writing) students to conference with me this Monday and Wednesday ... which means I need to make sure that I have 50 odd research papers graded by the end of the weekend (I just got them on Wed).

Back to St Louis tomorrow. I really miss Jim.