A few months ago, I found myself in conversation with an accomplished leader. He had all the marks of an impressive and socially privileged individual: as an older, cisgender, heterosexual  white male, he served as the CEO of an organization that was bringing in millions of dollars in grant funding and making powerful international connections.…

April is still a ways off so, no, I’m not trying to pull anyone’s leg. I really do find joy in academic administration…let me explain. My administrative work began as a department chair about 10 years ago when my dean asked if I’d consider serving. Honestly, I was a bit wary of some percolating challenges…

My Canadian wife works extensively with international students at Baylor. Recently, she got to know two different Nigerian students. At one level, one would think that these international students from the same country would love to get together with one another. Yet, that view is premised on North American racial, ethnic, and national categories. It…

In recent years, it has been our technology that has “recognized” us. Our smartphones and laptops are unlocked by fingerprint readers, virtual assistants, like Siri and Alexa, are activated by our voices, and facial recognition technology scans our faces in various security contexts. Recognition and identification technology became prominent, especially with the rise of modern…

If you’ve read my last two blogs (see here and here), you know what I’m all about: Authenticity and the undergraduate disabled student community. That is my thing. And, since stretching out my baby research legs after my dissertation a few years ago, my passion for this underrepresented population has only grown. I was on…

As an Associate Dean of my college I am on a 12-month contract, so the academic calendar doesn’t impact my work schedule as much as it does many faculty. All the same, I am a very different figure on campus during the semester than I am when most of the students have gone home. During…

There was once a day when, as an educator in Christian higher education, you could assume most of the students in your classroom identified as Christian, came from a Christian background and engaged in a faith community. You wouldn’t make this assumption simply because you were at a Christian organization but because 78% of Americans…

I had a brilliant idea. My students were going to solve REAL LIFE PROBLEMS. It was a business communications course with a dozen undergrads. I put them in groups, used some scenarios from the textbook company, and sent them off to do a multi-week project to create a business proposal. What could go wrong? Apparently,…