Category Archives: Disaster response

Photo essay: Commencement 2021

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I got my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine just in time to volunteer for Commencement on May 23. I was assigned the role of Faculty Marshall, which meant I got to help students line up in the correct order to receive their diplomas. Then while walking Gwendolyn to daycare in the morning, I saw the first stages of on-site planning for Whitman’s first (and hopefully only) socially distanced Commencement. I decided to start taking photos of the preparations.

Exactly two months later, I am finally sitting down to put them together into a photo journal. Here it is.

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The Home Stretch

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At Whitman we’ve faced a sudden uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases on campus, from 0 to 4, in the wake of two large student gatherings off campus. I asked if we should make a departmental plea for judiciousness, and my colleague John stepped up to the plate. I’m grateful. What he wrote is perfect, as I knew it would be from the email he wrote at the start of the pandemic.

John has given me permission to share his email below. Hopefully this is the last such needed for a while.

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Farewell to CS 301, ST: Computer Networks

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Whitman’s last day of classes is this coming Monday. Since my Computer Networks class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, today was our last day of class. This blog post is based on the notes for my farewell speech.

Outline due to Dr. Freda Rebelsky via Dr. Samuel Rebelsky.

  1. This class was special.
  2. Keep in touch.
  3. Take care of yourselves and each other.
  4. Remember to say goodbye.

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2020 in review

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At Whitman, like at many other institutions of higher education, faculty submit an annual activity report. Why? As with annual reviews in any profession, it’s a prod to reflection and self-evaluation. We don’t work closely with our nominal boss, the Dean of the College, so it serves to inform her of our workload and accomplishments. She uses this information to determine raises for the following academic year. (Not that I expect there will be raises this year—except, I hope, promotion raises for those who are so entitled.)

I’ve never been moved to blog about my annual activity report before. It’s a routine chore. But this activity report, post-sabbatical and mid-pandemic, left me thinking, “Wow, I got a lot done last year!” That’s despite spending 2 1/2 months at home with my toddler, and despite spending much of the fall semester feeling completely feckless. I think my 2020 activity report tells a story about the nature of faculty work and the mood of 2020. Continue reading →

Habits for Spring 2021

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I’ve realized part of what made the fall semester so difficult is that I was so overwhelmed, I lost track of many of the routines that sustain me. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, but I can’t remember it ever happening so badly for so long.

So as part of my preparations for the spring 2021 semester, I thought about habits I want to continue from the winter break, resume from earlier in my professional life, or begin anew. Continue reading →

Lessons learned from my first semester of Grading for Equity

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This fall, I made my first experiments with Grading for Equity, an approach intended to address inequities in traditional points-based grading schemes. Alongside, I adopted the supporting practice of specifications grading. Soon it became clear I was not one instructor acting alone, but part of a movement among CS educators responding to the uncertain conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I’ve been asked to blog on my lessons learned, so I will. But first, to warm up, I’ll tell the story of how I got started.

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Reflections on Fall 2020

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Fall 2020 was my most difficult semester of teaching ever: more difficult than my first terms teaching at UW, Grinnell, or Whitman; more difficult than the fall I was pregnant; and more difficult than my return to teaching after maternity leave.

Why so difficult? Given the state of the world, surely that must be a rhetorical question – but there are reasons. Continue reading →

Departmental communications re: Fall 2020

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Just over two weeks ago, President Kathleen Murray announced to students, staff, and faculty that “the fall 2020 semester will primarily be via remote learning.”

I spent the rest of that Friday processing the news and finishing other work already in progress. On Saturday, I woke up to an email message and a Slack post from a student proposing a discussion of the news that same day. As department chair, I scrambled to formulate a response. Fortunately, I’d already thought a fair bit already about this possibility. Below, find my email to all CS students that Saturday morning, and the results of a Q&A session during our regularly scheduled Tuesday evening CS Tea. Continue reading →

Reflections on recording a conference presentation with PowerPoint narration

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In the spirit of technological exchange as we liberal arts faculty learn to teach online, I’m writing to share and reflect on a presentation I prepared using the PowerPoint slide narration feature. I then exported the slides and recording as an MP4 to upload to YouTube.

Here’s a link to the 10-minute conference presentation: https://youtu.be/omqZBn19CV4

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