2015 Highlights

A quick and largely sequential set of highlights/lowlights around here for me in 2015:

• Sabbatical! How long ago it seems now, but I was on sabbatical in winter 2015 (and basically during the spring/summer too). I did better than I did the first time I was on a sabbatical, not as well as the next time. Not that I know exactly when I’ll get my next sabbatical (if there is a next sabbatical), but I think a full year and one where I’m completely away from EMU would be interesting. Or maybe not; one of the things I learned about myself on sabbatical was/is I’m not close to ready to retire yet.
• Yik-Yak hit the EMU fan in some interesting ways. I blogged about it a bit here, but more at the now defunct EMUTalk; here’s a good example of that.
• I went to the CCCCs in Tampa, which was pretty good. Here’s a link to my talk.
• I “dodged” the administrative track by applying for the position of Director of the Faculty Development Center. I have no idea if I didn’t get it because they meant to hire the person who was in the job before or because I dropped out of the search, but either way, it doesn’t matter. I’d say I’m about 90% pleased with the way this turned out, which is about as happy as I am with the way anything turns out. Interestingly enough, there’s been a lot of administrative turn-over recently. The person I would have reported to in this position, Kim Schatzel, is leaving EMU to become president of Towson University, which means that EMU currently has an interim president and an interim provost, and the College of Arts and Sciences is soon to have an interim dean too. This level of uncertainty might have been a good time to be a low-level administrator (like this position), or it might have been a terrible time to be an administrator. I guess I’ll never know for sure.
• I went to HASTAC at MSU, which was interesting and I got to preside over a panel that was going on simultaneously between HASTAC and Computers and Writing. A lot of energy and excitement generated there, though unfortunately, there hasn’t really been anything in the way of a follow-up to the event.
• This was a pretty popular post back in June— and I’ll want to/need to come back to this again soon for the MOOC book project (which is still moving along far too slowly). Of course, the big event in June was my son graduated from Greenhills!
• Oh, also in June: I was in Ruston, Louisiana (of all places!) attending/involved with a “cyber-discovery” camp sponsored by the National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center, and I was involved again in a version of the camp we held here at EMU. And I’m still involved in all this by helping out in putting together a new version of the camp and by being a part of the second version of the camp we’re going to be holding here this coming spring. It’s a long story explaining what it is, the strengths and pitfalls, and maybe I’ll explain that another day. Just thought I’d mention it for now.
• In July, my whole side of the family (with sisters, brothers-in-laws, and kids it’s like a total of 18 people) got together at a house in southeast Wisconsin to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. It was a lovely and fun time and lots of good stories; here’s a video of a particularly stormy afternoon on the lake.
• EMUTalk wrapped up in August; here’s a link to the last post I had on that site. I have to say I don’t miss it as much as I thought I might. Maybe it’s because there’s still some “talk” on the Facebook page; or maybe I really did quit it at the right time.
• We had a grand week up in the Traverse City area at a quaint little cottage in the woods. I think the hands-down highlight was a magical night on the beach with our friends John and Karen Mauk, a night where (sometimes all at the same time) we saw a zillion stars, shooting/falling stars, the northern lights, and a lightening storm in the distance.
• Will moved out/moved in at U of M (and that’s been going well so far, I think).
• I started to (and continue to) chair a search, I became the associate director of the first year writing program, and now (because Derek is on sabbatical) I’m the interim director. So much for avoiding all responsibility.
• I went to my first international conference and my first “solo” trip out of the U.S. (and I took about 1,000 pictures, too.
• And I didn’t blog as much in November and December as I should/would have preferred to do; my hope is to change that in the new year.

So yeah, 2015 turned out pretty decent overall. Let’s see what’s what next year.