Day of DH 2021: I’m at the Building Capacity & Infrastructure Part of a DH Career

Last year, we were DHing it up with everyone else who breathlessly converted to online pedagogies within a week with the expectation that all would be back to normal by April…or…May? Surely by May. Here we are more than a year later. Day of Digital Humanities this year and April 29 followed on some extraordinary about Digital and Public Humanities at San Jose State University. I captured the day (and some of my perpetual exhaustion) over on Twitter #dayofdh2021 and archive them here for posterity along with the last 5, 7, 8 (?) other instantiations of Day of Digital Humanities from years past.

It’s #DayofDH2021 again!

So many irons in the fire…and they’re all infrastructure building under the umbrella of Public Humanities, but really is everything I ever learned from #dh

First up, a little Google Forms, spreadsheets, ontologies, and curating people— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

As a faculty member, over the last year, I spent much of my time teaching #pandemicpedagogy & doing super pumped up #digped – that left me way way depleted by Dec 2020 https://t.co/Fzeqlxe7hi #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

I started doing a lot of Public Humanities work with this programming grant initiative I run in @SJSU_HA — https://t.co/SDIiHRQcEC #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

so, the Dean, in the face of dropping enrollments and the pandemic budget shortfall, saw a way to pump up this position & turned me into a Director of Public Programming – starts in the Fall, officially https://t.co/EMQSz2wlgw #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

We’re ramping up for @NEH_Challenge fundraising to support the NEW Digital Humanities Center @SJSU_HA @sjsulibrary (hmm, shd create a Twitter acct for that!) – so, I’m curating faculty from all disciplines — bc we have a boatload of faculty who already do DHy stuff! #DayofDH2021 pic.twitter.com/OMLzhWXQ5V— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

This means I attended *every* virtual event over the last year to curate faculty research projects – collaborate w/our fabulous librarians on how to collect, collate, represent faculty work #DayofDH2021 pic.twitter.com/YtyjffWYW1— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

But, first, we collaborated on how to organize those multi-disciplinary faculty projects.

Disciplines? No. Creates silos
Types via #DH @Wikipedia def? No. Not capacious

Ah ha! @roopikarisam pointed me twds *Reviews in DH* ontology. SHAZAM!! https://t.co/LBNgnDGOBP#DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

I really love collaborating with librarians. They see me.

Ontologies. Infrastructure building. Capacity building.

…and credit. Always generously credit

Because I’m able to get this all done only w/standing on shoulders of giants – @roopikarisam@jenguiliano#DayofDH2021 pic.twitter.com/3aUOvj9Jkk— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

I’ve spent the first 2 hours of this morning investigating the self-determined categories by faculty & emailing to suggest different categories (while also explaining the difference).

Look at all this work & different disciplines! #DayofDH2021 pic.twitter.com/y3rRZlfXbL— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

This infrastructure building does a few things:

1) Collects: curates faculty DHy projects
2) Community: creates a single web page for faculty to see others who are doing similar work or who are just engaging tech/dig methods
…..[+]#DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

[+]
3) Educate: Faculty see how capacious an @sjsu specific #dh can be
4) Promote: alert potential donors about how capacious our version of #dh is
5) Disrupt: @sjsu #dh includes research, pedagogy, meta-critique, and projects – *our* kind of #dh *in* Silicon Valley#DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Also today: revising proposal for @NEHgov grant for Humanities Initiatives @ HSI to help @SJSU_HA faculty integrate public programming events into curriculum by helping them collaborate on interdisciplinary assignments w/a partner outside H&A#DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

All activities are based on key concepts from *Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities*! https://t.co/WIxzEZ4bb6

With monthly roundtables by curators of keywords/pedagogical artifacts https://t.co/DS7jQjyfs8

e.g., Andre Carrington’s “Future”https://t.co/9x2aoNuq8D
#DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Also (did I mention that gig as Dir, Public Programming starts in Fall?!)

Anyway
Also today: another simul proposal — @NEHgov American Rescue Plan Humanities Orgs — 14 days to write 5pp proposal for ALL humanities @sjsu ! https://t.co/6uy2zWmR8y

DREAM BIGGER! #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

…and that brings me to another infrastructure building small portion of this giant grant proposal — collaborating w/ another @calstate campus on something…bigger…can’t say much now bc we’re still thinking about it…but, we’re dreaming beyond just #dh @sjsu #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

There are 23 @calstate
campuses — how much #dh powerhouse can we become if we unify? 🙂

And create a #dh stronghold that doesn’t replicate research-intensive institutions’ versions of #dh — but instead a #dh for the communities we serve #DayofDH2021— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

It’s 9:30am here. Working from home means I spend 30mins situating the girls (Beatrice & Gracie kitties) before diving into working. Work that is so rewarding but not flashy or visible.

My #dayofdh2021 is to make that work visible. pic.twitter.com/pJxU8lV1Eg— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Sharing is caring, right Gracie & Bea? #dayofdh2021 pic.twitter.com/77BkjgsrEs— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Ok, shew. I think Inbox:1 will stay that way for a bit. Flurry of emails for #DayofDH2021 and now the 2nd virtual mtg @sjsu 1) about the Fall/masks/campus return and 2) recognition of student & faculty awards
…while I email w/faculty about listing their DHy projects.— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Hoping to clear my decks so I can finish revising this @neh proposal and start the routing process on Monday (for just this one!) #DayofDH2021

Hard cut off for the day is a promise to go for a run at 5pm in the hills!— Katherine D. Harris (@triproftri) April 29, 2021

Digital Humanities, professional issues

May 6, 2021

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It’s official! Director of Public Programming

Today, Dean Shannon Miller made public my move into being the Director of Public Programming for the College of Humanities and the Arts at San Jose State University. It’s a big, bold move, but the work really encompasses what we’ve already been doing with our live event programming initiative for the last 3 years. It’s taken a Dean with a BIG VISION to see the possibilities for pumping up current initiatives through Public Humanities and Digital Humanities methods.

Digital Humanities, pedagogy, professional issues

April 14, 2021

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Social Annotation Assignment – Best DH-y #pandemicpedagogy without being DH

I’ve mentioned a few times this social annotation assignment over the past year of #pandemicpedagogy — it’s been the best DH-y assignment without really being DH.

Students in this required course (upper division English majors) have to grapple with a variety of critical theoretical models in order to articulate 10 different ways of analyzing one particular text throughout the semester (Heart of Darkness, and here’s why). Also, these social annotations were one method to build community and get students interacting with each other when we turned to completely online teaching (as of March 9, 2020). The assignment is embedded through Canvas (with Hypothes.is as an external tool that’s added via our eCampus approval) and uses a pdf (stored on my SJSU Google Drive) of the article from a subscription database. We look at examples of what additive means and try to steer clear of writing a formal essay: be generous with each other and the text, explore your ideas, what makes you curious? Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s work, Generous Thinking, has been on my mind alot lately; it’s been important to bring that to my students and their work as well.

The deeper we get into the semester, the better these get. We go over how to read complex literary criticism: first paragraph, last paragraph, topic sentences, then wade in! But, I spend the first few weeks responding to their annotations before the due date to help them perform more than definitions or attempting to be “right.”

It’s an intense exercise because I’m commenting on ~25 annotations prior to the due date and then grading 75 annotations each week. During the pandemic and lockdown, though, it’s the one assignment that has genuinely built upon online community in a way that showcases their intellectual explorations very well. One student told me that with the progress of each week of this course, she feels smarter just from assignments like these and our one synchronous meeting.

One element to note if you’re using Canvas: a rubric can be added to the assignment, but do it before designating the assignment as using an external tool. You won’t be able to see the rubric in the view of the assignment, but you’ll be able to see it in Speedgrader. Also, submission date, for some reason is always Dec 2000. Even if they just open the assignment tool, it gets marked as submitted. Letting them know all of this up front stemmed a lot of panicked emails to me.

Week 6 Feminist & Gender Theory – JHU Annotation for “Gender Theory”

Each week, each critical model is accompanied by articles from the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism (requires log-in). Since reading theory can sometimes be challenging, we are going to work together to unpack the theory in this article and explore its relevance for applying it literature and other texts by using the tool, Hypothes.is, to create social annotations. 

This is the first time we’re all using Hypothes.is. If there are questions or bumps with the tech, post a question over in Instructor’s Online Office.

How to Use Hypothes.is – The Tech Stuff

Before beginning your annotations, watch this video on how to work all of the tech in order to leave an annotation that can be seen by everyone in class.

With the Hypothes.is tool, there are 4 kinds of annotations that you may add to our reading :

• Highlights (private to you only)
• Annotations
• Page Notes
• Replies

Annotations and replies are the types of annotations that we are using for this assignment. Take a moment to look at the “Illustrated Taxonomy of Annotation Types” to help you understand the difference and what these will look like in the Annotation screen before proceeding any further. (Click on “Watch Screencast.”)

Now that you have some tech help on using Hypothes.is, you’re just about ready to start adding some annotations and replies. 

BUT FIRST, read what you’re required to write in those annotations and replies.

What Goes into an Annotation and Reply?

For this assignment, you will add at least three (3) annotations to each article. Once a concept or key point or phrase or sentence has been annotated, you may not add another annotation.

These are the 3 types of annotations/replies that are required:

Annotation Type #1: Help explain the text by asking questions about confusing parts then looking up the answers. You can link out to other resources, thus creating a network of information. Avoid simply asking “what is this?” Connect the annotation back to the key point in the sentence or paragraph. 

Annotation Type #2: How do you see a point about this critical model being applied to any literary text (be specific)?  Feel free to refer to texts you’re reading in your other courses, too.

Annotation Type #3: Engage in discussion of the article by responding to someone else’s annotation. The response should be additive and not simply an agreement. If you annotate early, you may need to return and add more later (more than a 👌😏👍🏼). 

Before choosing a sentence or phrase (don’t do a whole paragraph!), read this “Annotation Tips for Students” and heed its advice:

1. Select text carefully for annotation;
2. Annotations should be additive (<—-super important!!);
3. Make use of the toolbar to create formatting to emphasize important points; and
4. Use of links and images.

To Get to the Hypothes.is Annotation Page

In order to start your Hypothes.is annotations for this week’s reading(s), scroll down to the end of this page and click on the bar “Load Week 2 xyz  – JHU Annotations into a new window.” I enabled this feature because working on the annotations from this assignment renders a very small window that’s difficult to read. 

Grading

Each annotation is worth 5points and is awarded based on the ability to highlight a key/main point, articulate a well-thought out plan for applying to literature, engage the conversation of another student through the annotations. 

No need to use complete sentences or formal writing here. However, each annotation should be substantive and additive, which means that it needs to be more than a “I agree” or “good job.” For the full 5 points, annotations #2 & #3 need to push or challenge the ideas being offered and provide links to other materials that deepen the discussion.

Attached is the rubric used to grade these annotations

Citation: This assignment adapted from Rebecca Frost Davis’ “Digital Reading with Hypothes.is” Assignment, St. Edward’s University (2020).

pedagogy

digital humanities, digital pedagogy

March 9, 2021

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One Year of Pandemic Lockdown – New Gig, Director of Too Many Ironmans

Thanks, Facebook

A full year, almost to the day, of when San Jose State University declared pandemic lockdown and went online with the intention of returning to in-person after Spring Break during the first week of April. We were all thinking that this would be temporary. I even allowed myself to drink sodas on a daily basis thinking that I was temporarily indulging myself. It was all okay as long as I could get outside…then we had wildfires in the California area with smoke so heavy that it made being outdoors for anything but brief walks to get into car almost impossible. No swimming or running. So, I was left with going full bore into doing and being Digital Pedagogy as everyone suddenly discovered just how time consuming and detail-oriented teaching with technology really was. (As if teaching isn’t already like this without adding in technology.)

But, I was and remain proud of the response from my university and the California State University system in general. Our eCampus ramped up fantastically quickly. Center for Faculty Development staff fielded calls with patience. And, then, we decided, at the suggestion of the Modern Language Association staff, to release Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities while it was still a little buggy and gave a few workshops on how to use this massive project.

So many other conferences, speaking engagements, research agendas, even just grocery shopping crumbled under the weight of getting more info out there about #pandemicpedagogy #covidclassroom — and in the midst of it all, because I was on Zoom all the time, something happened to my hearing. Whether from stress or not sleeping, who knows. But, I couldn’t hear all of the conversations. Then, early in lockdown, I was having some trouble breathing deeply for a month and coughing at the slightest uptick in my heartrate. The only time I could breathe, hear, and relax was on my bike, which is stationary on smart trainer (connected via Zwift). Thankfully, that’s the one place that I could see my framily of close friends and tight athletic circles.

I was locked down. With just my cats. It’s been the loneliest year.

Panic productivity. I remember some of what I was doing for those early months. Stepping into areas where I wasn’t asked but feeling the need to add to the conversation. Getting in the way sometimes. Searching for ways to completely revise our college’s live programming for the next year with 28 events on the horizon. Managing student anxiety at the same time that I tried to dampen mine. Finding hand sanitizer (finally found, bought, and sent to me from my Dad in Texas).

This is what Ironman training was like. I never missed a workout for 2 years because I knew the race was looming. It’s a distance not to be trifled with because when you’re out there in a crowd of 2000 swimming 2.4 miles in open water, you want to be prepared. Always in those races, I have a moment of thinking “oh geez, I’m doing pretty good! Am I near the front of my age group of women? Maybe? Could be?” [never – it’s just in my mind] Get to the 112 mile bike ride. Feeling okay because you did all of those long rides and swam all of those laps. The run is my specialty, so 8 miles in feels great. Even 16 miles. But 17-25 miles. That’s where it feels like complete shit. But, you keep going because you’ve spent 2 years thinking about that final moment that will pass in 20 seconds of knowing that you’re about to complete a goal that has been built up over years. That last 1.2 miles feels euphoric. And when you finish, all of your friends, and even complete strangers cheer for you. Check on you. Congratulate you. For awhile. Then the burning desire to race another one comes over you. To do better. To test more boundaries.

That’s where the comparison ends. No one is cheering during the pandemic.

Until I got my shot last Tuesday. Sitting in that chair in the middle of a huge building. Trying not to burst into tears. I couldn’t even make small talk with the terrific nurse who must have given hundreds of shots already by the time I had arrived that morning.

The pandemic doesn’t end there, though. I’ve taken on a new role as the Director of Public Programming — which is the culmination of this past pandemic year of moving from in-person to online programming. Of spending much time thinking about and working with faculty coordinators on keeping in mind the values behind their events. What do you want to convey to these audiences? Have you held onto that with every tech decision that you’ve made? Zoom with chat or without? Registration required or not? Reaching out to bigger, national audiences, different constituencies? So many decisions. It’s like….

It’s like Ironman training all over again.

Then there’s next year and setting up this new infrastructure for Public Programming, the equivalent of Public Humanities, but with performing arts, art, art history, digital media, design, languages, letters, journalism, mass communication all in one college. There are grants that need to be written. Tenure and promotion guidelines to shore up that value publicly-engaged scholarship. Mentoring infrastructure to ensure the initiative’s longevity. Web presence to create. Mission statements. It’s like Ironman training all over again.

Also, my cats were constantly fighting in competition for my lap. Why can’t they just get along?

At one point, I embarrassingly yelled in frustration during a committee meeting – fueled by my frustration that I just couldn’t hear in Zoom.

I managed to write 300 words for a couple of conference proposals that would be virtual presentations, but barely. Thank goodness for terrific collaborators.

Doodle by © Jojo Karlin

Then, I walked into doing my own talks again on my nascent research project with an invitation from the Book Club of California to talk about 19th-century literary annuals in India — but since all of the conferences were cancelled, I hadn’t had time to really test out this new avenue of research, if it was shite or not. I’m venturing into a project that has multiple unfamiliar languages and new ideological and physical geography for me. I’ve never gotten over imposter syndrome, and I live to work instead of working to live. That working to live isn’t going so well, though I’ve always loved a good challenge, especially one involving laborious spreadsheets and archival research. It’s like Ironman training all over again.

The Book Club of California has always been generous with their invitations to me. We put together an Omeka digital exhibit in lieu of displaying my collection of literary annuals, emblems, and conduct manuals in their beautiful San Francisco location. I publicized the talk widely but regretted that during the week of the talk. Scholars I deeply respect had registered. I just wasn’t sure. It’s like Ironman training all over again.

I also chaired the College Retention, Tenure, and Promotion Committee, which was a pretty important service to me since we had created new tenure and promotion guidelines in the University Academic Senate that really heralded what I needed back in 2010 to value the very type of scholarship and pedagogy that we were now attempting to uplift. We have some culture shift to perform among the faculty on all of the committees, so I was committed to doing this work. Primarily, I wanted to ensure that we valued pedagogy beyond the student evaluations, as is explicitly written into our policies.

Completely valuable work, and I’d do it again, but in those 6 weeks, it was like Ironman training all over again.

In there, among all that, my 2 collaborators on Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities and I presented at the Engaging Open Scholarship conferences with a 5-min pre-recorded talk that ended up shaping some arguments we made in the collection’s introduction, “Curating Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities.” It would be the first time that we had moved beyond the workshop demonstration model and into provocations about what users could do with this collection in this moment. Just 5mins. That’s all the 3 of us needed to record. The outtakes are hilarious. It took 2 days to record. We were simply giddy and punchy from being “on” since March.

It was like Ironman training all over again.

Colleagues and friends say nice things to me about what I’ve accomplished in my career. But, admittedly, I’m lost these days. Unsure if what I’m saying is productive for the faculty who are applying for funding for their Public Programming events. Or, if other colleagues are passing off my unintentionally sharp critique as “pandemic times” and all will be forgiven later. Or, if that Book Club of California talk was additive. Or, if I’m so engaged in self promotion that I’m not adequately seeing the workload in front of me. Or, if this grant that I’m currently writing….or pretending to write….really, struggling to write because I can only put together about 4 sentences each day…is going to kick off this new role successfully.

This position entails everything I ever learned from Digital Pedagogy, Digital Humanities, project management, open access, Writing Across the Curriculum, archival work, non-canonical literary studies, and public engagement — thanks entirely to my education from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. It all culminates in this position. But, still living to work even when we know the relief of ending pandemic-times is on the horizon.

With the news of this new position, that I announced gleefully as acknowledgment of my hard work over the last 2 years in my college, a good friend and colleague simply asked me “are you going to be okay? because you tend to overwork yourself into shock.”

He’s right. It’s still like Ironman training. A long, methodical process that requires daily commitment and a great infrastructure. But it’s still a hard (voluntary) journey. The good thing is that I’ve met others who’ve taken on similar roles across U.S. institutions with exciting results. And, the fun of talking to all of my colleagues across campus. That’s the utter delight of the position. Making space. Making connections. It’s like Ironman training all over again.

I would never race 4-5 Ironmans in one year, though. That would be insane. My body wouldn’t hold up under that kind of mental expectation and daily grind of physical exertion.

Right?

Just one more.

Digital Humanities, professional issues, talk, workshop

March 9, 2021

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COVID Chronicles – So Tired

What have I been doing since March 2020?

I’m out of structured words these days. The tinnitus in my ears is so loud. It’s just a list. That’s all I can do.

suddenly moved my classes to online only along with all 23 campuses in the Cal State System

took a summer online teaching and pedagogy Quality Assurance program — then took another one local to SJSU mentored by some fantastic colleagues

Chair, Retention, Tenure & Promotion Committee — Fall = culture shift in RTP documentation to value pedagogy explicitly by discussing actual teaching materials in the documentation, as part of the required holistic review (per our S15-8 newly implemented policy created by Academic Senate over 10years that focuses on an equitable view in teaching assignment that includes valuing community connections, department advising, innovative pedagogy, high impact practices — and for this year explicitly to note how faculty shifted in March 2020 to completely online…and then continued that through the Fall…and will be again in the Spring)

recorded lecture videos & supplemented with curated theory lecture videos from other brilliant scholars + off-the-cuff screencasts when something wasn’t going well

created new assignments using social annotation tool, Hypothes.is, embedded into Canvas and found they worked for one class but not the other

Canvas has been challenging – this from a technocrat

Interfolio has been challenging for digital dossiers — so much disappointingly NOT Web 2.0 intuitive

GA in one class brilliantly helped students to establish community + students came together to create supportive community for this very difficult course — social annotations did that; weekly peer responses that were more like intellectual conversations than copyediting; constantly in each other’s orbit for assignments; attrition rate is lower + grades are higher than ever in 16 years of teaching this course (and not because of grade inflation!)

Dealing with students snapping at me via email or Canvas comments & reminding myself to be capacious…capacious…capacious

getting accused of terrorizing students….right before I was about to teach resulting in trying not to cry during a Fall class because it’s been 16 years of this shit…and then remembering my agency and shutting that shit down in a variety of ways

major meltdown of my own in a department committee meeting (for the first time, ever) because I’d had enough of people talking over each other — also having had to constantly reveal my own hearing issues, which was embarrassing and maddening when I still had to keep insisting for order (though I wasn’t chairing this committee)

got invitation to contribute to edited collection on my primary but new-ish research project – gulped and said yes

failed to deliver a book review — twice — grateful for generous editors

made videos of feedback on assignments only to discover that screencasting isn’t available via Canvas Studio and uploading videos takes 10mins each time x45….sigh

constant emails from the upper admins to “be kind” with no real action about what the heck that means — then a later correction (because our Provost listens) about how to create a system of kindness by lowering wordcounts or abbreviating the final exam or making exams open book or other pedagogical maneuvering that could easily be implemented in non-science required courses

a few days later, getting an email from the dept with rigid policies that contradict the provost’s “be kind” — apparently, they took it as be kind only to students, but not faculty

learned some things about leadership for a diverse, multi-disciplinary college

watched every single conference get cancelled – where I could normally test out new scholarship and get feedback from important voices

lost a beloved colleague to COVID in April

helping to plan a conference because it as apparent that this organization needs to move its needle on anti-bias and anti-racist scholarship — and some long-standing, white, male membership needs to step aside to make room for more voices

requested permission to visit my office to get books — all my books are lonely

got news that grad school mentor had succumbed to long-standing illness — co-created panel for big convention in his honor — lamenting I didn’t speak to him one last time

taking the 6 hr anti-bias training for rtp matters that was overwhelmingly useful in pointing out the rhetoric that can be harmful (women are nice/hard-working + men are brilliant) in professional advancement matters – grateful for our brilliant Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Office

listening to my students via Zoom shoot the shit about Frankenstein around the time of the U.S. elections — because we just needed a break from structure and to talk about something that gave us joy

created 5-min video about #citepedagogy for cool conference — once again working with long-time collaborators that always creates intellectual depth that I could not have reached on my own

sticking my foot in my mouth trying to be an ally but really just being a white, privileged asshole — constantly a work in progress

completely re-writing article with long-time collaborator to eschew personal narrative style — for the 2nd time on request for editors

final details on 10yr open access #curateteaching #citepedagogy project in digital format that is almost done…almost but made public early when everyone flipped to online pedagogy in March

writing 1…no 2….no 3 talks…all to happen in the same last week of the Fall semester — why?! I didn’t look closely at my calendar

worrying about my student loans and the potential eradication of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program

excitedly working on curating a digital exhibit for local bibliophiles from my 400+ collection of 19th-century British and American literary annuals

received 45 notices to take the online training for several system-wide matters, but ignored the invitation to read more & take a quiz so the system can say that I know about workplace safety

sticking my foot in my mouth again on a DH matter and getting access to important data, though my intentions were to make progress — but, I’m the sledge hammer and need to be deployed as such by those who ask me for help — that’s just the way it is, though I try to soften

discovering a new Black-owned coffee shop opened during the middle of the pandemic & riding my bike to grab a chai in support

published with long-time collaborators an edited cluster of flash essays from brilliant pedagogues who continue our march towards #citepedagogy #curateteaching

ongoing text chain with my framily and family – weekly & daily

launching an RFP and all the documentation for the 3rd year of a very successful college-wide program — but in the same week as doing 60hrs on RTP stuff, including chairing a committee — I’m great with process and infrastructure, but still working on being capacious with people management in my leadership roles

disappointingly hearing some in my sports community say “we’re diverse enough” and fail to commit to anti-racist/bias practices

listening to students describe incredibly gendered and biased pedagogical practices in Zoom classes — sigh

published an article…and, more exciting, saw one my grad students publish in the same cluster

listening to student Pecha Kucha presentations that are simply breathtaking and visually stunning – by far some of the best I’ve seen in 10 years of using Pecha Kucha for student assignments for this Fall course

writing so many rubrics in Canvas. so many

watched an incredible grad student conference mentored by dept colleague that was so exciting that I couldn’t contain my enthusiastic Zoom chat comments and secretly hoping that I could teach a grad class soon so we could all talk about this cool stuff they’ve been doing

writing so many weekly overviews for modules with goals and supporting videos and underlining or bold — so much underlining and bold text to draw attention — saying read me! read me!

learned new scheduling appointments apps in GCal and Canvas and how to create on-step scheduling, invitations in Zoom so it goes straight to GCal — and appreciating everyone else who did this, too

designed this year’s holiday card which is usually filled with photos of travel and racing with pals — this year, it’s just a wish for hugs

watched some brilliant programming and performing arts events that embrace technology — instead of lamenting the loss of in-person gatherings

visited with grad students for a couple of hours and think I convinced them that theory is cool

watched a bazillion Zoom webinars with incredible scholars who I would never have been able to see during non-zoom-boom days

wrote a peer review for a journal article — I think? I can’t remember

read anti-racist materials and got to talk to SJSU new colleagues who are leaders and inspirational and so much better at these things that we should all just shut up and listen rather than protecting the canon

writing 2 grant apps for this cool college-wide initiative — and getting one that will provide a course release to write a bigger federal grant proposal next semester — but then learning that one of the big proposals is due in early February 😦

spending 9 hours on Zoom in peak meeting week — and leading all of those gatherings, so no ducking out to let my laughing profile pic take lead

Zoom watched a student get a much-deserved scholarship — cried when she thanked me in her banquet speech

cheered for grad students taking comp exams with our new process

walked in the woods with retired mentor who I miss

started taking walking meetings to force myself outside

didn’t always remember to brush my teeth in the morning

riding in the Santa Cruz mountains up 4000ft and back down with views of the ocean in September

putting on my wetsuit and swimming x2/week in the ocean March-August, then pool swimming once the semester started

stopped working out 2 weeks ago — this is bad

spent the loneliest Thanksgiving I’ve ever had

I’m. so. tired.

I think I might have a lifetime limit on writing words. I may have reached it after Spring/Summer/Fall semester/constantworking/nobreak/alwayssomething/notimetodolaundry quadrupled workload.

What day is it?

This tinnitus is SO LOUD.

professional issues

December 4, 2020

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March March against “We’re Diverse Enough”

 

It’s July 26, 2020. I just read the New York Times article and watched the video of a shooting in Austin, Texas at a #blacklivesmatter protest where a protester who was legally open carrying was shot and killed by someone who drove a car into protesters.

MARCH – MARCH

I’ve watched Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stand up to a woeful congressman for calling her a “fucking bitch” on the steps of Congress.

MARCH – MARCH

I’ve attended SHARP in Focus (in place of their cancelled annual conference), especially the opening roundtable discussion Decolonizing Book History with panelists Marina Garone Gravier (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Priya Joshi (Temple University), Jean Lee Cole (Loyola University Maryland), Kinohi Nishikawa (Princeton University), and Andrea Reyes Elizondo (Leiden University). The panelists were capacious, generous, erudite, forthright, engaging, undeniable. I was honored to listen into their conversation.

professional issues

July 26, 2020

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