BA in Individualized Studies Program
I often wonder what a Goddard student wants from these mini-autobiographies. After several years of asking students, I have come to this conclusion: Hell if I know. With that researched bit of wisdom tucked away, I must face the fact that things have changed since the last time I wrote a bio, and that my approach to the current one should be broad, all-encompassing, complete, and really short.
I am married with children. My wife Cecilia is attending Antioch University, Los Angeles where she is one year short of her MFA in creative writing. She has written two novels, lots of short stories, and scads of little things she calls Flash Fiction. Currently she is working with the well-known short story guru, Lee K. Abbott. My daughter Chloe is a teenager with all that goes with being one. She attends Emerson College in Boston and is currently telling me she wants to be a rock star. She loves Ben Folds Five, Ben Harper, and Tom Petty. I know, it makes no sense. My two step-children live in New York and are both aspiring musicians, artists, and the like. McClain is a fabulous jazz singer and songwriter and can be seen at The Soha Club in Manhattan every other Monday. John has just recorded a CD, drives my truck with Missouri license plates in New York City (now that’s brave!), and works for his father, a Broadway director among other things. When I am not writing, playing my guitar, or working for Goddard, I teach skiing at the Angel Fire Resort right outside of Taos, New Mexico. In the spring, summer, and fall Cecilia and I live in the historic district of beautiful Wilmington, North Carolina.
In terms of academics, I prefer to study, think about, advise, teach, and otherwise seek expertise in the following areas: teaching, writing, music, art, history, philosophy, sociology, and religion.
My favorite movies are: Lawrence of Arabia, The Haunting of Hill House (the old version, not the new crappy one), Smoke Signals,. and anything with Denzel Washington. My favorite books are: The Souls of Black Folk, The Alexandrian Quartet, The Last Temptation of Christ, Man’s Search for Meaning, and The Chalice and the Blade. My favorite places: Taos, Wrightsville Beach, Kathmandu, and sitting around a table with good food and wine. I love the comic strip “Get Fuzzy”.
I am a dog person, but I tolerate cats.
Of all the things I have ever done in my life I am really good at three: playing basketball, skiing carved turns, and teaching. I love people most of the time. As an advisor I am encouraging and demanding.
I am a good driver, bad card player, fair guitarist and singer, aspiring writer, and good friend. I find that my sense of humor rarely deserts me and often gets me in trouble. I dislike traditional methods of education, finding them to be most concerned with control and least concerned with learning. I appreciate originality, odd perspectives, new slants, divergent thinking, creative angles, metaphorical reveries, and the making of new meaning. At Goddard I have advised students who have studied astronomy, piano pedagogy, Waldorf schools, ancient Egyptian culture, sacred geometry, trees, feminist literature, free agency, Eastern European myths, Feng Shui, educational issues of all types, and much more. I have learned from all my students.
I ask questions. I am a gadfly. I nudge, pester, encourage, cheer on, and celebrate. What you see is what you get. As a Goddard student, you have given yourself the gift of freedom. But, as you well know, academic freedom is worthless without responsibility, effort, and good work. As an advisor, I feel my job is to help actualize your fulfillment of freedom’s demands.
Educational Background: Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction, University of Kansas, 1995; M.A. Curriculum and Instruction, University of Oregon, 1978; B.A. English Literature, Clark University, 1974.
|