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A Midsummer Night's Dean
03 July 08 10:47 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
The 4th of July is here, the traditional mid-point of American summers. Perhaps you, like me, feel like the summer is far past being half over by this time. The 8-week summer session is about half finished. Other college summer activities are completed...
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Fact and Fiction
04 June 08 08:52 AM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Two friends of mine used to argue good-naturedly about their preferences for reading non-fiction versus fiction. The non-fiction fan would say, "There is too much information in the world for me to learn to spend time reading books that are not true...
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Wii're In This Together
01 May 08 02:04 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
My eight-year old son has learned How to Get Ahead in Life Lesson 37: Acquire a knowledge advantage over your opponent and exploit it . His grandparents' Wii game system is living at our house while they're on vacation, and I have found that Evan...
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The Need to Lead
01 April 08 04:25 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
The higher one's position in academic administration, the more one's effectiveness depends on the leadership performed by others. After nearly a year in the Dean's Office I have new appreciation for the importance of decisions and planning...
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I'm Giving Up Futons, and Not Just For Lent
08 February 08 05:04 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed for the first time in nearly two months. If Providence is kind, my wife and I never again will have to sleep on a futon as we have had to do since the week before last Christmas. That was when...
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Living in the Land of Both/And
15 January 08 08:57 AM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Like many of you I imagine, I am uneasy with lines of thought that force either/or bifurcations. The world seems much too complex and poetic for the answers to be neatly divided into mutually exclusive categories. At minimum there usually is a third option...
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The College of Human Expression
01 December 07 06:30 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Speaking to members of the Board of Governors and several other university administrators, I was trying to give a succinct description of what gives the many varied disciplines within our college a shared identity and purpose. "If someone told us...
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Insights from a 200-pound gorilla
01 November 07 04:05 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Twice this past week I have donned a gorilla suit for the purpose of -- well, no purpose really, just the excuse of it being Halloween and people are less likely to think you're crazy for wearing a gorilla suit then than, say, on Easter or the Fourth...
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Confessions of a Lapsed Patron
01 October 07 05:16 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
In 1983 I had the singular pleasure of meeting Luciano Pavarotti backstage at a performance in Kansas City and getting his autograph. The great tenor's recent passing prompted me to think again, as I have countless times over the past 20 years, "I...
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September 4, 2007
05 September 07 11:42 AM | Carey Adams | with no comments
In addition to relief from August temperatures (we certainly hope), September brings many other welcome occasions to the College of Arts and Letters . The tenth annual Ozarks Celebration Festival kicks off this Friday with a free concert by local favorite...
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August 1, 2007
01 August 07 12:17 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
As a child I found Dr. Doolittle's push-me-pull-you rather a tragic figure, probably because as a child I longed to follow my own will and not be hindered by the demands of others (least of all my kid sister, the other half of my own metaphorical...
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July 2, 2007
01 July 07 11:45 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Teachers are accustomed to marking time in intervals that go unnoticed by most others. When we say "next year," we usually mean the start of the academic year in August, not the calendar year in January. And the first day of summer is the Saturday...
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June 3, 2007
03 June 07 11:04 PM | Carey Adams | with no comments
Proud father that I am, I was there to watch my daughter dance; I didn’t expect an eighth grade talent show to make me feel so good about being part of the College of Arts and Letters. Several singers, a couple of pianists, some dancers, the obligatory...
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