Clint Gardner

Ah beginnings. I wrote this on PeerCentered moments ago: It has always struck me as ironic that fall is the time when school traditionally starts given that fall is the time for crops to be harvested, the hard freeze to hit, and the squaring away of everything for a long winter. Even if late August feels nothing like fall, I still sense the hint of autumn in the way the light plays out over the land and the distinct chill in the early morning air as I hurry off to the bus stop to start up yet another school year. Fall is, of course, spring for education. It is when students start anew and hope abounds. It would be interesting to explore the opposition that academia (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) creates between itself and nature. Beginnings for academia, as I noted above, are traditionally in the fall and endings are in the spring. One could argue, of course, that traditional academia is quite in tune with nature in that it takes inside activities at a time when nature is le

I've been a particular slacker in my blogging this summer. That is unfortunate, because I think I do have a great deal to report. I shall summarize it, however in an ordered list, and will get back to it when I am not on vacation: We completed our Student Writing Center advertising video. It is a bit stilted at times, but that gives it a bit of charm or perhaps just reality. The Peer Writing Advisers (from now on to be called PWAs) collaborated on it quite effectively, I think. We have hired 6 new PWAs. Staff education begins in earnest the first week of the semester. The Student Writing Center was the lucky recipient of two iMacs, two iPods, and a new video camera to create useful online resources for student writers and writing advisers. We wrapped up a successful summer of tutoring. We conducted a workshop on self-reflective writing in order to improve how students make use of it for their portfolios. It was the first thing recorded with the iPod technology and i