Leading with Age

I’m pretty sure I’m on a soap box.  Have been for a few years, now.  My subject from this modest elevation:  The Reclamation of Elderhood ™ . Like most of us, I remember my grandparents.  I remember a few great uncles and aunts.  I even remember some of their friends.  My maternal grandmother, for example, was born in 1896.  I know too little of her life.  I know she was raised in… Read More

Why Read a Blog on Leadership and Change?

You may know this blog has a history.  It started January 21, 2009 – the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated for his first term as President of the United States.  It was a time when the ragged red underlining of word processing programs – the marks used to flag misspellings – showed up without fail beneath the two words, Barack and Obama. The blog first followed my road trip around the… Read More

A Mandan-Hidatsa Elder and Civilian Warrior Speaks of Fracking

Today is Veteran’s Day.  Today we honor people who have placed their lives on the line to recover peace. Per Capita, more Native Americans serve in the U.S. military than any other ethnic group.  In recent data out of the Department of Defense (2010) the contrast shows up in the fact that while Native Americans make up 1.4% of the total U.S. population, they compose 1.7% of the country’s military.  Over 20%… Read More

Fracking — Any Hope of Listening Here?

NOTE:  Here’s a brief statement by a conservation writer and a response from a person with another opinion.  Both are residents of the same area of Montana.  My question to myself – to all of us – is how can these two people listen to one another?  How can they be in conversation toward some level of understanding – even action?  Is it possible? And before I leave you to read their… Read More

Ode to a Street Gentleman

This is a repost of a blog from New Year’s Day, 2011.  That day I wrote about a man named Bill who I haven’t seen now for over two years.  He’d be 68 by now.  The street people around here who know him haven’t seen him or heard anything.  I’ll keep asking, but all of us have the feeling Bill’s life may have passed.  I’m spending lots of time considering house and… Read More

American Work from the Ground Up

Labor Day is the American holiday designated to honor workers.  Historically, the day arises from the American Labor Movement in the late 1800’s.  The tradition continues — you likely noticed it last weekend – as a way of honoring the contributions of American workers to the health and wellbeing of our country. Also vital to the country’s emergence and continuing welfare is American Wilderness – a presence, a natural fact, that has… Read More

Native – nonNative Partnerships: One Step in Making it Real

Yay!  A publication. Lots of you know that I write pretty regularly for scholarly outlets.  I don’t mention that stuff often here, but word just came in from the Teachers College Register (TCR) of Columbia University that a very cool commentary just went live on the TCR webpage for this week.  It’s title — PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES:  CAN HIGHER EDUCATION SHOW UP?  It’s only free for a week, then TCR charges for… Read More

Social Class and Knowing

One of the things I do in my work is to serve as a reviewer for scholarly manuscripts that social science researchers submit to academic journals – vying for one of the coveted publication spots so necessary for advancing in higher education professions. Hmmm. Well first, let’s go back and take a look at that sentence.  The one I just wrote and you just read. Its message could easily invoke a yawn. … Read More

Paying Attention to What’s Working

  The other day, I was at the Quest Integrative Health Center in Portland.  I was co-facilitating a discussion on the neurobiology of happiness based on the work of researcher and clinician, Rick Hanson.   I’ve written about Quest Center before in this blog (EX:C blogs November 26, 2012; December 10, 2012) and have to say it’s great to be volunteering my time as part of this monthly neuroscience series. The group gathered… Read More

The Paradox of Thrift

My grandparents survived the Great Depression.  My parents were born into the close of that time, but like any time of stress linked with austerity, the aftermath of that economic trauma was evident in newly and deeply established habits of caution. My farming grandmother could make anything out of anything, or so it seemed to me.  She made quilts from squares of rag scraps stuffed with old nylon hosiery (among other softish… Read More