As many of you know from reading my blogs over the last four years, I am constantly inspired by nature – by the change of seasons; by birds choosing (or not choosing) to live in our carefully selected birdhouses; by the sun, the moon and the stars. My husband and I live adjacent to national wetlands preserves […]
Big news! On June 28th, the Consortium submitted its petition to the United States Department of Education (USDE or simply, as it is officially called, the ED) for Initial Recognition as a programmatic accrediting agency. The petition weighed as much as a block of granite – nearly 500 pages of exhibits and over 100 pages of text. You […]
Our flight finally landed, an hour and a half late. Everyone was eager to get off, especially the family ahead of me, parents with three young sons who looked to be between 5 and 9 years old. As they gathered their belongings, the middle boy was becoming increasingly anxious. The father said, very calmly, “Control […]
Nearly two decades ago, the Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of “tipping point,” in his bestselling book of the same name. According to Gladwell, the tipping point is the notion of being “in a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than a possibility. It is – contrary to all […]
Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon’s letter to the editor of The New York Sun in 1897 is timeless. “Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?” she asked. Her letter is based in hope, and a belief in something that can’t be seen. Francis P. Church, the Sun’s editor, assured Virginia: “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and […]
This past summer, in a blog I wrote about the importance of learning and working environments, I mentioned the recommendations from the Macy Foundation’s April conference, “Improving Environments for Learning in the Health Professions.” Amy Barton, a panelist at the Consortium’s own conference in June, was an invited participant at the Macy Foundation event. I […]
We’ve all had horrible days. In this longer-than-usual post, I’d like to share an extraordinary example of mentorship that was forwarded to me. Dr. Dan Wilensky responds electronically to a trainee who recently wrote in her online reflective journal about a particularly difficult day. Dan is a family practice physician, an active primary care provider […]
It is midnight dark. Streaks of light race across the sky. In mid-August, despite being a buffet for mosquitoes, I love to watch the Perseid meteor showers. The first time I experienced the magic of a “falling star” I was 5 or 6. I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that’s also my […]
There was a flurry of activity through the sliding glass door. The embedded image captures the essence of what I saw, and what bird lover could complain? Dozens of orange-breasted barn swallows had alighted on the railing and floor of the deck just beyond my desk. They were busy. Exchanging one perch for another. Chirping […]
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, spoke at an Amazon employee awards dinner in Berlin, Germany. As captured by the May 2018 Business Insider, his speech included this tidbit: “I get asked about work-life balance all the time. And my view is, that’s a debilitating phrase because it implies there’s a strict trade-off.” Bezos said that the relationship […]
