Day One...and WHAT a Day One!

It's been a while since I last wrote a very substantial post. I had to look back at the blog just now to see what was going on, and what state my mind was in, when I've checked recently.

Most of my last few posts have been abstruse, political, and maybe even metaphysical, dealing with everything from the affective learning goals met through inquiry-based learning to the horrors of administration-sanctioned crackdown on students' rights to peaceably assemble on their own college campus. I fear this post might continue this trend toward the abstract.

Roughly three months ago I posted about an opportunity I'd been asked to explore which, quite honestly, scares me more than a little. I feared this opportunity because I knew if I offered to take it on and if my offer were successful it would present me with an entirely new set of challenges and that I'd slip and stumble and make a mess of it every now and then as I got into the flow. But hey, no one of us is born knowing how to swim. We've all got to pick it up somehow.

Well, it's time to swim.

It's official: in Fall 2012 I will become the University of North Carolina, Asheville's new Honors Program Director.

During the next several months I'll be learning all that I can about this new responsibility. I'll be tailing the current director like a second shadow. I'll be surveying the program's current students and surveying the faculty. I'll be making new plans and making new friends. I'll be reflecting on my own ideas and I'll be reaching out for others' ideas I'd never dream up myself.

And I'll be looking for support, from the hundreds of wonderful colleagues, students, family, and friends who have helped me to get to this point in my career...and who will continue to help me as my career takes this new turn. I thank every last one of you for all that you've done for me until now. I thank my colleagues and students, for your suggestions and support and for helping me to craft the communities that have helped us all learn together. I thank my friends and family, for the time you've given me, and for the shoulders you've let me cry on and lean on. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for you, all of you.

With peace and love, I thank you.

Now, let's get to work. It's dawn again, with a brand new sun shining. There's much to be done!...including getting to my first class, which begins in 12 minutes...