Category: Alumni Blogs
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Accessing Active Citizenship
Two years ago, I wrote about the member mentality and the Active Citizens Continuum which describes how our perspective on community engagement can change. When I was first introduced to active citizenship, I thought of it as “The Active Citizen” who collected all the badges for responsibility, justice, service, and social change. Becoming “The Active…
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Relying on Creativity
When I first took the Life Values Inventory, I remember looking down at my results as Dr. Kelly Crace explained that Achievement, Responsibility, and Concern for Others tended to be high burnout values, especially if they are not paired with more restorative practices. Gulp. But then Kelly told us that one of the best strategies…
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Dear Professor Pieper
Dear Professor Pieper, I know it’s been ten years since I was in your class and by now I can call you Chris, but in this instance Professor Pieper feels right. A decade ago, I was learning about the sociology of religion in your class while also enjoying spring semester of my senior year. Also…
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Learning to Transgress
How do I tell the story of five Office of Community Engagement colleagues reading bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress? I can tell you that the setting was a weekly Zoom discussion, sometimes infiltrated by the sounds of air conditioners and flashes of ‘UNSTABLE INTERNET CONNECTION.’ The story takes place in 2020 in the midst of…
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Money Matters
For the last five months I have been working to make sustainable anti-racism changes in my life. Having read a lot of internet lists about actions to take, one item that stood out was banking locally and with Black-owned banks. Here was something I could do to put my financial power to good use, and…
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What I (Don’t) Know
About a month ago, I was on what felt like the tenth Zoom call in a row centered on the statement, “there’s so much we don’t know.” At the time, that sentiment was mostly in reference to COVID-19 and the uncertainty of what service-learning, community-engagement, university life, and life in general would look like in…
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The Third William & Mary
Years ago, I shared my reflections to the graduating Class of 2013 about their connection to the two William & Marys: Close your eyes and picture this campus. The William & Mary you see is the one you’ve built over the last however many years it has taken you to get to this point. You’ve…
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Magnitude and Direction
“If you remember anything from this class, I want you to remember that a vector has both magnitude and direction” – T. Wayne, my high school physics teacher. A few years ago, I celebrated the tenth anniversary of graduating high school by sending a letter to ten of my former teachers sharing what had stuck…
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Belong Here
Growing up in a military family shaped the way I relate to a sense of place. On the one hand, my connection to where we lived was always temporary. On the other, I learned quickly that each place I lived left a lasting imprint on who I was. Each new hometown had its own customs,…
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An Education in Kittens
“Is it hard to give them back?” That’s almost always the first question I am asked when someone learns that I foster cats and kittens for our local Heritage Humane Society. Of course it is hard to say goodbye to faces like this, but it is also right. Hard but right is one of the…
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A Decade After Deciding
Tomorrow I am presenting a session on community engagement at Day for Admitted Students. I will also be celebrating ten years since I decided to attend William & Mary at my very own admitted students day in 2007. That’s right, it’s my aluminum anniversary with William & Mary. I have written before about how terrified…
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Anne
Wherever Anne Davis ’16 was, those around her were sure to feel a burst of energy. That’s one of the reasons I selected her to serve as the Fellow for Hunger and Nutrition in the Office of Community Engagement and why I was so looking forward to working with her. I wasn’t sure exactly where…
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Sounds of the Semester
A few weeks ago, I asked the first year students in Aim 4 to tell me about the most memorable smells on-campus so far, and there were some interesting answers. But today I want to share with you some of my favorite sounds of this semester. Now a month into their William & Mary experience,…
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Who I Am Is Here
I just logged into my blog dashboard to upload an end of semester post and for the first time noticed that I have a Draft folder with something in it. Below is the entry I discovered which I wrote in December 2012, the first winter after I graduated. It seems appropriate to finally post this…
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To All the Incoming Students Who Are Petrified
To all the incoming students who are petrified, unbelieving you’re ready for this, and just trying to make it through Orientation without crying in public—I know how you feel. Eight years ago, as my family checked into the hotel on the night before move-in, I was in a state of shock, wondering what foolish college…