AND THOSE WHO AIDED THE NSA WHISTLEBLOWER. In this last week we have learned that The US Air Marshalls, under the broad umbrella of the National Security Agency, have been conducting surveillance operations using Cessna aircraft…
We like to celebrate anniversaries. Anniversaries confirm communal memories and keep our stories alive for the next generation. This past week we celebrated the 25th anniversary of a singular event: the Fall of the Wall…
Reading Philip Klay’s Redeployment has helped me to think anew about our annual, modest rituals of honoring our veterans on November 11. Klay’s collection of a dozen short stories about soldiers fighting in Iraq…
What are you doing tonight? During commercials for “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon,” or maybe right after you put down your game controller, be sure to grab your computer or iPad. There’s work to…
In September of last year, Lewis University hosted poet Richard Blanco. Earlier in 2013 he read his poem “One Today” at the Barack Obama 2nd Presidential Inaugural. While on campus he delivered a public…
This post is a response to the call by my English Department colleague Sheila Kennedy. She wants the Faculty Forum to be a site for reflections about the teaching of writing to college students…
For seven weeks in 1989, Red China was convulsed by the Democracy Movement. This anti-government protest started in Beijing and then spread to many provincial cities. Coincidentally the eyes of the world were trained on…
It is estimated that most people today have, on average, a vocabulary of about 15,000 words they use throughout their lifetimes. It is estimated that William Shakespeare had a vocabulary of around 20-30,000 words. I’m…
(The following is a revised version of a piece that first appeared on the blog site of the Assembly on Expanded Perspectives on Learning (AEPL).) “They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for knowing the…
We fear an extinction event. We search the environment and note the loss of plants and animals. We worry as we examine “Martha,” the last ever passenger pigeon. We examine the geological record and note…