On January 2,2020, I learned that my department head had passed away, which filled me with sadness. On January 3rd, I received a call from my dean acknowledging this major loss to the department and asked me to become interim department head. After discussion and prayer with my wife, Beth, and then my friend Rob, […]
I am surprised at how quickly a colleague who has passed away or retired is no longer part of the discussion in an academic department. At the time, he or she is genuinely mourned and sincerely missed, but I am shocked by how quickly someone who spent 10, 20, perhaps even 30 years mentoring students, […]
I’m so busy…! I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my responses to others, and I am a little afraid to admit what I’m about to say. I sometimes unwittingly use the excuse, “I’m so busy” to put off a meeting with someone, get out of doing something for someone, or to get back to […]
I will never forget “Susan” poking her head into my office with a huge smile on her face. She said, “I wanted to tell you that I love Jesus too!” This caught me a little off-guard. In fact, in over twenty years teaching, I don’t think I’ve ever had a student lead with that. I […]
Matthew 6:32-33: For the pagans run after all these things [food, drink, clothes], and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Professional ambition has been one of the great challenges of my academic life. When […]
A year ago, I didn’t know anything about Cru or what it stood for . . . until a colleague invited me to a faculty luncheon hosted by Faculty Commons. That invitation changed my life. Glancing around the packed room, I saw faculty and grad students from different disciplines, strangers to me, but connected as […]
In J.C. Ryle’s great work Holiness, there is a chapter entitled “The Ruler of the Waves!” Ryle writes late in the chapter that, “No master surely ever had scholars so slow to learn their lessons – as Jesus had in the apostles” and yet, “No scholars surely had so patient and forbearing a teacher – […]
Switching gears from psychology to literature in the mid-90s involved recalibrating my sights, but not my heart. Before I began taking my first graduate course, I visualized clearly the kind of academic community I hoped to nurture when I finished my degree, one born of psychological depth, spiritual honesty, and university-proximate housing. Nine years later, […]
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In the Spring of 2014, I decided to retire. I had been a professor of Chemistry or Biochemistry since 1969, having been at the University of Georgia since 1988. It was time to move on and allow a younger person with fresh ideas and more energy to fill my spot. After a few months of […]
