Mary C. Henry

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash   Classes start next Monday and I will be there with my KN95 mask on. I might be the only one since Miami University is not requiring masks despite CDC recommendations for our county being to the contrary. I can't see how this will go well. People are still being hospitalized and dying of COVID. Why should we pretend otherwise? I had hoped they would start with masks with all the students returning to campus, but that is not the case. It's very frustrating. I am not immune compromised, but I'm sure there are those on campus on who are. This policy just seems very misguided. I watched the webinar posted on the U website and that was even more worrying to me. It sounds like they want to rely 100% on personal responsibility for keeping COVID numbers down. Yes, there are people who will be careful, but not everyone!  So that's how I'm feeling a week out from classes. I do get to teach Landscape Ecology again- it's only...

That title is really overstating what I'm going to write about, but obviously that is what everyone, everywhere is thinking about a lot of the time! I'm lucky that my university has decided to keep classes remote the first five weeks (at least). We started classes this week (August 17th), which was a week earlier than originally planned. Initially they wanted us to start in-person so the logic was that the early start would allow us to finish before Thanksgiving, do remote exams, and reduce some COVID spread by not having students travel and then return after that holiday. We kept the early start date, but for now are also remote. I'm hoping that we stay remote, because the idea of returning to in-person classes- even with masks and social distancing- is just not going to work. We've just had (at least) two schools switch back to online classes after just one week of face-to-face classes. It seems much more disruptive to have students move back here (or here for the fir...

It’s mid-August which means that classes start pretty soon- two weeks from Monday in this case- so it’s time to reflect on the summer and think about the year ahead. I took last week off from working at all- not that I’ve had an especially busy summer- but I have had various things going on up until August 2nd and didn’t get to go on any trips so figured a no-work-week was in order before I have to get ready for classes. When my daughter was younger we always made a point to go on a trip in the summer- to see family, visit national parks, etc. But recently my husband has been doing long trips home to help his mom and our daughter is 19 now (one year of college done!) so it hasn’t been a focus for us. My daughter went to California with a college friend to visit my mom for a week in June, so that was nice for them. I didn’t want to intrude on their friend trip so stayed home. It’s too expensive for us all to go to Kenya every year, so I skipped that trip that my husband took, too. I...

I think most of us in academia complain about teaching evaluations in one way or another and many articles have been written on the problems with student evaluation of instruction. Since we made the switch to online evaluations another problem is low response rates. Some faculty have "tricks" that they claim work: offering extra credit if a certain response rate is reached, threatening not to grade exams if a certain response rate is NOT reached, giving in-class time to fill them out. I've tried some of these but the rates are still quite low. For online classes it's even worse. So on top of the other issues with student evaluation of teaching, there may not be enough data either. At my university, they encourage us to use "multiple measures of teaching effectiveness" in the form of midterm evaluations of some kind. I have used Small Group Instructional Diagnosis several times to get feedback on what is and isn't working in classes. This semester I...

Is it ever appropriate for someone to yell at someone else in an academic faculty meeting? I would say no. Especially so if you’re a higher rank than the person you’re yelling at. Especially not during a brainstorming session on a Friday afternoon. Especially not if you’re a man and you’re yelling at a woman. I just had another taste of how people at work don't value me or my opinions. The comment I made was clearly not going to be a major focus of what we were doing, but I thought I had a valid point and should be allowed to make it. If no one felt it was worth pursuing or discussing further, that’s fine. However, my comment was met with anger and aggression from one colleague. Nobody else said anything. I felt uncomfortable for being yelled at so I left the meeting right then. One (female) colleague emailed later to ask if I was okay. Another (female colleague) did on Sunday. The person who yelled emailed to apologize, but apology also pointed out that I was wrong. So that’s ...

As I prepare for fall classes, I am having my annual dilemma over content I want to share with my students. This semester I'm teaching two classes that I've taught before: 1) Global Perspectives on Natural Disasters and 2) Global Change (I'm team-teaching the second one). In both classes, I use a textbook but also assign additional readings and show short and long documentaries during class.  I like to think of the videos as multimedia reading assignments that give students something to think about and discuss. But just like articles and books, I can only show the same documentaries for a while until they become outdated. So each time I have to decide if it's time to retire that favorite video or show it one more time. A great example is The Trouble with Malaria . It's an episode of the CBC series " The Nature of Things " and gives an excellent overview of the disease and struggles to fight it. But it was made 20 years ago! I've been showing it in GE...

As I've written on here before , I've always struggled with making the most of these wide open weeks in the summer and rarely feel that I've accomplished much by the time August rolls around and I have to get ready for Fall teaching. I guess I'm somewhat comforted knowing that I'm not alone in this , but I still don't know how to solve the problem for myself. There's so little time for research during the semester with my teaching and service obligations. For the last three years my family obligations have also required a huge and inflexible time commitment*, but I can't blame my lack of productivity on that and I really want to focus on summer for this post, anyway. As this article in The Chronicle explains , most faculty have unstructured summers without set schedules. Some people are off doing fieldwork or have the discipline to write on some kind of schedule. Some people continue coming into campus regularly over the summer to maintain a work sched...

Commencement was 56 days ago and Fall classes start in 51 days, so we're definitely in the middle of summer now. I was happy to realize that we're still only halfway through since I'm enjoying having a break from teaching after literally no break at all since January 2nd*. I taught j-term online (totally voluntary and for extra pay), then my usual load in spring, then I also taught the first summer session online (also voluntary and for extra pay). With our current calendar there is no break between j-term and spring or between spring and first summer session. I volunteered for both since I can always use the money (my daughter has one more year before starting college!) Having no breaks between sessions mean that grades for one term are not even due when the next one starts(!) So it's a lot and I'm thankful for the break. But, what about the students? I'm sure we have a lot of students who took courses during all three of those sessions, too. And many take mo...

Haven't blogged here in quite a while! I haven't been blogging anywhere, but I do have a tumblr for Geography things and spend a lot of time on Twitter . Maybe I'll get something up here in the near future. Otherwise catch me on the platforms above.

Miami University has recently changed to a new LMS (Learning Management System) called Canvas.  We used Sakai for a few years before this latest change- and faculty can choose to keep Sakai for this year if they choose.  I decided to jump in and switch to Canvas this semester. It's been a steep learning curve, but I've put in a lot of hours setting up my courses and think I have a good idea how to use it now. One thing that I like is that it has apps for iOS and Android. So obviously I went ahead and installed it on my iPhone, iPad, and Nexus 7! Here's a comparison of the home page for my GEO 121 course: Here is a screen grab from my computer (iMac 27') Here is the iPad version iPhone (5s) version Nexus 7 version (Android) The picture is not showing up in the Android version for some reason (it shows up in the iPhone version, but you have to scroll down). I like the features in the Nexus 7 and iPad since you can set a color for each course (iPhone d...

The last time I posted over here (almost a year ago!) I wrote about teaching GEO 121 (Intro Physical Geography) online that summer. I think it went pretty well, but the labs were the most challenging aspect of that class. I write my labs with fairly detailed instructions and encouraged students to email with questions, but I think some students still struggled. It was hard to tell how many of the problems they had resulted from frustration and just giving up, or thinking that they were on the right track, but being wrong about that. Another issue with the online labs is providing feedback to students on their work.  I used Google Forms for student lab submissions- which was great. I split each lab into multiple parts instead of having one really long form.  When students submit their answers, I get everything in a spreadsheet.  I do the lab first to submit my answers for the key (first row in the spreadsheet) and it makes grading really easy.  For my summer class l...

I was scheduled to teach a section of GEO 121 (Intro Physical Geography) this summer, but was told a few weeks ago and that we can't schedule any classes in our building this summer.  We're supposed to move out in August so that (long overdue) renovations can begin on our building.  Even though my class ends in June, we were told to move it.  My class is usually scheduled in both a classroom AND the computer lab, so I was immediately concerned about how I would swing this in another building. Then I asked if I could just move it to an online course and that is what happened! I'm excited about adapting my class for online (which I already planned to do for next winter term), but a little worried about the challenges.  I already teach the course in a way that is well suited for online teaching (I don't have much lecture, students work in groups, quizzes are already online, etc.), but I will also have to adapt my lab exercises. As of now, I'm planning to set up Googl...

Luna Lovegood's first Christmas at our house. I have been saying for years (since I was hired at Miami U) that I would love a couple more weeks between the Fall and Spring semesters and wouldn't miss a week or two less in the summer. This year, I finally got my wish! January 2014 will be the first winter term at Miami. It is three weeks long and we don't start Spring semester until January 27th. I am not teaching during winter session this year, so I can spend those three weeks doing research, getting ready for next semester, and any other work that's hard to get done during the semester. I'm hoping that three weeks is short enough that I don't have my summer problem of squandering my time.  My daughter will be back in school on January 7th, so that will add structure to my day (driving her to school and picking her up). My strategy will be to set a schedule for myself each day to help stay focused. I also have a specific project to work on since I need to g...

The semester has just ended and I have received emails from several students inquiring about their grades.  Most of these emails have asked me to reconsider the grades that I reported to the university registrar and are now released to students.  These emails have become increasingly more common and also more brazen in their requests/demands.  I would like students to think long and hard before sending these end-of-semester emails and consider a few questions: Did you attend this class? If you answer "yes", but you missed more than 10% of class meetings (in my classes this would amount to missing more than three out of our 27 class meetings), how many classes did you miss?  Did you miss them for a family emergency? Due to illness? Or because you overslept or had more important things to do? Most of us have policies that allow flexibility for illness and family emergencies.  It is also good to learn what university offices can assist you with these matters. At...

I'm at a workshop at Google Headquarters this week and testing out this map tool:

Is it really the middle the summer of already?? Well, by official seasons it isn't since we only had the June Solstice nine days ago, but Miami had graduation on Mother's Day weekend (May 11-12), which was seven weeks ago. We start classes again in eight weeks, so we're just about half way through summer break. This year is a little longer because of the calendar change happening next year- we are adding a winter term during January and shortening each semester by a week or two. We start classes about a week later in August than we have been and finish about a week later in May (hooray for no more final exam grading on Mother's Day!!!) That means this summer probably has an extra week (with the early spring graduation + late fall start date). Wow, that makes me feel better, actually! I've fallen deep into my usual summer wanderings, feeling like I have no focus- especially since I spent the last two weeks around downtown Cincinnati while my daughter did a theater ca...

Luna Lovegood joined our family on Star Wars Day! My sabbatical (or Assigned Research Leave as Miami likes to call them) officially ended when the semester did (graduation was Mother's Day weekend), but faculty are on 9-month appointments and I am not teaching this summer. So I have the summer off, right? Well, things have quieted down considerably since most of the grad students are out doing field work and have finished up with qualifying & comprehensive exams for the year. I was also asked to fill in on a PhD oral exam since a committee member is leaving the country* (need to go read the written exam ASAP!), but otherwise I don't have any formal grad student work going on right now, either. Since we're not doing a family trip to Kenya this year (too expensive!) I did volunteer to mentor a student in Miami's Ecology Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. I also have a grad student doing local field work this year. My plan is to have my REU ...

Well, I thought I would get back to this blog a bit more this semester since I have not been teaching, but that did not happen- and now the semester is almost over! Even without teaching, I have been very busy- I am advising four graduate students, submitted a NASA research proposal with colleagues, went on a few work trips, and am now finally trying to settle in to work on learning some new software before next fall. It's been a productive semester for me, but not as relaxing as I'd hoped. I'll see if I can muster enough energy to write a more detailed post about some of my recent busy-ness. Any topics that interest anyone? It's been a lovely spring so far- nice and cool (my favorite!) I hope that means this summer won't be too hot!

I have not been good about updating this blog, but plan to change that this year. I am on research leave (sabbatical) Spring 2013 and hope to share updates about my research here. Check back in the coming weeks!

My companion for the last 18 years, Faline was with me through most of graduate school (from my second semester as a Master's student at SDSU), through PhD at Arizona, getting married, becoming a mom, moving to Kentucky (she flew with us on the plane), getting my first real job here at Miami in 2002, getting tenure, and everything else that happened during those years. She loved to help with reading, grading, watching TV- anything I could do on the couch. Faline left us on Valentine's Day. If I seem a little down the next time you see me, I'm trying to adjust to life without a beloved pet and member of our family. I can tell you plenty of funny and cute stories about Faline's adventures over the years, so don't be afraid to ask. She was older than some of my current students and lived a long life. Bonus points if you know where her name comes from...