Robins?????

When I got up this morning and looked out the window to see how much new snow we had gotten over the night I was NOT surprised to see it snowing outside.  The weather folks had predicted up to six new inches of snow over last night and into today - this makes ME very happy as I have been skiing six times (skied this past Wednesday in powder OVER my skis and boots at Smuggler's Notch - what a great time) and snowshoeing six times (went yesterday afternoon at Indian Brook Reservoir, not five miles from campus - a place where I kayak in the summer).  WHAT I was not expecting on this first day of March (Happy Birthday sis) was to see a tree full of robins.  It was snowing out, there are several inches of snow on the ground and on everything, it is absolutely beautiful out there and yet, here was a tree literally covered with robins.  They have always been a sign of spring but it was rather strange to see them eating from my bird feeders and suet in the middle of another snowy day.  I will have to ask my friends in the biology department about all of that.  Peter Hope is an instructor in the biology department and my resident expert on all things "birds."  He and I talk about everything from hummingbird migration to the "ruffled grouse" that crashed through the window of my classroom last year - fortunately no one was in the classroom at the time......

Our students seem to have benefited from their long weekend away as they left "sick" and came back less sick.  While there are certainly benefits to living IN a community, the sharing of germs through simple day to day interaction is NOT one of those benefits when the flu hits.  They have been good however in making up work missed and in heeding our advice NOT to come to class when they are really sick.  Between "Purell" and "Emergen-C" I have been able to avoid getting sick.........

There was a dinner meeting last week for those of us who are serving as mentors for some of our international students.  This event was planned and coordinated by the Multicultural Student Affairs Office and we had a great time.  We all brought dishes to pass and got to spend quality time with not only our own "mentee" but with the other international students in this program.  I have the pleasure of working with Joy-Anne Headley who is also a psychology major.  Joy-Anne is from Barbados.  When I asked her how she had spent her long weekend away (I suspected that she had NOT been able to travel home to Barbados over the long weekend) I was not surprised when she shared that she had once again gone on a "service trip" with our MOVE Office.  She had worked in homeless shelters in Boston.  We discussed how lucky we all are and how easy it is to take some things for granted until we are confronted by the reality that not all people are as blessed as we are to be at Saint Michael's College. 

The previous week, the Psychology Club (thanks to Seth Brown, co-president for arranging this) had a guest speaker who is a Sports Psychologist.  Brian Cain gave an excellent presentation to over sixty of our students.  He talked about motivation, how to focus on your competition and NOT on extraneous "stuff" and how to discard the "bricks" that athletes often carry with them all of the time.  Several of my students attended this presentation and wrote reaction papers on his talk and from their perspective his talk was very beneficial.  Most of our winter sports teams are ending their season as we gear up for spring sports.  There was a lacrosse game scheduled for today - yup, today even with the snow on the ground but that one has been postponed.  Our Duffy Field has been plowed so they will play in the next couple of days - amazing as that seems, they actually WILL play with snow piled up on the sidelines.  With spring break right around the corner our baseball and softball teams are looking forward to their trips down south and men's hockey begins playoffs next Wednesday.  Student-athletes really have to juggle so much between practices and their academic schedules but as I reported to our Athletic Advisory Council yesterday, our student-athletes still managed to attain an overall varsity grade point average of 3.046 for the fall semester. 

My classes continue to be excellent.  My Abnormal Psychology students did quite well on their first exam and the Sports Psychology students' second paper is what I am correcting this morning.  Men & Masculinities continues to amaze me as the students' maturity and willingness to be challenged makes this an exceptionally rewarding experience.  Monday night begins a series of dinners at my home for my Men & Masculinities class.  Each week for the next five classes I will host five or six students for dinner - I cook, they eat AND get to talk outside of class.  I listen and learn so much from them.  These are all seniors who are nervous about leaving the "bubble" that is Saint Mike's.  Some of them are getting those second interviews, some are getting acceptances to graduate school (congratulations to Alex Monahan, SA President who heard this week that he has been accepted to graduate school at Boston College) and some are still confused about what they are going to be doing after graduation.  I hope THOSE students are taking good advantage of our great career staff in the Student Resource Center. 

Alex had a meeting scheduled yesterday with the Provost and the Dean of Students to discuss issues around student safety on campus in light of the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University.  The only way that we can deal with the complexity of these issues IS to talk, to listen, to collaborate and to work together.  I am very proud of how our student leaders are willing to be part of the solution and to realize that students cannot simply expect that WE will take care of them without THEIR working right alongside us. I look forward to hearing Alex report on his meeting when he addresses the Student Association this coming Tuesday.

Back to correcting papers and then more snowshoeing this afternoon and more skiing tomorrow.  Enjoy life as much as I do.

Dave 

Comments

[Elizabeth Lumsden]

Hello Professor Landers!

I love reading your BLOGS!! I CAN'T WAIT for Spring! Do you think that today may be the start of it? I sure hope so. Also, you mentioned that you had graded the Sports Psychologist Talk papers - just letting you know that I haven't forgot about mine, I've just been too busy to revisit my notes and sit down to write a formal paper...hopefully I will have time to write it over break. Again, your BLOGS are great and I am glad that you take the time out of your busy schedule to write them.
I hope that you enjoy your weekend - mine will be full of studying for exams and writing my Research Proposal for Research Methods - CRAZY BUSY!!
See you in class! :)
Elizabeth Lumsden