Teachnology

Memory Making in the Digital Age

2011-03-30T02:03:16Z

Ok, so this has come up with a couple of friends in the last few days, so it seemed to be an appropriate topic, even though it's not directly related to educational technology.

The first instance was when a friend was bemoaning the artwork and projects that their child had made at school. They were concerned over how to manage the amount in a way that might be meaningful later.

The second was when a friend tweeted that she was trying to put her infant son's 0-6 month clothing away. I recommended that she save 1-2 items only, and put the rest somewhere for reuse (for another child) or to give away when the time came. She resisted.

So I thought it might be useful for someone out there if I shared my "system," especially for things like kids' drawings and school work. So here are the "rules" I use:

Never save anything that is a worksheet or fill-in form.
Things that are seasonal (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, etc.) should go with the seasonal decorations after you put the child's name and year on the back. I get my kids' stuff out every year at every holiday. They hate it (they're now 17 and 13), but I love it. And it makes it reasonable to store.
Things that are self-created or drawn go into big bins that are separated by cheap manila folders. One bin per kid. Each folder designates their year in school. The stuff doesn't go in the folder, but behind it. The folder itself just lets me know where things are.
At the end of the year, the kids and I survey their bin and pick the things they find really special and want to keep. The other stuff gets tossed, except...
Another friend made a great suggestion that you could take digital photos of the other artifacts and save them on your computer. Then, the digital file becomes part of their "record" later. :) I LOVE this idea and plan on implementing it.

That's it. Someday, I'm "supposed" to make all this into a scrapbook. Don't know when that will happen, but that's the plan, anyway.

What are your ideas for keeping this stuff organized?

Sometimes You Just Know

2010-06-24T00:52:31Z

When it feels right. When there's engagement. When there's a good feeling about it.

That's right, I'm talking about teaching class. This summer, I had a good class. Students, a nice mix of undergraduates and returning adults, met for several sessions on Wednesday nights. They spoke, asked questions, sent me links that extended the content, and worked at perfecting their assignments, sometimes even redoing them to improve their score, even if only slightly.

When this happens (and it happens more often than I sometimes realize), the students names are easier to remember, and you regret the last night of class even though you're happy to be finished. The few "bad" classes (you know the ones--everyone's sitting, no one's engaged, they want to know what they need to do to get an "A") make you appreciate the good ones all the more.

This was a good one. Maybe I'll see some of them again some time. In any case, I wish them all luck in whatever they choose to do next. Rock it, people!

Foursquare: The Anti-Green App

2010-06-15T11:43:35Z

So I've been playing Foursquare for awhile now. Checking in, trying to earn badges, looking at the leaderboard, like that. For those of you who don't know, Foursquare is a location-based social application that allows you to use the GPS on your mobile phone to "check in" when you go somewhere. Headed to the office? Check in! Going to the grocery store? Check in! You can also earn badges, such as the Pizzaiolo badge for visiting 20 different pizza places, or become mayor of a location by checking in more often than other folks.

The application is social in that you can friend people and then see where they are checking in. Several friends call it "the stalker network," since we can look to see where the gang is at any one time. I am, of course, careful to friend only those I know personally because of this feature. I also don't tweet my location, as you can if you choose to. But this post isn't actually to talk about the pros and cons of Foursquare. Essentially, I think the app is fun and I like the idea of seeing when I first go to a new place. And being "mayor" of somewhere is cool, too.

What I want to talk about here is the point system used by Foursquare, and how that connects to issues of sustainability. You see, the way the points system works is that you get 1 point for your first check-in of the day, 2 points for the second, and so on. If you go to a lot of places in any given day, then, you can actually rack up a lot of points. Which puts you up in the "leaderboard." Which is, in essence, part of the contest--can you get more points than your friends this week?

So lately I started thinking about the kind of behavior Foursquare rewards with points. I get a lot of points on days when I run errands, for example. If I stop at two grocery stores, do a lot of shopping, and am generally out-and-about (and spending money), I get points. Which makes sense from a business model perspective--foursquare encourages people to frequent businesses.

From a green/sustainability perspective, however, I think Foursquare is a bit more insidious. Especially if I'm competitive (which I am--see? I even admit it!). If I forget to check in, do I drive back to the store to do so and get the points? Do I deliberately go to more places than I need to in order to check in more? Does the app, in short, encourage the sort of consumption that I'm not wholly comfortable with? I think in a lot of ways it does. It might be less so in a city where I can walk to a lot of places, but where I live, driving is pretty much the only option. So I'm earning points. But I'm also using more gas, spending more money, and consuming more goods, which I don't necessarily need.

So from here I think I'm going to take Foursquare casual. Checking in, fine. But if I miss one, so what? And no more checking the leaderboard. I'll never catch up to some of the folks I'm connected with, anyway. :)

User Error

2010-06-09T23:40:50Z

Today, I got a sense of what it's like to be a user. Not of drugs, but of technology. As in, the one to whom the phrase "user error" is attributed.

I never liked that phrase. To me, it feels like blame on the user end, and as Donald Norman can tell you, often user error is as a result of bad design. In my case, I had followed all instructions, as had the staff assistant who was assisting me. We checked, we double-checked, and because we had problems before, we even triple-checked. This time, when things didn't work as they were supposed to (for the fourth time, I might add), I sent a note off to the powers-that-be explaining that we were done using their system and would be looking for something else.

Today, I spoke with a very nice person who was clearly not trying to make me feel bad, but who said that it appeared that we hadn't done thus-and-so in order to make the system work. I double-checked with the staff assistant, who outlined doing exactly what we had been instructed to do. While the tech on the phone was clear that it was "possible" there was a glitch, we are also clear that none of us is absolutely 100% certain that we clicked the one button. So in the end, I'm left thinking that the help desk is probably thinking (as would I, were I sitting where they are) that we were the ones who erred.

But here's the thing: I'm not a novice computer user. I can write code, install a CMS, and even mess with PHP if a gun were held to my head. But I'm left feeling incompetent. And why is that? Because, as Norman tells us, technology is the one area where the user blames his/herself even when design is bad.

Now, I don't think the instructions (written by this group and the nice person who helped me) are necessarily bad. However, I do think the system is highly unusable, from a usability perspective. So why do I feel like an idiot anyway?

Crazytown

2010-06-03T02:46:10Z

Well, I probably need to go get some ice cream cake. Because I gotta tell ya, got nuthin in the blog post realm tonight. Spent from a weekend of yard work, a couple of days of work-work, and a night of teaching before I remembered this post. So I'm gonna owe ya, y'all.

Ice cream cake. Yuck.

Last Day

2010-05-25T20:03:53Z

So today is my last day at my current organization. Am I leaving? No. Being fired? Hope not. But tomorrow, you see, at 8 am, my organization will begin a day of conversations about the new organization we will be, and how we will leave the old organization behind.

For nine+ months (yeah, I get the analogy), lots of folks out there have been working on what our organization should be doing and what we will look like. While I wasn't involved in most of that, I have seen the care and consideration these people took, as well as the stress they've lived under.

Simon Sinek, in his TED Talk, discusses the need for organizations to "get to why." He says that "people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." And I think he's right. I'm looking forward to hearing the community "why" tomorrow, and also to giving kudos (and hugs, where required) to all the folks who worked really hard to get us even this far.

For now, though, here's my own personal Why.

And here's a link to Simon Sinek's talk, which I think is fabulous:

New Years Resolutions

2010-05-19T13:46:05Z

Well, it's been quite a year. One year ago, I was in a very different space in my life, and a very different time. Lots has changed over the course of that time, and I have to say that it was mostly for the better. Much better. I've made new friends, solidified old ones, and even reconnected with some I hadn't seen in far too long.

So, even though it's pretty much mid-May, I thought it was appropriate for me to make a few resolutions. So here they are. My promises to myself for the upcoming year.

Make less promises. I have the tendency to "volunteer" for too much, and end up making myself crazy trying to do it all. So from today, "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that" is going to enter my vocabulary.
Plan the work, and work the plan. This is my resolution to work on preventing my distractibility (ooh--a shiny!) from getting in the way of my accomplishments. Even if it means turning off Twitter. Or, god-forbid, my music.
Honor those around me. I have been utterly blessed by a large circle of fabulous people--at work, at home, and in my virtual life. I need to thank them, more. Starting now. So thank you.

That's it. I'm limiting this to three, so that I don't overcommit myself (see resolution number 1).

Love to Hate, or Hate to Love? The Power of Social Media

2010-05-13T00:34:32Z

So I got a new TV. An HD TV. Flat panel, sleek, nice. Even bought an HD cable to make it work. Figured we already had HD downstairs, so it would be a matter of putting the HD cable into the cable box and it'd be a "go." Except that my cable box was old enough that it didn't HAVE an HD input. #Fail. So I unhooked the old box and headed to my cable company (My company is Comcast, by the way) for an exchange.

I know, I know. Your cable company. The company you love to hate. They charge for everything, it takes forever to get service, and service calls occur under 80-hour windows, where you're trapped in your house, desperate for the cable guy to come, afraid to even go to the bathroom lest they appear while you're unavailable. Have heard it all. Have experienced a lot of it. "We're experiencing high call volume right now. You will be a decade older when we finally answer and you won't remember what you needed anymore." This time, I was informed that the amount that I was paying for HD wasn't for the service, but for each TV's HD service. $15 per. Nonetheless, I sucked it up and took the box.

The box I liked. Compact and sleek, I saw it as living nicely under my TV, taking up very little room. So we set it up, and we called to activate it. They did so over the phone, and we waited for it to take effect.

And waited.

And today, 24-hours later, I realized that something was just "not right." I didn't have all the channels, and I kept getting a "you must activate this box" message. So I called. And got the "longer than normal" wait-time message. Gotta admit, I wasn't feeling all that "Comcastic."

Enter social media. I had had an experience a year or so ago when my internet went out and I couldn't get through to tech support. I Tweeted something like, "Comcastic my fanny!" on Twitter, and lo and behold, @comcastcares (Frank Elias) sent me a message asking me what was up and how could he help? I thought, "Ok, no harm no foul," and direct-messaged my phone number. From text messaging on my cell and Twitter, Frank fixed my internet issue. No phone call, no waiting, and actually, very little hassle.

So this time, while I simultaneously was on hold waiting for phone support, I also fired up my computer and tweeted, "Looking for @comcastcares or one of Frank's compatriots. Need a reset (or something) on the new HD box. kthx."

A minute or so later (still on hold on the phone), @comcastBonnie asked me what was up (Frank has expanded his network, clearly). And again, within 10 minutes, I'd direct-messaged Bonnie my phone number and she activated the box, eliminated the message, and then told me I'd have a buttload more channels now. Before I ever got through on the phone.

And this is why, even though my cable company frustrates me sometimes, I absolutely love them, too. Because people like Frank and Bonnie have decided to make it better. By using social media. By having conversations with their customers, rather than just talking at them. If anyone at corporate Comcast reads this, I hope they call their Twitter crew right away and ask them what else they can do to improve the company. Because these people get it.

Twitter useless? Hardly. And this is an example even a luddite could appreciate.

On Planning

2010-05-12T12:06:05Z

I am simultaneously a planner and a non-planner. That is, I like to plan some things way far in advance, and for others, last-minute is just fine. One of my other traits, however, is to get overwhelmed if I have a lot of planning to do. And right now, I have a lot of planning I need to do. That's where others come in--folks who can suggest strategies and ways I can lay out what I need to do without becoming overwhelmed.

Projects at work, for the kids, for teaching, for the fellowship I attend, for myself, and for my house. How do I mesh them all together? I'm considering using Project for this, but honestly, the format somewhat overwhelms me and I don't really know how to get started. Part of me thinks I just need to get some big white paper, lay out everything, and go from there. Maybe with crayons. Figure out where the chunks go and how I might organize them. Or index cards. I just think I need something physical to help me to get started.

Anyone else have ideas? What do you do to help you to plan?

Will it Never End?

2010-05-05T17:31:42Z

Okay, gang. To start, this post will probably offend someone out there who doesn't realize that I'm typing this with a smile on my face. And for the record, I do like Apple products (in fact am typing this very post on my Mac). So take this as you will.

Mad props to @honeydo for the link, as well, which she knew would send me over the edge. What she didn't know was that I was in serious trouble for a blog post this week, and this gave me enough to go on. So thanks for saving me from the horrors of ice cream cake!

A Few Questions...

I have a few questions for you. Got an iPhone, Mac, iPad, iWork, iLife (in every sense of the word)? Do you watch Apple unveilings online? Salivate madly (and stand in line) for the latest and greatest? Is your greatest wish to move next door to an Apple store? Is Steve Jobs your yardstick for design, dress code, and behavior? Are you one of the hipster, black-turtleneck-wearing crowd?

Oh, and are you single? (if the answer to the rest of the questions is "yes," then no great guess as to why the single thing, folks.) :P

The Solution (or iSolution, I guess)

So now, we have an iSolution to the iSingle problem: http://cupidtino.com

Here's what it looks like:

My Reaction

Here's what I think (in no particular order):

OMFG. Srsly?????
Well, maybe that will get some of these fanboys/girls paired up and off the streets, where they are a danger to themselves and others
OMFG.
Is there a business model for this? Oh, wait. Fanboys. Fangirls. Nevermind. ;)
Will everyone's profile pic have them sporting a black turtleneck and hipster glasses?
How many users will use Steve Jobs' picture as their profile image?
OMFG.

You get the picture. Much like the iPad, I Just. Don't. Get. It.

Droidless

2010-04-27T11:15:27Z

So...I lost my phone last night. Somewhere between @wexlermoon's house, where I checked in for knit night, and home, the phone was -- Poof! Gone. So for now, I'm without a cell of any kind.

We pause while everyone waits for me to panic...

Ok, so I'm not actually panicking. Yet. I strongly suspect I put the phone in the bag of one of my companion #knitpistols. Thus, until they all report that they've looked and it's not there, I absolutely refuse to panic. I e-mailed the group this am and asked everyone to look. Then, on the way to work, I started to wonder why no one had called me yet. Until I realized that I don't have a phone. Sad, that. :)

That did, however, make me think it would be interesting to keep track of all the things I'm not able to do without my Droid. Don't get me wrong--this is not going to be a "Droid love" post, though there is that aspect to it. Instead, I wanted to catalogue the things I lose (and gain) today because I don't have a camera-enabled smartphone with me. Here's the list:

6:50 am: Wondered why no one called to tell me they have my phone. Realized that required me to have, you know, a phone. *headslap*
6:52 am: Wondered what was on my calendar today, only to realize I'd have to wait until I arrived at work to check.
6:53 am: Noticed the beauty of the sun reflecting off Mt. Nittany on my way in. Wanted to take a photo. Couldn't.
6:54 am: Wanted to text the kids to tell them to have a good day at school. Realized that needed to wait until I got to work (and thank God for Google Voice).
6:55 am: Wondered if Verizon would use the built-in GPS to find the phone location for me. Decided that was a bit panicky for this early in the day, and likely not to help, given experience with GPS and Foursquare.
7:01 am: Arrived at work, and realized I couldn't check in to Foursquare.
9:03 am: Feeling tethered to my desk waiting for return phone call

Happy Ending: By 9:15, I knew where the phone was, and it was even delivered to my office before 11:30 am. Thanks, Elizabeth!

In looking at the list, however, what I realize is just how much I use my phone. And really, mostly it's not even phone calls.

Some Thoughts on Identity

2010-04-21T10:44:16Z

Running behind on practically everything these days, so forgive the length (or lack thereof) of this post. It was inspired by something @JustStormy posted on Twitter and Facebook in response to something that had happened to @micala. What @JustStormy said was this:

What would you do if you deleted part of yourself accidentally and could not recover it?

You see, on Sunday, @micala had tried to delete one of her "extra" Twitter accounts, but instead, mistakenly deleted the @micala account. This was her main account--the one with all the followers, the one with nearly 17,000 tweets, and the one with which she engaged a lot of her social network. And now it was gone. All the history, the followers, the ones she followed. Just gone.

In response, I think @JustStormy's question is a good one. As we put more of our lives online, is it not somewhat like deleting part of your identity--part of the self--if some of that disappears? To me, one of the things that social media does is amplify--your network, your friends, your voice, your very presence. Those of us highly involved in social media have gotten used to this new noise level. In fact, I think this amplification is one of the reasons folks who are not involved often find it somewhat confusing, if not a bit strident at first. When we are used to the amplification, and then it is suddenly silent even in a part of our network, it's jarring. Much as what might happen if you walked out of a rock concert into relative silence.

And the question remains: what does this all mean for our identity? Our sense of self?

Social Media? Break a Leg!

2010-04-13T11:56:17Z

Last night, I went to the College of Communications Pockgrass lecture on Social Media, given by Zizi Papacharissi. To be honest, it wasn't totally my cup of tea. Maybe it was the hour, maybe it was the fact that it was so overly academic, but I didn't get a whole lot of new ideas out of it. Perhaps it was the terminology flying around ("mis en scene?" Seriously?), but I would have far further enjoyed a lecture that discussed the research while still drawing helpful, applicable conclusions. Not to be snarky (nod to @MaxSpiegel), but it felt like the new school was trying a bit too hard to fit into the old school (I repeat: "mis en scene?" "MIS EN SCENE?").

However, one thing Papacharissi said did stick with me--her notion of social networking and social media as performative. I thought about that a bit over the course of the evening and this morning, and I think it's true, at least to some degree. Let me 'splain.

Some of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook might notice that my general morning post is something like, "Good morning, everyone! Happy Tuesday!" or some such. I sound perky as hell, annoyingly so, even. The truth is, I'm generally (though not always) un-caffeinated, ready to head back to bed, and cranky as hell. In other words, "perky" I am not. That definitely fits into the notion that my post is some kind of performance. But here's (especially to me) the question: Is it therefore inauthentic?

If it is inauthentic, then I should be posting how I'm really feeling, which is something to the tune of "Holy shit--AGAIN with the alarm? Crap." Honest. Real. Un-caffeinated, as I've said.

But here's the thing--I don't want to feel like that in the morning. I want to feel perky. I want to feel like I'll wrestle Tuesday into submission, and I want to feel like hopping out of bed with a smile on my face. And posting as if I were already wearing a smile actually helps me to feel that way.

Did you ever hear the saying about smiling even if you don't feel like it, because it improves your mood? It's true. I feel that every day. Posting as if I'm energized makes me feel energized, and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is especially true when someone else comments on my post, saying "I'm in!" or "Thanks, Stevie! You have a good day, too!" At that point, we are mutually cheering each other.

David Eddings wrote that "the word gives meaning to the event." Somehow, I think that a chipper post that makes me chipper is one way this works. And if my apparent cheer brings a smile to someone else, or helps them get on their way, or even makes someone roll their eyes because they know I'm not wholly awake (I'm looking at you, @Robin2go), then I still stand by my posts' authenticity.

My friend Nancy pointed out in discussing this that any public face we put on (in a meeting, at work, even with friends) is essentially performative. And I think she's right. We perform, to some extent, all day, every day. But performative acts are not necessarily inauthentic, because the goal is to be in community with each other. One day, I may not be able to muster up the cheer--but that will be okay, I think. Others will step in and support me. And how can I not do the same?

One of my favorite essayists is Robert Fulghum, he of "Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Part of that essay is the quote, "When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together." That's what we're doing in social media. So let's grab a hand, everyone, and get out there! :)

Office Space (no red staplers need apply)

2010-04-06T19:32:08Z

So our office has been moving. Moving, moving. People going every which way. I was excited, because I got to move into an office with windows. And a view. And I have NEVER had this before.

The chaos, of course, included lots of questions. Questions of status, questions of furniture (can I keep this? What about that? What if I need something else?), and questions of timing (Monday? When Monday?). In this chaos, the woman who was supposed to coordinate it all remained unflappable and professional, even in the midst of some pretty temper-filled moments on the part of others.

I will have worked for Penn State for 10 years this June, and I know that I will move again. That my next space may be a cube, that it may be in a basement, and that I may have to eventually share the space with someone else. As long as no one hands me a red stapler, I refuse to panic over this. There's no point. Furniture is furniture. Space is space. When everything settles, the likelihood is that there will be a piece of furniture/equipment left over somewhere else that will meet any of my unmet needs.

As I kept saying during the process, "I'm a tree--I can bend" (what movie was that from, anyway? Totally forget, but it's a quote).

Some space is nicer, yes, and I'll be honest. The sunshine currently coming through the windows behind me makes me happy. Will it make me more or less productive? Time will tell. My guess is that the window would tend to make me slightly less stressed. Being able to take a second to see nature does that for me. Being in the office suite rather than "hallway girl" will likely make me a bit more productive, as I actually feel like I'm in a working environment now.

In the end, I worked to make the space my own, even knowing that I will move again. Eventually. Within a year or two, if past moves are any indication. But that'll be okay, too. Just don't hand me a red stapler.

The "Hallway Girl" Office

The New Office

Leadership Conference and Gender Identity

2010-03-30T14:54:29Z

So, for the first time, I attended the Penn State Women's Leadership Conference. I'd never been before, in part because I usually don't have time, and also in part because the notion of having a leadership conference "just" for women bothers me on some visceral level. This post is about that conflict, the conference, and responses to my attendance. I'm warning you--there's so much I want to say that I am torn between getting it all out at once and dividing it up between posts. However, knowing my propensity for procrastination, I'm going to get out what I can right now and then see if I still feel the need to write more. This post will deal with my concern with the idea of having a separate leadership conference for women, and with the general format of that conference.

I should also state that the opinions stated below are my own, a way for me to try to work out some of what I see as the issues in my mind. So don't be hatin' on anyone but me for what you read here. kthx.

Separate but Equal?

First, I want to take up the notion of our "need" to have a leadership conference just for women. Part of me wants seriously to believe that we no longer need one--that a general conference on leadership would be great for the entire institution, and that women are already fully fledged members of that institution--and already seen as leaders.

However, I also know that only 2 of our 11 Vice Presidents and Senior Vice Presidents are women, 15 of 58 Deans and Associate Deans are women, and 213 of 1,158 full professors are women (Report on the Status of Women at Penn State, 2007-2008). In addition, this same report notes continued salary inequities in many areas across the University.

So maybe a conference for women to encourage and develop leadership is needed here. Unfortunately, that was not the conference I attended yesterday.

Content of the Conference

So--if we need to encourage leadership for women at the institution, I would have expected to see current women leaders both present and presenting. But where were the 2 Vice Presidents? The 15 Deans/Associate Deans? The full professors--or even the directors managing groups? I did not see any of them at this event, and believe me--I would have loved to have interacted with them and heard their stories.

Instead, I would classify this conference as not a leadership conference, but as a personal development conference. Sessions on making lemonade out of lemons, celebrating what's right with the world, how to deal with aging parents while raising children were all interesting topics--but not what I would commonly classify as leadership essentials.

To be fair, there were sessions on domestic violence in the workplace and workplace dress style, but the remaining sessions focused largely on the personal. Personal finance, stress relief, accentuating the positive, and finding your star to chart your course through life.

This is all wrapped up, of course, in our generally gendered notions of leadership, in my opinion. A typical leadership conference would contain books on being effective, on budgeting, on time and project management, etc. And those would have been great topics for yesterday. What a typical conference would not have would be sessions on empowering employees, nurturing professional growth, and stress relief for leaders. See the difference? The second set of items tend to seem more "soft" and therefore not appropriate for a leadership conference--unless the conference is just for women.

But I think we could all benefit from all of the above topics. Both project management and stress relief. Budgeting and nurturing employees. So why don't we do a conference that supports both? That offers yoga and spa baskets as well as the latest Stephen Covey book and project management tools. Until we get some kind of balance, the "us vs. them" divide that I felt so keenly yesterday will only continue.

My Response to the Organizers

As someone who did not come away with what I'd hoped, I made sure to carefully fill out the evaluation form they sent me today. Here's what I said:

I am troubled by a lot about this conference, and I'll admit my feelings here are extremely complex. First, I think PSU would be better served by a Leadership conference without having one that segregates women specifically, even though I recognize that PSU has a way to go in achieving leadership equity across the institution.

That having been said, if a women's leadership conference is what is needed, I think the format of this conference was exactly the wrong way to inspire and encourage leadership in women across the institution. Instead of inspiring personal leadership, I think it encouraged a "women vs. men" mentality in a lot of ways, as well as not really offering sessions about leadership per se. Where were the leadership books by women? Where were the sessions on upgrading your portfolio, or even how to ask your supervisor to participate in Penn State Leader or Management Institute?

I don't know--as I said, I'm troubled on many levels. I know the planning committee works hard to do this event each year, but I left it thinking that it really wasn't for me, and that if the conference itself reflects the institution's notion of what leadership for women is, I had best find other outlets for my professional development.

In the end, I'm hoping the organizers will understand that I am not merely trying to be negative--I love this institution, and I want to see us do great things. Part of doing great things, however, includes speaking up when we perceive that something isn't working.

Will I go to this conference again? I guess I have to say I really doubt it. And that's a shame, frankly, because I do still have so much to learn.