Mosquito video links

Bee Girl Video

AlaMosquito promo: speciesist 

AlaMosquito promo: larvakiller

Getting stung

Thursday night I moved some beehives and got ten simultaneous bee stings from one particularly aggressive hive.  I don't like being stung at all, and that was the biggest dose of venom I'd experienced.  I was a bit worried about anaphylaxis, about losing consciousness, about swelling.  But one of the things about beekeeping is you mostly have to finish what you start--you can't just leave a bunch of equipment in disarray or risk an innocent person getting stung by bees you riled up.  So, I kept working, packed them into my truck and headed down the dark road.

I was discombobulated.  The bees were still all over me, so I left my veil on, while driving.  I didn't secure my seat belt in the rush to get away from the beeyard.  My mind was darting from thought to thought, changing plans mid-move, as I careened down the dirt road, aching in multiple body parts and spazzily swatting at attackers.  A small quiet part of my mind suggested that it would be an excellent idea to put that seat belt on--if ever there was a slightly higher risk of getting in an accident....

After a few miles, I started to calm down and endorphins or something kicked in so I didn't feel the pain as much.  I started to think about killing that mean hive.  I spend quite a bit of my time rescuing bees, diminishing pesticide use, and here I was plotting murder.

Why do bees sting?  They sting out of defense.  Good, smart bees fight for the survival of their hive, fight off intruders. 

Another part of me, the imaginative writer who develops my BeeGirl superhero, tries to interpret how these stings, this venom, helps me.  I felt sick for the past several days as the venom worked through my system, and it caused me to have less patience than usual. In BeeGirl's origin myth, bee venom gives her special powers to unite her community, to communicate, to help large groups make good decisions the way bees do in the hive. 

Since Thursday (and while in this daze of ache), I found myself in my different 'hives', community group meetings where we're working toward consensus, setting good policy as we move into the future.Our local foods coalition met Friday morning, and the Mosquito Control District met Friday evening. Tomorrow I meet with the state remedial education policy review committee.  In all of these meetings, we are setting policy, we are planning a course of action that will impact many people.  We come from different perspectives, bring different sources of information, bring our biases.

Maybe I needed that dose of venom to balance out my congeniality, to give me a little more of an edge to fight.

College Readiness Faculty to Faculty meeting at Alamosa High School

Here is a word cloud (thank you wordle.net) from a meeting I had this week which included faculty from Adams State College, Trinidad State Junior College, Alamosa High School and Ortega Middle School to discuss the challenges our students face to be "College Ready."

I don't have all the answers, but I'm grateful to be in the conversation.  I'll be attending the monthly Colorado Remedial Education Policy Review task force meeting May 25th and will bring the comments with me.  I'll also bring these ideas with me to the Kellogg Institute (a month-long fellowship to work on our near-peer mentoring project and/or other interventions to support students). 

Optional Extra

One challenge I'm working through is determining what things are required/necessary, and what things are "Optional Extra" and how best to communicate this set of values to new college students, especially first generation and/or so-called "non-traditional" students who now comprise 75% of developmental enrollees.

For our students, many things that we faculty think of as required, such as doing the homework or purchasing the textbook or MathXL login license, fall into their "optional extra" category.  Getting involved with campus events may fall into optional extra. Reading the textbook.  Attending class.

In the past perhaps we could assume that students attending college have been so-called "traditional," having the following traits:

1) "traditional" age of about 18 years old.
2) full-time students whose primary activity is attending college (ie not working 20+ hours at walmart and/or raising a family)
3) financially supported by parents

But now, it's a new reality and we need to adapt to it.

Being a Completionist

This week I enjoyed the satisfaction of completing a project.  It isn't perfect, but it is done.  There is a wonderful balance between striving to do things as well as I can (the "perfectionist" part of me) and striving to be satisfied with getting things done within budget, within time, being a completionist.

Choose two...

Chapter list for _Becoming College Material_

Since 2008 I have been working on a book titled _Becoming College Material_, essentially writing a chapter per year based on things we figured out through building and rebuilding the developmental education programming at Adams State.  Some of these chapters have been published elsewhere, and the Pre-remediation chapter will be the project sponsored by my McGraw-Hill emerging leaders scholarship to the Kellogg Institute 2012-13.  My new thought is to ask McGraw-Hill to back the whole thing as a book.

Here are the chapters:

Ducks: Flying, Floating, Sinking, Absent (but not dead!)
STAY: together as a group
The Rock and the Hard Place
Pre-remediation: High school and middle school outreach/mentoring, the PROTEGE program
Service and Sustainability
Full Circle: We admit them one at a time; we graduate them one at a time.  "Cradle" to employment supports.
Gentle Pathways: Re-engaging veterans, non-traditional students, First Generation Students, Dev Ed supports
Promising Connections: First Year Experience, Composition & Mathematics
Building Relationships
Bridging the Gap
Telling the Story