There is beaded silver rainwater outside my window. It is beat-beat-beating the brown painted peeling Weathered swollen pane. These mornings before the Beginnings of everything serve to dull the white Throb of settling sadness spreading up from parted Pistoning silences, born of dark failures of my dying Selves. The rainwater is sh-sh-sliding …
Caretaker
Here the widening Land gathered, jumbled, at its life's edge Swelling its softening summerscapes. Dry billowing winds Traipsed joyfully along a distant sinking horizon line in the West. Now seen from the bullying cloud-crowded sky, a tiny Trawling river traces its way, burrowing into and through its Red raw striated canyons, now riven, side …
Engagement
Our books gathered us, called us each, Their curled joy-worn pages dancing With flickering orange yellow light at the Communal fire. "We are here." They knit Woolen tales of men, of women, of fierce Eternal battles, gods, the triumph of Old words, spells and incantations to salve Souls broken into these dangling dense Narratives. There on …
Thermopylae
The maudlin curtained enclosed silence held Fast. There, across a gulf grown wide and Deep as a Gaelic moated shattered castle Rose great choking indifferent trunk-wide Weeds, fed forever by a drying thoughtcreek. Silken tiny shellshards, crushed mercilessly Underfoot - giant cracking deadened blows - Littered its expanse. Nothing …
Excelsior College: A Community of Quality (QM Case Study)
The Beginning “We began with small groups, a soft roll-out and a few course reviews,” recalled Joan Mikalson, Associate Provost for Student and Faculty Services, Excelsior College, when asked how Excelsior implemented Quality Matters. “We ensured a clear division of roles among participating faculty and, as QM spread, offered resources, …
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Quality and Order: Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute and MVU (QM Case Study)
First Steps “We identified a statewide need for a stronger online course quality assurance process in Michigan,” remembered Joe Freidhoff, Executive Director, Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute (MVLRI) at Michigan Virtual University (MVU), when asked what sparked an interest in Quality Matters (QM). “We were looking at issues of …
Four Reasons You Should Present at A QM Conference
If you’ve ever attended #QMConnect, you know it can be a transformative experience. Conferences offer attendees networking and learning opportunities, tools and ideas. Meeting educators from across the world and discovering they grapple with the same challenges you and your colleagues face in your organizations can foster community and …
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John Locke: Research, Social Contract Theory and American Higher Education
I no sooner perceived myself in the world than I found myself in a storm” – John Locke In his American Higher Education, A History (Second Edition), Christopher Lucas posits that society’s earliest attempts at codifying the theory and practice of higher education were seeded in Aristotle’s pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, absent …
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Here, An Ending
At the end we broke everything. Or it was already broken at the beginning. In the bedroom clothes were waiting in the hamper for the wash. My bras and panties and your boxers and undershirts, my jeans and tees, your shorts and sweat socks. The room was divided and the sides didn't meet except when you left your things all over. "You want some …
Shade
An element of shade is its Color the silent cool of a Lengthening lightless all. An element of shade is its No-smell and no-form, Except, perhaps, in the old Breezes beneath formed Mammoth cracked trunks, Ancient from before a stolid, Lumbering s/he emerged From all imagination, built Of stars, sallying suns, dark Light from …