Comps, Stress, and No Comments

We are gearing up to take comps (short for comprehensive exams) in the next couple weeks. My test period of 72 hours begins at noon on the 10th (shortly after I finish up praying at Sunday Mass). As cohort #1 We get more questions from cohorts 2-5 on what will the comps consist of? Will they be hard? Are you prepared? I know that we are the pioneers, but even cohort one is in the dark on this one. I guess that we will have to wait and see. I have been studying for a couple weeks now and feel fairly prepared. I am ready to take the test today, but know that I really have some more prep to do. I want to pretend that I already know what the question will be, but I don’t have a clue? Hopefully it will have to do with the topic of leadership? Some help or hints from the Profs would be welcomed to the blog (it might also help with readership).

On that note……I get a lot of readers to this blog…(trust me I hear all about it). The fact is that there are only a couple great people (I won’t give names) that have taken the time to post a response to what I have written.

Post some comments please! You will help keep this thing cutting edge!

Now, back to the stress of not knowing what is next but having a pretty good idea…

-j-

Home...Home Again...I Like to be Here...When I Can...

I am thrilled to be home and sleep in my bed tonight. Although Dion Sanders room (The U.S. Grant Suite) at the Garfield Suites is nice, it doesn’t hold a candle to seeing my family and eating food that I cook in my own kitchen.

Now it is time to prepare for the comps and work on my proposal. I am feeling good and very organized. Looking at the rain that we are expecting on Sunday, I will unpack and start getting organized for what will be a very busy six months.

I am still open to hearing more from the other learners. Send me your posts to: jeffrey.shepard@tui.edu and I will post them.

Going silent for a bit….. but not too long…..

-j-

Friday...

I was surprised today to find out that the week was almost over. It has been a great week.

Tonight we had the final dinner of the residency and anyone who was there can attest that it was a powerful presentation. We have heard so many keynotes with inspiring speakers but this one was a bit different. Each cohort presented their summary of the week and it was something else! Hats off to all the cohorts although I loved what cohort four said about cohort one… nice work!

I also never knew that cohort two had a background in comedy. Jackie was great! Probably the best entertainment of the week.

On a side note, I didn’t purchase Iceland as John of cohort one had stated but did launch a new website last week. Check it out…. www.ecmedrepair.com. So capitalism is alive and well!

Here is a a great night!

-j-

PS: Also, I got a lot of negative reaction to my disapproval of Skyline Chili last semester. Although I didn’t go back to sample chili over noodles, we had a great conversation at lunch today about how wonderful the onion rings are in this city. So nice job Cincy!

Just Dropping In...

I would lie to say to say that I am upset that this long week is coming to a end but today we had some time to relax, reflect and think about more than just coursework, comps, and dissertations. We “dropped in” to the Drop in Center. It is a place where homeless are able to seek assistance and short term shelter.

The panel discussion that followed was interesting but a bit one sided. I would have loved to have heard from some city officials and other stakeholders in the community. Although I could understand the conversation, hearing only one side made me wonder how some good leadership and collaboration could have helped create a better setting to help with this problem. If we are all not able to come to the table to talk about the issues in a forum how will the problems ever be solved? It is easy to talk about what we can do, it is much harder to do it. I don’t have the answers, but would love to be part of the solution.

So now back to the reality of preparing for the comps. I have my reading list…. back to work…

-j-

Some Free Time...

We wrapped up classes at noon today. Having a afternoon of reflection and relaxation I decided to head down to the Kentucky room to do some dissertation work. This is going to be a short post because I am on to something… Meaning that I feel like I found a path in the dissertation process that is clear and I have some focus. I met with my Dissertation Chair, Dr. Williams yesterday and he really helped me gain some clear direction on my proposal. Everything is going to be alright… I hope….

Back to work…
-j-

Conference Day...Transformations

On our 5th residency conference day we were treated to some great panel discussions on the area of transformation. The conference kicked off with a keynote from Dr. Alvin B. Tillery Jr. titled “The Long Shadow of the GI Bill: U.S. Social Policy and the Black-White SAT Gap”. Dr. Tillery is a assistant professor of political science at Rutgers and was asked to serve as our scholar in residence this term. A very interesting conversation followed that carried throughout the day. I enjoyed it.

The second Panel discussion that I attended was titled, “Communal Approaches to HIV/Aids”. Again we had a visiting scholar, Ray Jordan lead a great discussion about the beloed community and the Prophetic Response to the HIV/AIDS crisis among black women. Fellow colleague Owen Borda discussed a paper titled, “HIV Policy Shift: Individual Rights to Communitarian Goals and the Reshaping of AIDS Exceptionalism”. This was great! Finishing the discussion was Dr. Ledbetter, discussing her paper titled “Compassion Organizing Competence: A Case Study of the Masangane HIV/AIDS Project in South Africa”. She will be heading to South Africa on Thursday to present this paper at a conference next week.

I hope to get some posts from others detailing their experiences during the conference.

Stay tuned…
-j-

Here is to you….Mr. Union Institute & University’s cohort Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies Program Creator…..

It was a very busy day filled with new classes some reflection time and we finished with a program overview and update. If you are not a new or current PhD student at Union you are probably asking what is a program overview?

In July of 2006 I had the honor of being a member of the first cohort class at Union. A program that can be completed in three years, it was the top pick for me and had all the substance and interdisciplinary options that I needed and wanted. It just worked for me!

Now in 2008, a lot has changed. With five full cohorts in the residency we now are able to really feel like a bustling university environment full of great people, great ideas and a lot of learning. The PhD cohort program at Union has made many changes to build to this point where soon there will always be six cohorts in residence at any given time. These changes (too many to count) have really helped build what I believe is a great place to grow as a academic and more importantly a socially conscience individual of society.

Hats off to all the faculty and admin that made this happen! With out your dedication and creativity we would not be where we are today!

So hear is to another great residency….. cheers!

-j-

COMPS and Cross Collaboration

Today we spent time talking in detail about what is about to happen to cohort one… COMPS…

So, this morning we had a great workshop led by Dr. Selzer on the area of comps prep and what to expect.

After a nice lunch at the only restaurant open downtown we had time to cross collaborate on the book “The Marrow of Tradition.”

On to Dr. Virgil Wood and a great conversation. I enjoyed the session and the great new people that I met with following.

I am very interested in what others are feeling and experiencing.
More to come…

-j-

Classes, Dissertations, and Comps--Oh My

So I quiet day for me where I had time to reflect on what is coming later this week. We had a great conversation about our dissertation proposal and comps and were able to have a interactive class on using Adobe Connect.

I am fortunate to have the ability to teach at Western International University where I currently use the Adobe Connect platform to share information and present our proposals to our committee. I am excited to know that we will be using this wonderful platform down the road.

Looking at the rest of our residency and the time we have to reflect I am feeling really good about the year that we have ahead.

Up next, more classes…

-j-

Here We Go...

Day one of the Summer 2008 residency.

As all five cohorts started to arrive at the Garfield (the downtown TUI campus), it was great to see friendly faces and begin to talk about the week ahead. I had a great chance to talk to a lot of the new learners in cohort 5. They have some great ideas on the direction of their study and will hopefully enjoy their first week in what we know as “residency”.

I had a lot of conversations with learners that are going to be adding content this week to the blog so feel to check this page out all week since it will be updated often.

Here is to a great week!!!

-j-

Guest Blogger #2: Meta Commerse

Guest Blogger #2 is Meta Commerse. She is a member of cohort four and supplied us with some great information that might help us get through the week a little easier.

I had a chance to talk to her briefly in the elevator tonight and thank her for her post. This is a example of the great community we have at Union!

Peace,
-j-

——
Greetings! It’s Meta Commerse, Cohort 4 here. Here are some thoughts I have to share with the larger group of learners…

We are in desperate need of some holistic self-care in this program and as cohorts. Truly, our right brains have been relegated to the designation of “other.”

Some suggestions and remedies might be:

YWCA (behind the library) membership is $25 for the week. It includes
full use (3 hours daily), indoor track, gym, pool, whirlpool, sauna,
weight and fitness room, yoga and zumba classes, etc.).
Call Amy Brown 241-7090. Perhaps we can organize some group workout times and activities.

Group meditation to quiet and relax the mind. Mornings before the activities begin is best. Anyone interested can contact me at peacemed1@aol.com. Beginners and veterans in practice all welcome.

Buddhist (SGI) gonyo gatherings (same as above) for anyone interested

Massage therapy is available by appointment at the front desk

Potluck gatherings with dancing and comedy films (at least once during the residency) would be nourishing to the soul. (all interested contact peacemed1@aol.com).

That’s my list. Hopefully some interest will generate and we can shift things a bit back into balance.

Please let me hear from you.
Blessings and gratitude.
Meta

Guest Blogger #1 - DAWN LANGLEY- COHORT 2

Guest Blogger #1 is Dawn Langley from Cohort 2. Dawn gives a great report on what it’s like to experience “residency life”.

Getting settled in at the residency always takes a bit of a paradigm shift for me. I move from being a dean at a community college, where summers aren’t necessarily quiet (I had to settle a lot of interviewing, faculty-hiring, and paperwork before leaving), to being a student at a university where we are housed in a hotel in downtown Cincinnati. It’s always exciting to start a new semester, but this one will be a little bittersweet since the first cohort will be moving on soon, and our cohort (Cohort II) will be the “most senior.” That said, it’s important to start off with some Graeter’s ice cream, so I went there first and thought about visiting the Shakespeare company theater, the art gallery, and the museum I passed along the way. That will be what I do today. (I’ll exercise the new way of seeing we were taught in our first residency . . .)

Since I’m here before anyone else is, I get a chance to chill out, do some of the reading for the seminars we are scheduled for during this residency, and have a chance to reflect on the previous semester, as well as the one to come. It’s a bittersweet time, particularly because I know this is probably the last semester we’ll have a chance to socialize with the first cohort since they will be in comps this semester coming. Once they leave and start their dissertations, our group will become the most senior cohort, which will be kind of strange, because it will also signify our move toward our own dissertations.

Speaking of dissertations, I have struggled with going over the same ground in a different way this semester. My dissertation is focused on transgender authors, and there’s very little information already published about them, so I have to take my research right down to the very basic level of uncovering the authors themselves. My outlook and my perspective on the topic have changed a bit this semester, and I’m not sure how that will affect the final product, but I’m beginning to think that it will be quite different from what I originally planned. That said, it has also opened my eyes to the lack of literature on this group of people, as well as introduced me to the small group of scholars who have made the subject their lifelong research.

One of the great things about working with a group of like learners, as the ones in my cohort, is that they offer some feedback from their own perspectives, whether they come from a policy standpoint, a leadership point of view or the humanities (like myself). We all have a strong belief in civil justice and interdisciplinarity, so whether a person is working on research about nursing in other parts of the world or about Indian-American families or about Mexican women in baseball, they have something to offer in the way of how various groups struggle with their identities.

Funny, as I wrote that last line, I realized that we, too, are finding our selves by building our dissertations . . . certainly, many things have changed in my life since starting here. But that’s another blog!

Cheers
Dawn Langley/Cohort 2, Term 4