commentary category
the mindful phd: it’s about our students
apr. 18, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director today is my last day of class, and i feel a little antsy, even a little edgy. i already have a stack of materials to grade, and i’ll be getting another stack today, and then another during our final exam period. i have deadlines related to other work activities. and...
the mindful phd: looking into the fire
apr. 4, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director in preparation for a talk next week, i was sitting on my floor next to my bookshelves, surrounded by open volumes of literature. (this is the literary scholar’s version of a kid surrounded by unwrapped presents.) i got sidetracked as i revisited one of my favorite passages in one of...
the mindful phd: revisiting boice
mar. 21, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i’ve been preparing a one-week summer workshop in humanities pedagogy for a few post-docs starting their positions this fall. my partner in this development is one of our graduate teaching fellows, jessica riviere, who just dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s for graduating (or “walking”) in may. the confluence of...
the mindful phd: the continual unfolding of our work
mar. 14, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director this week was an especially stressful time of the semester. some of you are looking forward to spring break, but vanderbilt’s was at the very beginning of march. the week after break–or, as we often call it, “break”–is hard for instructors and students alike. we see the home stretch in...
the mindful phd: about time
mar. 7, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director this work of mindfulness–in essence, focusing awareness on the present moment–has me noticing more clearly how i experience time. despite the best efforts of clocks and schedules, time is a subjective, varying, and malleable phenomenon. in october’s “stories of the slow professor,” i wrote about it from the perspective of how...
the mindful phd: busy-shaming
feb. 28, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director my women & gender studies class talked about “slut shaming” recently, and i’ve since been thinking about another kind of shaming that worries me–and that i want to be careful to avoid. the flurry of popular media discussions of mindfulness (and other topics) have been accompanied by concerns about how...
the mindful phd: opening our eyes
feb. 21, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director in the rhythm of academia, right as we began this semester, we also selected our courses for next year. i decided to revisit my course on monsters. soon after, a friend gave me a book of original grimm’s fairy tales–a gruesome treasure! i didn’t expect to stumble onto mindfulness while...
the mindful phd: daydream believer
feb. 14, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director i’ve previously written about the specific kind of meditation that leads to “inspiration, creativity, & new ideas,” but i want to return to this issue. creativity is a necessary skill in all disciplines, yet it’s among the most difficult to teach. the research on mindfulness offers a few different strategies....
students as producers of disciplinary habits
feb. 14, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director the cft’s recent teaching visit hosted by phil ackerman-lieberman illustrated our 2013-14 theme of students as producers in a way that’s different from our previous examples. these other instances typically focus on specific course assignments that engage students in actively creating something, often directing their work toward authentic audiences...
the mindful phd: time, the superbowl, & bandwagons
feb. 6, 2014—by nancy chick, cft assistant director this past week brought a kind of harmonic convergence of mindfulness in popular culture. first, time magazine featured “the mindful revolution” on the cover. then, or perhaps simultaneously, word spread (from espn to the blogosphere) that the seattle seahawks–then heading for the superbowl, now winners of the superbowl–regularly practice mindfulness and yoga. this...