Last weekend was homecoming on the Michigan State University campus, and I found myself reflecting on the meaning and significance of gratitude. So many alumni returned to campus to give thanks for all the ways…
Christopher LongOctober 24, 2017
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff in the College of Arts & Letters: Many of you have written to express your concern about the executive order signed by the President of the United States on January…
Christopher LongJanuary 30, 2017
Whenever I talk to faculty and students about the use of social media in the academy, I advocate for a community building approach. The idea is relatively simple: communication has the power to enrich or…
Christopher LongSeptember 8, 2016
Dear College of Arts & Letters Class of 2020, Welcome to Michigan State University! As you begin your journey in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, let me tell you a…
Christopher LongAugust 31, 2016
In the wake of last week’s violence, we have again become caught up in the fraught dichotomy into which public discourse always seems to force us. It is as if somehow the human capacity to…
Christopher LongJuly 14, 2016
A year ago today, as I began my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, I made reference to a passage by Peter Raible, one that draws from…
Christopher LongJuly 1, 2016
Lists are the current vernacular of the internet. There is even a social media site, li.st, wholly dedicated to the creation and sharing of lists of all sorts. So, as I considered how I might…
Christopher LongJune 27, 2016
This post on Medium initiates an experiment in public writing designed to facilitate transparency and refine my thinking in relation to issues I face in my role as Dean of the College of Arts and…
Christopher LongDecember 6, 2015
At the beginning of the Physics, Aristotle captures something of the essence of the liberal arts and sciences as an endeavor. This path from the surface of things to a deeper understanding of their nature…
Christopher LongFebruary 16, 2015
I was asked to facilitate a discussion about productivity and administration with my Associate Dean colleagues on the Academic Council for Undergraduate Education (ACUE) at Penn State. Being something of a productivity geek, I jumped…
Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2015
In the winter of 1988, during my freshman year at Wittenberg University, I took Professor Warren Copeland’s Introduction to Ethics: Racism course. This course and its sister, Advanced Ethics: Racism, which I took the following…
Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2015
The Information Technology unit at Penn State holds IT Matters breakfasts a few times a year. This semester I joined colleagues on stage to talk about my work and how it intersects with IT at…
Christopher LongApril 15, 2014
We at Penn State are engaged in an intense, ongoing and, in my view, very healthy dialogue about General Education reform. In order to integrate the research endeavor into the undergraduate experience, we ought to…
Christopher LongApril 10, 2014
I have always sought to integrate my philosophical commitments into my administrative life. So, when Noëlle McAfee came to campus to deliver a paper entitled, "Deliberation and the Affective Dimensions of Public Will-formation," I found…
Christopher LongNovember 13, 2013
In her address to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Academic Leadership Program at the University of Chicago last Thursday, Martha Nussbaum offered a compelling defense of a liberal arts education. She advocated for an education…
Christopher LongFebruary 20, 2012
ANN ARBOR, MI - The story I told at the 2011 meeting of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) conference is rooted in my pedagogical practices of using digital media technology to…
Christopher LongDecember 2, 2011
Sometimes without looking, one finds a paradigm - an example that can serve as a model. Last week I visited Indiana University as a one of Penn State's Academic Leadership Fellows in the Academic Leadership Program of…
Christopher LongNovember 11, 2011
