AdminLife

The view from Spencer's Butte above Eugene, Oregon. A grassy pathway leads to a bank of pine trees in the middle distance. Beyond the trees and far below lies Eugene, OR. In the distance are mountains, the blue sky filled with gray and white clouds.

Provost The Administrative Life The Long Road

A Pivotal Week in the Life of the Provost’s Office

Last week marked a pivotal moment in my transition to the role of Provost at the University of Oregon. We held two retreats, one early in the week for the Office of the Provost (OtP)…

Christopher LongAugust 20, 2024

BillHD makes a gesture to a whiteboard off camera. He is sitting around a table with people listening to the point he is making. Sonja is watching Bill with her hand to her face, thinking.

Dean Living The Administrative Life

A Letter to Bill Hart-Davidson

The spirit of your gifts are present all around us, they animate our relationships and illuminate a world broken without you and better because of you.

Christopher LongMay 3, 2024

$Looking up from the ground through the tall Redwoods of the Cathedral Grove in Muir Woods in California. The sky is seen refracted through the branches of the enormous redwoods.$

Presentation: Other The Administrative Life

Using Obsidian Notes to Create Context and Connection for Meaningful Productivity

As many of you know, I find joy in refining the system that shapes the way I work and in sharing my approach here on the Long Road blog. So let this be the latest…

Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2024

African and African American Studies students standing in a row, from left to right: Amber McAddley, Morgan Braswell, Jhala Martin, and Ayodele Uhuru. They are listening to Jhala read from a piece of paper with a microphone in her hand. Photo by Ryan Frederick.

Dean Education

A Place of Wholeness

Last week we celebrated the Ascension of the Department of African American and African Studies in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. What follows are my remarks emphasizing the hope that…

Christopher LongNovember 21, 2022

Dean The Administrative Life The Long Road

Practicing Gratitude

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

Dean Living The Long Road

Beware the Jabberwocks

Lessons from the Dragon Boat None of us knew quite what to expect on Saturday as we gathered at Hawk Island for our one-hour training session for the Capital City Dragon Boat Race to support the…

Christopher LongMay 23, 2017

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts

Open Letter on the Executive Order on Immigration

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

Dean Education The Administrative Life The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

Finding Your Place, Leaving a Mark

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

Civic Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Responding to Complexity with Nuance and Grace

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

The Administrative Life The Long Road

MSU Shadows

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

Education The Administrative Life The Long Road

5 Things That Facilitate Academic Collaboration

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

The Administrative Life The Long Road

Habits of Public Writing

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

The Liberal Arts The Long Road

The Liberal Arts and Sciences and the 21st Century Land Grant Mission

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

The Administrative Life The Long Road

A Few Notes on Productivity

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

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Butterflies Pinned

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 Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

General Education Reform at Penn State

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

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

#PSUGenEd and the Research Endeavor

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

The Administrative Life The Long Road

Toward a Deliberative University Public

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

ALP Fellows at the University of Chicago

Grants, Fellowships, Awards The Administrative Life Vita

ALP at University of Chicago: Virtues of an Education for Democracy

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

Presentation: Other Presentations Vita

HASTAC 2011: Digital Scholarship and the Institutional Structure

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

Grants, Fellowships, Awards The Administrative Life Vita

ALP at Indiana: Herman B. Wells

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

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