Dr. Cynthia A. Bond Hopson 
“Try to remember the kind of September, when life was slow and oh, so mellow…” (Schmidt, Jones)
Autumn has finally arrived and whether your summer was wild and fuzzy or hot and hot, fall offers a more relaxed pace. Growing up on a farm, fall meant cotton picking, the mid-south fair, back to school, cooler days, and political campaigns.
I’m not sure whose bright idea this was—sending plane and busloads of immigrants to democratic cities at taxpayers’ expense to show disgust for immigration policies—but this is unacceptable, inhumane, and about as anti-American as anything we’ve seen lately.
“Man on a shooting spree in Memphis, police say.” The headline scrawled across the television said it all, but I was busy with my shrimp and grits. My husband and I had joined colleagues for dinner Wednesday, and we were having a lovely time on the veranda of a midtown restaurant.
College presidents have a million things to keep them awake at night—pandemics, dormitories, or whatever they’re called now, the latest amenities, deferred maintenance, accreditation, staffing, payroll, inspiring young people, retention—the list goes on.
I’m happy to report that I finished paying my student loans before I started drawing Social Security benefits, but barely. I didn’t borrow much—about $5,000, but when I graduated, I didn’t make much—my first teaching job paid $17,000. Even adjusted for inflation, it’s still not much.
The ability to just show up and do what others have not tried will give you the confidence to break new ground. Civil Miller-Watkins is the Vice-Chair of the Fayette County School board, a mother, grandmother, politician – a phenomenal woman! Over the years, she has contested for a couple of offices that many black … Read more
I prescribe to the notion of when you don’t know what to say, keep quiet. So, for the past two weeks, like the scriptures, I’ve been pondering things in my heart—wildfires, climate change, flooding and devastation in Kentucky, Monkeypox, COVID, FBI raids and rumors of civil war, politics, teacher shortages, subpoenas, world hunger, — and discerning what to say.
Managing people is one of the hardest things that you do as a leader. Every day leaders complain about their teams and try to create new ones as though that would solve the problem.
I was reading a recent interview on school board elections in the Tennessean newspaper and saw this question: “Will you commit to being civil in how you present yourself and the way you interact with opponents and others? (Our definition of civility is being a good, active, honest and respectable citizen.)” How appropriate because civility … Read more
“First, they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” Martin Niemöller
