Let’s call them the truths I hold to be self-evident about graduate education.

graduate education is about YOU and YOUR ideas

And making those ideas stronger and gaining more knowledge about them. The point here is it truly is totally about you.

See next self-evident truth

my job is support and facilitate YOUR learning

This means that my one and only job is to support you in those endeavors. I have a fuck-ton of faults. Most of them I am painfully aware of. But, the thing I know I can do—and can provide you evidence of it—is that I do know how to help you craft better arguments, to help you write better, to provide generative feedback, to point you to sources and resources. These are things I can do, that I will do for you. Happily. Because not only is it my job, I get a great deal of joy watching y’all learn and grow as thinkers and writers.

we do not have to agree

Yup! Believe it or not, I do not have to agree with your stance and you sure as hell don’t have to agree with mine. I want you to be your own people, your own thinkers, and honestly, I am most delighted when we don’t agree cause that means you are growing into and being able to justify your OWN beliefs and your own knowledge. I celebrate those moments with you.

you are in charge of your own education

This one intersects with the others, and it is also the driver of the way I run classes. I want you to control the direction of your education in ways that work for you. While theories of learning based on types has been debunked, I totally buy into the fact that each one of you learn differently and more so, you have different goals. That means we have to find ways to meet you where you are to chart a path of where you want to go. I can definitely help and assist you down that path.

All of this is to say….virtual spaces make it even more difficult to get an understanding of people. I get that I am odd and different than most professors/academics. But I have utterly failed you if for one second you think you can’t do what you want in your own learning.

Please take these self-evident truths as exactly that. You can find no stronger and more passionate advocate for your educational journey than me. That’s my commitment to you. It’s up to you to take a leap of faith and believe in that.