Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 553 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, the present professor, Authenticity and Transformational Learning with Liz Norell. Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. Doctor Liz Norell serves as associate director of instructional support in the center for excellence in teaching and learning at the University of Mississippi. Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi. Liz has spent more than 20 years teaching in higher education, including stints in composition, journalism, political science, and statistics.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:13]:

Liz’s book, the present professor, authenticity and transformational teaching, is published in the University of Oklahoma Press’s series, teaching, engaging, and thriving in higher ed, coedited by James Lang and Michelle Miller. Liz is passionate about equitable, inclusive teaching, constructive conversations across differences, and disability awareness. Liz Norell, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Liz Norell [00:01:44]:

I am so excited to be here today, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:47]:

I am so excited to speak with you. I was hesitating a bit because sometimes I feel like my brain’s broken and I can’t read long form anymore. I just go through some weeks or months where I just it really feels like a struggle. And what a gift that you gave to me and to the world in this book that I have the privilege and the honor of getting to speak with you about. And I felt just so welcomed into all these myriad of topics all around presence. And, Liz, it’s something that I’ve obviously been thinking about for a decade now because the intro of the podcast hasn’t changed. So much has changed, but the one thing I say is that we do these things so that we can be more present for our students. And one of the things I’ve thought about that could change in that is that sometimes we get kind of this codependent thing of thinking that we’re supposed to be performative, presenting for our students, but we’re not even really present for ourselves.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:52]:

And you so beautifully talk about that throughout this work, and I’d like to start with what might be basic to some, but for me, I just didn’t know about for years. Tell me about what does it mean to be embodied?

Liz Norell [00:03:08]:

Yeah. So embodiment is a word that we hear a lot. And I think, you know, a lot of people struggle to know what that is because we’re trying to make sense intellectually of something that is not a thinking process. So embodiment is really just paying attention to what kind of information our body is giving us at any given moment. And let me give you a really tangible example. So let’s say you are driving in a car with your husband, Bonni, Dave, and I’m sure you guys never have any tense conversations or fights or or anything like that, but let’s just imagine we’re living in an alternate universe where that happens. Even if you don’t turn and look at Dave, even if you’re just sitting next to him when he’s getting frustrated. And not because you have any, like, tangible things that you can point to.

Liz Norell [00:04:07]:

He’s not telling you, but you know. And that’s because your body is receiving information and communicating it to you at your subconscious or unconscious level. And so being able to pick up on that kind of information, that’s what it means to be embodied. Does that make sense?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:27]:

Oh, it absolutely does. I can remember throughout I’ve taught now 2 decades in higher education, and there have been some pivotal moments where I was far more aware of others’ bodies, and then moments where I was more aware of my own body. The 2 very pivotal moments I remember have both have to do with cancer. So a colleague going through chemotherapy and drinking ginger ale, coming out of her office as she was about to go teach, and she would say she wouldn’t make it through most of her classes without needing to leave the classroom due to nausea. And, I mean and then and so I would read this is around the same well, I guess that no. This would have been years before reading bell hooks. But then bell hooks reading her work, talking about being embodied going, that’s what she meant. And she even says, and and I don’t I don’t know which book it is.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:23]:

But, yeah, we are people who have to go to the bathroom sometimes. We are people who throw up sometimes. Like we have bodies so the the other one would be when I became pregnant, it was a high risk pregnancy for a number of reasons. And so like that whole idea, we we went through many years of infertility. So the whole idea, it’s adorable, really, when I think about it, like how hard and how many different procedures and just the excruciating trauma that I experienced. Never got morning sickness for a single day, but in my head, Liz, I must have got it a 1000 times. I was so worried about it. Like, it just seems so cute and childlike to be like, that really wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:04]:

I mean, you know, what do I know? Because I don’t I don’t know what that was like. But just that idea and, of course, how ableist of me, right, to to some of my examples probably do feel trite compared to people for whom their embodiedness is a daily endeavor.

Liz Norell [00:06:25]:

Mhmm.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:25]:

Yeah. I have a colleague who I shouldn’t say a colleague. I have a friend who uses a wheelchair, and he was interviewing at a major r one university. And I was familiar with that campus, and so he’s trying to figure out, like, how do you get around that campus, you know, to to conduct the interview. Doesn’t wanna tell them too much

Liz Norell [00:06:43]:

Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:44]:

About himself because, you know, you might get the red flag of maybe you just might be a little too much. Mhmm. And, of course, you mentioned this being, things that get communicated through other means besides words.

Liz Norell [00:06:57]:

Yes. Yeah. Yes. And one of the most interesting things I always feel like I’m stepping just a little bit outside my lane here because I am not like a cognitive psychologist or biologist. But from what I’ve gathered from my research, we we tend to mirror unconsciously that the the physical, nonverbal body language of other people. And then our reaction to that nonverbal communication, that body language of our own, communicates something to us. And that’s how we generate empathy for other people. So we essentially try to make ourselves experience what other people are experiencing, again, all at the unconscious level.

Liz Norell [00:07:40]:

And then the body helps us know what that would feel like, and then we can be empathetic. And so when we can learn how to pay attention to that communication coming from the actual physical body and not just our brains, we have access to so many more tools for building relationships, for being effective in an in a teaching role.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:05]:

You give such helpful advice on that. Before we start to talk about some ways that we might glean greater empathy, we have to start inwardly. Talk about some of what comes to mind for you about being present for ourselves.

Liz Norell [00:08:24]:

Yeah. So as at the time that you and I are talking, I’m in a reading group with Cate Denial’s book, Pedagogy of Kindness. And I love that the first chapter of Cate’s book is kindness to the self. Because I think in that way, our 2 books talk to each other really nicely. So this idea of self knowledge is really important, especially I think in higher ed because the entire socialization process to become an academic teaches us to prioritize what we know for sure, or at least as sure as we can be intellectually. And it teaches us to discount any of that information that our body is giving. Right? So in graduate school, we are not exactly encouraged to spend a lot of time, say, eating or sleeping or doing things that feel like fun, like maybe going out with friends and laughing. Right? It’s work, work, work.

Liz Norell [00:09:21]:

You’ve gotta crank out the papers because if you don’t have at least one publication when you go on the job market, you’re never gonna get a job and so on and so forth. And so we in higher ed, I think, are especially disconnected from who we are kind of at our core, apart from the job and the work and the, you know, achievement and hustle. And so to kind of tap into that inner wisdom that we all have, we have to, like, relearn who we are, what matters to us, what values are important to us, and how we want to let that show up in our work.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:58]:

You talk toward the end of the book about different kinds of questions that we might be asking ourselves, and that was something of course, this is this is this is a whole different podcast episode that we won’t be doing today, Liz, but I just have I have come into a giant universe of this note taking tool. It’s called Obsidian. It’s kind of a cult. So if you ever hear about it and you’re not really ready to join a note taking cult, then, you wanna stay far away because I can’t help you at that point because I’m already in it. I’ve been sucked in. But as soon as I saw those rich questions, I believe there’s something like 4 or 5 of them, I thought, gosh. You know, what a rich set of questions to journal. I don’t know if you have it in front of you, or through the magic of podcasting, we could all share some spots and have you tell us a little bit about what it might be like to ask ourselves some of these questions, and then just any general advice that you have for us on the importance of that sort of self reflection.

Liz Norell [00:10:57]:

So here’s my favorite question, and I actually pose this to faculty all the time in workshops that we do on our campus. And that is, what student behavior just triggers your frustration more than anything else? Or one thing that other people say as though it is fact, but you know is not. That just gets your goat every time. And once you’ve identified that thing that just kind of makes you ready to, like, get in the arena and fight, fight, fight to the death. Ask yourself this question. Why does this make me so angry? Why does this activate me so much? Right? So if for example and I’m just gonna use an example, of someone I know very well who cannot let go of the anger that they feel when students consistently come to an 8 AM class one minute late. So it’s not as though there’s another class before that that’s keeping them late. And it’s not as they’re coming in very late, and it’s not as though it’s every once in a while.

Liz Norell [00:12:05]:

It’s every single day exactly one minute late. And just like knows enough to know that they should not call this disrespectful because it probably has nothing to do with him. Right? But cannot let go of the anger. And the question that I asked was, why does this make you so angry? And there’s no answer to that question. This faculty member can’t answer it except to say, I would never do that. And then we get into some really interesting kind of self reflection and thinking about what kind of expectations do we have of other people and are those reasonable and are their priorities the same as mine? And are there opportunities for us to coexist in a way where we’re just making different choices, but there’s no kind of value attached to either of those? Some really fun and interesting and probably uncomfortable opportunities to reflect and think in ways that ultimately, I think, will help us focus on the things that really do matter, which is learning and relationships.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:10]:

One thing you stress so much throughout your work and you thread so many thinkers who have done the same, the idea that we are never done. So to that end, what student behavior triggers your frustration more than anything else?

Liz Norell [00:13:26]:

Well, that’s a good question, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:28]:

Well, because you asked it, so I’m just you know?

Liz Norell [00:13:30]:

I know. And I I think I’ve kind of gotten to the point now where there’s not a lot that students could do that would make me think less of them. I have embraced this Carl Rogers notion of unconditional positive regard.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:45]:

Mhmm.

Liz Norell [00:13:46]:

What I can tell you is that the colleague behavior that really gets my goat is when people start talking bad about students and making assumptions about why they’re behaving the way they are. And I get very defensive and sometimes even a little, I’m I’m self aware enough to say a little self righteous in asking them questions about like, well, isn’t it possible? And that’s not an effective strategy on my part. Right? A more effective strategy would be to say, okay. Something is happening with this person that’s making them feel frustrated with students. And if I can talk to the frustration and not the characterization of students that is the the symptom, but not the the actual problem. I will have more luck there. Right? Because a lot of faculty that I talk to are just feeling like they’re trying so hard to reach students where they are and aren’t being successful. And that’s demoralizing and exhausting.

Liz Norell [00:14:51]:

And if I can talk to that part of someone, then we can make some progress. But when a faculty member is saying, oh, students just never read anymore. I don’t even know what the point is. And I try to say, well, no. Actually, like, if you would assign some interesting things, they probably would. Right? That’s not productive. It’s still, like, making progress on creating an environment where everybody can kind of feel like there’s a purpose and there’s meaning and there can be joy.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:17]:

I hear so much in your words how important that empathy is. I’m doing a little bit of writing right now with Autumn Canes. And I found I found myself so my my this hasn’t come out as of you and I talking, so I’m gonna I’m going from memory here, which is always a a difficult task. I am making the assumption that I have become frustrated with the seemingly myopic focus of faculty on catching people cheating with AI, but those same rules or maxims don’t get applied on their own use of AI, and specifically their own use, and you can hear some of the judgment probably just in how I’m saying this, specifically, the use to not provide feedback, to not grade grading as feedback, you know, which I realize is those two words mean 2 different things, but, you know, to to reduce some of their own workload, which is completely understandable, by the way. But through AI so it’s, like, I it’s just do we not see the connection between why any person might not wish to engage in the way that the assignment was designed? First of all, I might not even trust that it was designed in such a way to provide me with any fruit by going through what I might perceive as the additional labor coupled with, and then you couldn’t even be bothered but to have you know what I I so, anyway, that’s what that was my premise. But then underneath that, I have a paragraph about I feel so much empathy though toward not if not if that’s the only thing we’re worried about, but I feel empathy because that means that they care, that they care about integrity in writing, integrity in research, and wanting students to be equipped the way that they themselves perceive them to be equipped. But all this to say just that idea that you shared is similar to my journey. I’m certainly not done, but I have far more natural inherent patients that I never had before when it comes to students because my imagination has been expanded for what it might be like to go through clinical depression.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:30]:

For what it might be like to be fill in whatever whatever blanks it is, and and and then sometimes needing to soften my heart and my mind and my body a little bit toward what might feel like similar things with with colleagues. So I I I’ve gone through that as well. Share a bit then about empathy. So we we wanna cultivate it within us. How can we do that and then also cultivate empathy with other people, be they students, be they colleagues.

Liz Norell [00:18:03]:

Don’t know that we can cultivate empathy if we’re not feeling pretty safe psychologically ourselves. And when we’re in environments where we feel like everything that we are doing is under a microscope, All of our kind of cognitive resources are directed towards performing so that we don’t kind of get criticized. Right? We’re we’re we’re defended and looking for, any potential threats. And so we we have to feel like we’re in an environment where people are generally gonna think well of us or at least give us the benefit of the doubt before jumping to a negative assumption and where it’s safe to take risks and make mistakes. And once we’re there, then I think it is and and this is kind of what I was thinking about as you were just talking about this generative AI situation is that we, we have to decouple our feelings about a person from the work that they do. Because I think for many faculty members, when they sense that a student has turned to chat gpt or some other tool to do an assignment, they take it personally. Like, this like, somehow the student is communicating something about their level of respect or interest or whatever for the class. You know? Like, how dare they think that I’m not smart enough to see that they clearly you you know? Like, they take it as an insult personally when in fact the student was probably not thinking about the faculty member at all.

Liz Norell [00:19:30]:

And if we can learn to detach those two things and think about the student as a person and the work as the thing that they’re doing to try to achieve their goal, whatever that may be. If students are engaging in, AI tools to complete homework, it’s probably because they don’t think there’s any value in doing it themselves, or they’re not confident that they have the ability to do it in the way that their faculty member wants them to or that they simply just don’t have time. Right? And none of those things have to do with the faculty member themselves. And in the same way, I think faculty probably feel like students don’t actually care about the feedback. They only want the grade because we have trained them to only care about the grade. That’s the only thing that seems to matter for your entire academic career. And so, you know, faculty probably are willing to turn to these AI tools because they have the sense that students aren’t paying attention to the feedback anyways. The stakes are quite low.

Liz Norell [00:20:30]:

Right? And all of these things come from this putting together the person and the behavior as though they are 1 and the same and they’re both somehow all about me as the teacher. And when we can tear them apart, when we can say, you know, the student’s gonna do what the student’s gonna do because it’s their education and their goal. But this is a person who has needs and who has questions and who wants to know that they are safe in this classroom to make mistakes and take risks and that I’m not going to judge them or withhold something from them. Right? That’s where the empathy can come from. But it it I don’t know that the empathy can come, as I said, in a place to read and have psychological safety. And we cannot have psychological safety when making a mistake is gonna mean that someone immediately assumes the worst, and then you kind of lose some status or the respect of the teacher or the ability to achieve your goals. Right? And so, you know, I think all of these things are gonna pile it up on top of each other. But at the core, I think we have to start with psychological safety and then we have to, to the extent that we can, embrace this notion of unconditional positive regard.

Liz Norell [00:21:46]:

That I trust you, the student, to make the decisions that make the most sense for you even if I wouldn’t make the same ones. And I’m not gonna take that personally because it’s your education. I’m here to try to help you achieve your goals, but, ultimately, that’s up to you. And you’re gonna make choices, and it’s fine. Like, that doesn’t have anything to do with me. And I will be here to support you in whatever way I can when you’re ready for me to do so.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:12]:

When I was in college, I would get an a if it was in my major and a c if it wasn’t. You can just read all the way down the transcripts. And still to this day, I have to remind but by the way, then I went 10 years ish after that, I think I got my master’s, not quite 10 years, but 6, 7 years after that got my master’s, and then another 7 to 10 years before I got my doctor. So those things were really spread out And got one a minus in my master’s, and curled up in the fetal position under my desk, and sobbed, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, just an absolute broken person. And then I just I’m here to say that 4 point o all the way, baby, like anyone cares, you know, by the time I got to the doctor, like, you get any, you know, emphasis on it. But I I mentioned that because I have to remind myself you’re mentioning unconditional positive regard. I am here to help you achieve your goals, and I have to remember that that’s quite possible your goal might be to get a C in my class and that’s not anything I need to do with me. How wonderful that you can.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:21]:

I’m so glad to know you. I’m so glad that you’re here, and I am here to help you achieve that c. And that is so freeing. It’s so freeing. It is. Yeah.

Liz Norell [00:23:29]:

It is. I had a student one of the very first years that I was teaching, I was teaching an American government class at a community college. And I was I had a very my teaching looked very different then. They took a final. It was a multiple choice final, which I never do now. And I had computed all of their grades before that. So as they turned them in, I would say, if you wanna know your final grade, you can just hang out for a few minutes and I’ll do, do, do. And so I did that for a student and they had just eked out a c.

Liz Norell [00:23:57]:

I mean, just barely. And I was crestfallen. And I was like, oh, you gotta c. And the student did like a dance. It was like, yes. And I, I was so mystified that he said, this is my 2nd time taking the class. And I was so afraid I was gonna have to take it again. And it was a real lightning bolt moment for me because that’s when I understood that my goals are not their goals always.

Liz Norell [00:24:22]:

And I need to have the spaciousness to allow students to have different goals than me and to celebrate when they achieve them, whatever they may be.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:31]:

So I wanna hear more though about transparency in general. I have had to learn what I should say out loud. I cannot assume. What are some things that you’ve had to learn that we can’t just assume that students would know? I’m sure you could you could write a whole another book and just be getting started, but what are what’s coming to mind for you?

Liz Norell [00:24:52]:

What can we what can we not assume students know? I think, 1st and foremost, we can’t assume that students know that we care about them. And I try to make that very clear. And I try to tell my students constantly that if you turn in something late, I’m not gonna take it personally. If you don’t come to class, you don’t need to apologize. Right? You’re an adult. You have choices to make. It’s okay. You know, that’s something that I don’t assume.

Liz Norell [00:25:19]:

I I don’t assume ever that students necessarily know why we’re doing things the way we are. And I always try to make clear why I’ve designed a course the way I have, why they’re doing each assignment. But I also tell them, if at any point in the semester, you feel like you’re doing something that’s busy work, I want you to ask me why I’m asking you to do it. And if I don’t have a good reason, I will tell you you don’t have to. Because if there’s not a good reason for everything I ask you to do, then you shouldn’t be doing it anyway. Right? So there’s that kind of you know, you said transparency. Just being incredibly intentional and incredibly transparent about the things that we ask of our students and also what we what our expectations are of them. Right? So I I want students to know that if they disappear for 3 weeks and then they reemerge, that I’m not gonna judge them.

Liz Norell [00:26:14]:

And there’s no shame, at least none that I will be projecting onto them about getting in touch, that it’s never too late to reach out. And because I care about them as people first. Right? And the school work is sort of, you know, the thing that we’re here to do, but it’s not what I care about. I don’t know if I’m answering your question, but those are the kinds of things that I like to be very explicit with students about.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:37]:

Have you had a time when someone has approached you and said that something felt like busy work?

Liz Norell [00:26:42]:

Not in a long time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:44]:

But you remember? You remember it? Yeah. What what kinds of things what kinds of things did they come across as busy work to them?

Liz Norell [00:26:51]:

Yeah. I I used to. So when I was teaching American government, which I did for years years, I I would start every class with, I got this technique from another government instructor because we all steal all of our good stuff. Right? And so this was, a start of class activity that was kind of a warm up, and I would give them questions. They would be in the same group all semester, 3 or 4 people. And it was mostly just by who was who were they sitting there? And I would give them piece of paper, and it would have a question like, should we abolish term limits? And there would be a place to kind of count how many people say yes, how many people say no. And then they would write kind of 2 or 3 things that emerged from their discussion. And so this was just a way to kind of get everybody warmed up and also have them talking about things in the day.

Liz Norell [00:27:34]:

And and a student said, this kind of feels like busy work. Like, what’s the point of this? And I I stopped doing it not long thereafter because my goal had been just to get people kind of ready and prepared to talk with one another. But it it wasn’t the best use of time because oftentimes it assumed that students might have some feeling about term limits when often they were like, whatever. I mean, I don’t really care about that. Or it might be something that we talked about the previous day and they weren’t there. And so then they didn’t even know what it was. And it just it it wasn’t the best tool that I’ve ever done, but it worked for a while. And it just kind of gave us also a little bit of a buffer at the start of class so that people did show up late.

Liz Norell [00:28:17]:

They weren’t walking in in the middle of me talking or me leading an activity. Everyone was just kinda chatting amongst themselves. But, yeah, there have been other things, but it it’s been a long, long time since. Because I started thinking really intentionally about what is the purpose of everything in this class, and how do I tie that to a bigger goal of the course?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:37]:

I have found it helps so much to be that have that kind of intentionality and really to narrow it down to things I do as part of a discipline. So I am wrapping up finishing a class I’ve taught for many years now called personal leadership and productivity. They don’t do anything in the class. I don’t also do myself. And one of the one of the things they find particularly grueling is called the weekly review. Guess what? So do I. I mean, I I’m presently in one that has lasted about a month, and I don’t think I’ve literally finished an entire cadence of activities that I do to try to be more proactive in my life. I think what should have taken one time during 1 week has stretched over a month that I’m still not done.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:22]:

And, you know, I mean, so to be that kind of transparent, but I am it is the same kind of practice and labor that I am asking them to do that I do myself. I will also say, and I’m I’m interested to hear your perspectives from a different discipline too, but I’ve also had to kinda get real and say, specifically with this practice, a weekly review. This comes out of getting things done. You get clear, get current, and get creative, and there’s multiple stuff. And so it’s kinda like, yeah, you’ve been doing this for many, many, many, many years, and you still will, quote, unquote, fail in it and that you don’t, every single week do it with perfection and vivacity, you know. So it’s like, how can we shrink this down so that they’re still practicing it, but they are in most cases, decades decades younger than me and haven’t had as much time practicing. In your discipline, Liz, have you had that where you had to finally reach that realization of the kinds of labor, kinds of practice opportunities you want to give them, you did have to finally just shrink it down past maybe where you were initially comfortable with.

Liz Norell [00:30:32]:

Yeah. I I think as I’ve taught the American government course over 15 or so years, and I hope to get back to doing that again at some point, I would have this imagined student who was really interested in politics and is kind of following current events and would be thinking deeply about kind of how the institutional choices, the design, the norms, you know, the rules, policies, how those impacted behavior, which is, you know, always when I was trying to help them understand. And what I found is that some of the most important teaching that I did was just helping students understand what government even does at a very basic level and how different parts of the government work with one another or don’t. And so as I taught more and more, I would say what I scaled back on was expecting students to have any sort of foundational knowledge. I mean, they could probably name the three branches of government. They knew there was a constitution. They might even be able to recite the preamble. But in terms of, like, understanding the practical matter of how government works, that just felt, like, completely unrelated to their lives.

Liz Norell [00:31:49]:

And so I was always trying to help students see how this impacts them. And some of the best work that I did in teaching that course was giving students access to just, like, a whole bunch of different kinds of sources, you know, movies, podcasts, videos, articles, lots of different things that talk about what’s happening in the world that’s impacted by politics and asking them to choose things that seemed interesting to them because then they could really see like, oh, this is why I should care about this. This is impacting my life right now. So there’s this great episode of and I can send you the link to this. There’s this great episode of Today Explained from Vox from many years ago now called burn, baby, burn. And it’s about recycling plastics and this particular, power plant in Virginia that burns the plastics to generate electricity in a very eco friendly way. And it just blew my mind. And whenever I got a student who was interested in anything environmental, which frankly is most of them, I would recommend that they listen to this, you know, 20 minute episode, and they would just come back.

Liz Norell [00:32:59]:

Oh, I can’t believe this is amazing. How do we get one of these? And, you know, those kinds of things would really get them excited about municipal government and waste disposal, things that no one is excited about. Right? And so those are the ways that I would kind of try to go from these kind of lofty expectations of having, you know, kind of philosophical discussions about the role of government and checks and balances and separation of powers and federalism to, like, let’s talk about how we deal with recycling plastic.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:33]:

I have a couple questions. How did you distribute that? Did you just say weekly? Did I catch that right? You You would try to do this weekly or just some other regularity?

Liz Norell [00:33:42]:

Yeah. So all of this is online, and I can send you the links to the the I made this content library that I just kept adding things to. Mhmm. And it was separated out by category. It was just a Google website. So I would just send them there and say, choose 2 things from this content library this week to engage with, and then you would write, like, a paragraph telling me what you thought about it. And my feedback would be to ask questions. Right? And so we would just kind of have this ongoing dialogue throughout the semester of they would tell me what they thought about it, and then I would ask questions or I would say, oh, you should go listen to this other thing.

Liz Norell [00:34:14]:

And then they would do that. And then they would tell me about that. And it was just this really wonderful kind of relationship building, curiosity driven exploration of how government impacts everyday life. And and all of it’s online, and I’m happy to share it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:29]:

Oh, I love it. And I can remember the last few times I’ve gone to your website. It is a treasure trove, so people need to go there if nothing else is so amazing. The the I I distinctly I’ve passed around your syllabus example to many of my colleagues. We’ve gotten so much out of it. So the then from a logistical standpoint, I might write this paragraph as a student. Am I turning that in on a learning management system as an assignment? And then how is the conversation back coming from you as that assignment comments or another way?

Liz Norell [00:34:57]:

Yeah. It’s just, you know, in the feedback window, I would just add some thoughts. I I this was when I was doing this most recently, the course was pretty much fully ungraded or somewhere close to contract grading. And so they would just need to complete a certain number of these reflections over the course of the semester. And so I would just kind of keep a tally, but I wouldn’t put a grade on it. I would put a one if they did it and a 0 if they didn’t. And so we it was just a count.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:23]:

That’s great. Yeah. I I I approach many of my assignments in the same way. Although, I just wish, darn it, darn it, if it could just be a check mark. And my colleague, I’ve not actually tried to, like, literally take the car apart if you know what I mean. But a colleague is, like, yeah, you can’t do that. You cannot do no matter what you try, there will still be a one somewhere in there. The 0, you can’t do anything about it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:45]:

I’m, like, oh, I just wish it could just be check marks. But, anyway, we could all dream. A girl can dream.

Liz Norell [00:35:51]:

I would be fine if it was a number if it didn’t send a grade alert to the student with percentage grade.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:57]:

Mhmm.

Liz Norell [00:35:59]:

Because no matter what I input it as, it sends it as a percentage grade. And then I would get a flurry of emails saying, why did I get enough? And like, you didn’t. You just didn’t do one this week. It’s fine. Do 2 next week. Right? Yeah. Yep. That was awful.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:13]:

Oh, yeah. And then trying to ever get any human being, understandably so, to unlearn everything that has been ingrained to them up until that point in their educational experiences is near impossible, so that’s really rough. Well, this is a perfect time even though I could keep talking to you all day long. This is a perfect time for us to shift to recommendations because the first thing that I would like to recommend, no surprise to anyone listening to the giddiness in my voice this entire conversation, is a book called the present professor, authenticity and transformational teaching by Elizabeth a Norrell, as in the person that I am talking to. As I mentioned to you previously, but I wanna say it now publicly, I absolutely was delighted. I knew it would be good. Of course, it’s gonna be good. You know? You have wonderful thoughts and and research, and you’re a beautiful writer, and you had such wonderful colleagues, you know, that helped you shape it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:08]:

I know I know you’ve mentioned them in the acknowledgments and all of that, but it far exceeded that. It was such a gift to me personally, and I think a gift to our profession. I love your intellectual humility that you spread throughout the book, while also, of course, you have things to share. I mean, it’s so it’s it was an interesting strength combined with humility I really enjoyed. And on a personal level, the you kind of talk about it as I would see the the latter part of the book is kind of, hey, here’s a cornucopia. I think, in fact, you might even use that word. I love the word cornucopia. I can’t spell it, but I just love that word.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:48]:

You give a cornucopia, and there were things that I have had interest in, but also a lot of kind of guilt, shame y stuff going on around yoga. You talk about the Enneagram. You also mentioned for anyone who’s like, I’m never reading that book because she mentions the Enneagram. You also mentioned there’s lots of social scientists that would have great concerns about the reliability and validity of it, and yet it has helped you in your own self reflection and self understanding, self compassion, etcetera. So there’s something there for everyone. I particularly got a lot out of the yoga, and I’m excited. I did just finish reading it now, so I have some notes that I wanna go back and explore, because I am someone for whom many people who practice yoga have a different a different physique than I have. So I know that there are some maybe some more nurturing, nourishing kinds of places for me to pursue that would really make it that much even more enjoyable for me and more more beneficial, I think, for me.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:51]:

That’s what I’m saying in a clunky way, but that’s I again, I could just keep going on and on and on, but, so good. So so so so very good. The second thing that I want to recommend was actually first recommended on the show by Christine Johnson back on episode 546. It is a book entitled lovely one, which is the translation of one of our supreme court in the United States, one of our supreme court justices, Ketanji Means, lovely one, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir. And Christine had recommended it back then, and I hadn’t known a lot about her life. And not only I love memoirs. I mean, not only do we get a lot about her life, some of the challenges she’s had, and some of the things she has had to persevere through, but there’s a lot of history in there too. And there was even some interesting intersections where she knew people, and I was like, oh my gosh.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:46]:

Sometimes I’ll get confused somebody that they would have ever met some other person, the the the time in which they’re living their lives. I don’t I wouldn’t have realized that they would have crossed over with other people, so there were a lot of really fun surprises in it. Such a well read book, and they coupled well together. So I really enjoyed that one. So I’ve got 2 books to recommend. And, Liz, I’m gonna pass it over to you for whatever you’d like to recommend.

Liz Norell [00:40:11]:

Yes. Thank you, Bonni. And I I love Ketanji Brown Jackson. I believe she reads the audiobook version of that. So if you listen to it, you’ll get to hear her voice, which is I always love that. So thank you for recommending Medical Council. Appreciate that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:25]:

Yeah.

Liz Norell [00:40:25]:

The 2 things that I wanna recommend are related as, your friendly neighborhood political scientist. We are living in very interesting times. And so for those who might be feeling a little uncertain about our political future, the first thing I wanna recommend is a webinar that I’m gonna host on January 20th at, oh, say, like, 11 o’clock CST where we’re going to read George Washington’s farewell address and talk about what he was warning us of. And, I’ve done this a few times in the past. I also did it for my students, every semester. But last summer, I did it for a group of mostly older people who, have an interest in kind of civic life. I just find that that Farewell address has so much to tell us in this moment, and I hope that people will find that to be an edifying experience and give us some kind of buttressing of what might be ahead for us. The other one related to that is a book that I’ve I’ve only just started reading, but I’m already maybe, like, 30 pages in feeling just so in community with in a very positive way.

Liz Norell [00:41:38]:

And that is Rebecca Solnit’s book, Hope in the Dark. So one of the things that she talks about is how uncertainty is a reason for hope because uncertainty means that we still have the power to change what happens because we don’t know. And we should see that as an opportunity to put us on a different path. And so those are the 2 things that I’m kind of thinking about, especially in this moment as we’re looking ahead to what might happen in the weeks, months, years to come is, how do we keep a hold of some hope during a time of uncertainty?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:17]:

Oh, Liz, I am so much looking forward to reading hope in the dark. And now I’m I’m sort of getting giddy because maybe I could catch up and read it with you. We’ll see We’ll see what our futures our future reading habits may take us.

Liz Norell [00:42:31]:

Anyone who knows me knows that I am, a sucker for a reading group, small, large, or in between. Earlier today, I was just with a reading group for Cate’s book, and I’m doing at least 2 in the spring, maybe 3. I don’t know. So if you and I wanna have a little Bonni, Liz, hope in the dark reading group, we can do that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:50]:

I love it. I love it. Well, I am so grateful to know you. I am grateful for in November of 2024 to have gotten to hug you and to spend a few minutes in conversation, although it wasn’t enough. And I’m just so grateful for this work. Thank you so much. You’ve really, truly helped me, and I know you’re gonna help so many others for it. Just congratulations on the book, and I hope it spreads wide and far.

Liz Norell [00:43:16]:

Thank you so much, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:20]:

Thanks once again to Liz Norell for joining me for today’s episode, talking about your book, The Present Professor. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve yet to sign up for the Teaching in Higher Ed weekly updates, Now is your moment. Head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes show notes as well as some other resources that are special and unique just for the email. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on teaching in higher ed.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.