Professor Carol

We’re coming to the end of my favorite week of the year. The week before Thanksgiving is full of promise. The crust on the pumpkin pie is not yet burnt; the silver platter might still get a polish; and the weather may actually cooperate with … Read more

I hear parents complain that it’s difficult to teach children about historical styles in the arts. Let’s use, as an example, historical styles of architecture. Does this sound familiar? How am I ever going to teach these architectural styles to my kids? It’s boring for … Read more

In my work, I have countless occasions to observe people reacting to circumstances they did not expect. Consequently, I’ve been giving thought lately to the concept of “disappointment.” How one handles disappointment, particularly the small disappointments that are inevitable in daily life, reveals a great … Read more

Imagine harnessing the energy tourists use to snap pictures on cell phones and putting it, instead, into something more expressive and fully devoid of technology. What am I imagining? Sketching. Sketching has long been one of the primary ways to capture experiences (right along with … Read more

Gardenias are still blooming outside our front door.  I never had gardenias growing in my yard before, so I don’t know whether these bushes are especially ardent bloomers, or whether gardenias ordinarily bloom until the first frost. Perhaps I should find out?  Actually, I’d rather … Read more

I’m in Philadelphia, waiting to board a plane to Switzerland. The four-hour gap between my morning flight from Dallas-Fort Worth and my departure to Zürich seems a godsend. Things have been moving like a whirlwind the past few days, including a brush with Hurricane Florence’s … Read more

The days leading up to summer’s end led us to focus on preparation. Now, a different type of preparation occupies many of our fellow-citizens: preparation for Hurricane Florence. And because we just moved to North Carolina, the advance of this storm isn’t an abstract headline. … Read more

The note on now-yellowing paper, printed with a dot-matrix printer, lies in front of me. It reads: Dear Professor, This may sound like a bad excuse, and it may be one, for all I know, but I wanted to explain why my paper is so … Read more