The Bloggers Anonymous series “On Writing” continues to win hearts and minds as the reclaim blogging underground “movement” increasingly gains steam. Few can better articulate the importance of inhabiting your own space online than Chris Long, Provost of the University of Oregon, and long-time blogger. His The Long Road Blog and Digital Dialogue podcast emerged from the faculty development work happening at Penn State University’s Teaching and Learning Technologies in the mid-2000s. We spend some time talking about the optimism and promise these digital publishing tools represented only twenty short years ago and how the subsequent break down in civil discourse represents an existential crisis to the values that undergird the noblest ideals of higher ed.
Chris’s commitment to diverse communities defined much of his work in his previous role as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters and the Honors College at Michigan State University. His authenticity (a word that comes up again and again in multiple discussions about blogging) as an administrator and willingness to not only be vulnerable, but also openly work through his ideas with the broader community makes for a truly unique campus leader. At the center of his attempts to build a sense of community and trust during this moment of deep political uncertainty is a bold return to the blog for “Finding New Modes of Communicating as Provost”:
For more than a decade, this blog has been a third space of essaying for me, situated between the private reflections of my daily writing practice and the polished prose of the public messages, statements, and other publications expected of me first as a scholar, then as a Dean, and now as Provost.
Perhaps in this difficult time, when the very purpose of higher education as a sacred place of inquiry and learning is under threat, this blog might continue to be a place of public reflection for me as Provost. Perhaps too, these practices of public writing might open us to new possibilities of connection that make university life so vibrant.
I have to admit it’s sometimes hard to hold onto a broader sense of optimism in these dark days when the vestiges of US democracy are being dismantled at a breakneck pace, but talking with Chris provides a ray of hope. His belief in dialogue, reflection, and intercultural connections as an antidote to the closing of the American mind is chicken soup for the bava blog soul. I come away from this conversation hopeful that all is not lost and the power of connection to reinforce the hopes of a purposeful life can very much be rooted in a faith in the seed of an authentic, reflective, and searching post on one’s blog.
