Summery Surprises and Observations

The annual increase in summer travel raises the possibilities for chance encounters.

While vacationing in July on the north shore of Lake Superior, I struck up a conversation with a husband and wife. When they found out I work at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, the woman threw her head back and laughed. “Our son graduated from Saint John’s in 2009.”

Then, without any prompting from me, she raved about what a great experience her son, Stashie Mack, had and about his wonderful professors. She mentioned two by name – Sanford Moskowitz, assistant professor of management, and Ozzie Mayers, professor of English. Sanford was a great mentor to Stashie, his mom said, and continues to offer guidance and support. In Ozzie’s first-year symposium, Stashie labored mightily and griped to his parents about his demanding, hard-to-please professor. A few years later, commenting on how much his writing had improved, and he told his parents he was lucky to have had such a fine professor.

Random compliments are the best, especially unsolicited ones.

Another summer surprise arrived late on a Friday afternoon. I was the last to leave my office, getting ready to shut down the computer, when my former student John F. O’Sullivan, class of ’08, sauntered in looking snappy in a lavender dress shirt.

Now residing in Wales, John was in the U.S. for an extended visit and on campus for a wedding scheduled the following day at the abbey church. John was a student in a media writing class I taught. I am happy to report he is still writing, in a blog about living abroad, http://johnfosullivan.com/. His blog is building an online presence, with 25,000 average page views per month. That’s no surprise. He is a fearless writer with a genuine voice and an interesting point of view. John is a people magnet, and he is well connected with Johnnies and Bennies on Facebook. I have joined his fan base.

U.S. media went overboard (no surprise there) on the story about the arrests of Russian spies. OK, I get that the story has a certain intrigue, but many of the pundits regressed to their younger years during the Cold War, when James Bond and Mad Magazine somehow fused espionage with glamour, absurdity and high-tech gadgetry in the public imagination. As a result, these pundits had lots to talk about but little to say.

Enter Nick Hayes, professor of history and University Chair in Critical Thinking. Nick writes a regular column for MinnPost, and, in his July 12 post, he offers informed commentary on the spy scandal that veers off the path traveled by pack journalists. http://www.minnpost.com/nickhayes/2010/07/12/19604/spy_scandal_we_havent_heard_the_last_laugh_yet?utm_source=MinnPost+e-mail+newsletters&utm_campaign=1d7f7da5f8-07_12_2010_The_Latest_from_MinnPost_com7_12_2010&utm_medium=email

Spotted around CSB campus: Marian Diaz delivered the keynote address to the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities during the association’s annual conference, held July 28-31, at CSB and SJU. Marian served as director of Companions on a Journey at CSB and the Vocation Project at SJU before leaving with her family to live in Rome, where her husband, CSB/SJU and SOT associate professor of theology Migual Diaz, now serves as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Marian spoke about vocation-related work in higher education and its implications for the mission of Catholic higher education. She also spoke with a reporter from the St. Cloud Times about life in Rome. http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100731/NEWS01/107310015/-1/archives/Vactican-ambassador-s-wife-describes-new-life-in-Rome- .

It’s tomato season in my kitchen garden, and that means only one thing (aside from my all-you-can-eat tomatoes all-the-time August menu) – the return of the students.