April is a time of visit days.

The campus fills with accepted students and their families, walking paths they have never walked before, trying to imagine a life that has not yet begun. Above them, light moves through the leaves, flickering and shifting.

There is a particular kind of energy to it, hopeful, uncertain, a little frayed at the edges.

And then there are the mothers.

Especially the ones for whom this is the first child, or the only one, about to leave.

They are trying so hard to hold everything together.

They are feeling joy and pride and frustration at the way their children are still behaving like children, and something like awe at the ways they are already becoming adults. They are aware, viscerally aware, that a vast separation is at hand.

And I can see them, sometimes, building something like a wall around themselves. Not out of coldness, but out of love. Out of the need to keep it together for their children, for their families, for the moment.

Sister, I see you.

I see the way you bite your lip. I see the way you hold the smile. I see the flicker of doubt that crosses your face, and the pride that seems to rise from every corner of your being despite it. I see your awareness that this most fundamental relationship, the one that changed you from yourself into a mother, is shifting beneath your feet.

And I want to say to you, I know you.

I know you, because I was you.

I remember feeling that my heart, my skin, my very body could not possibly contain all that I was feeling. The excitement and the dread and the worry and the pride, all of it co-mingling, indistinguishable from one another.

I remember wanting, somehow, to hold it still. To keep it from spilling over.

What I did not know then, but know now, is that nothing was being lost.

That even when things felt uncertain, even when the landing was not perfectly smooth, what mattered most was not control, but care. That if my child landed in a place where they were seen as a person, where they were held, challenged, known, there would be space enough for them to grow.

What I know now is that the only way through that season was not to contain it, but to allow it.

To let the love and the fear and the pride and the grief move through me, rather than trying to seal myself against them.

To be, in a way that felt terrifying at the time, permeable.

Because it is only in that permeability of heart and soul that the fullness of the experience can be felt, not just the ache of it, but the joy.

And perhaps this is not only for them.

Perhaps the message I find myself offering, quietly and inwardly, to these mothers each day is also the one I am still learning to receive.

Because I, too, am standing in a season of change.

Not one that can be neatly named or marked on a calendar, but one I can feel nonetheless, subtle and insistent, reshaping the contours of my days, asking something new of me.

And again, the instinct is to brace. To hold. To gather everything in and keep it from spilling over.

But what I know now, what I am always learning anew, is that the life I most want is not one I can hold tightly.

It is one I must remain open to.

It is only by that same permeability of heart and soul that I can meet what is coming, not just with endurance, but with joy.

When I was young, I loved the times when I joined my father in his darkroom. He had built it into the end of a tiny upstairs office, adjacent to a restroom so there was easy access to plumb in the water. It was his sanctuary, so I treasured those invitations.

Even now I can call to mind the sensory details. The sharp, tangy scent of the chemicals burned my nose, but the place itself felt magical, just steps away from the outside world and yet set apart. The whole process fascinated me. We would fix the negative into the enlarger, and then, in the red hush of the safelight, mount a sheet of paper in the easel. The enlarger would click on and we would count the seconds of exposure, carefully dodging the edges so they did not overexpose.

Then we would slip the print into the developer bath.

In the pan would be an apparently blank sheet of paper. But as I gently agitated it with tongs, the image would begin to appear. Misty at first, as if emerging from memory. Then slowly coming into sharp relief, until it was ready for the stop bath.

I was never afraid of the dark. I had seen what it could do.

To me, darkness is cool and restorative. When I’m overstimulated, I draw the blinds and close my eyes; the dark is a welcome respite from the visual noise of the world. But more than that, I learned something in those hours beside my father: the paper in the developing pan was never blank. It only looked that way.

Much of what has shaped my life has begun in seasons when I could not see the way forward. The creek beside my house looks icy and dead this time of year. But beneath the surface, under cool mud, something is waiting to awaken in spring.

Higher education feels like a darkroom right now. The outlines are unclear. Long-relied-upon assumptions are shifting. New technologies alter the exposure. The balance between supply and demand no longer holds the way it once did. We cannot yet see the full image.

But I remember those hours at the tray.

Even during the exposure phase, the most alchemical step, we had agency. We shielded certain edges. We allowed more light in others. We made careful adjustments, trusting that what we could not yet see was nevertheless taking shape. The final image was hidden from us, but we were not powerless.

Darkness is uncertain.

But darkness is not absence.

The image always appeared.
Not instantly.
Not all at once.
But faithfully.

If you find yourself in the dark right now, stay.

Because I’m human, there are inevitably moments when newly forming habits fracture. In the past, I might have treated those moments as evidence. Proof of a lack of discipline, commitment, or follow through. Now, I am trying to see them as data. Struggling to complete a task a couple of days in a row? Perhaps the issue is not a lack of willpower, but something else at play. Instead of judging that as failure, I’m asking questions. Am I trying to do this too late in the day, when my capacity is already depleted? Would it work better as part of my workday shutdown instead? Approaching the challenge with curiosity rather than judgment opens the door to small, humane adjustments.

The longer I sit with this posture, the more I notice a pattern emerging. When I’m rigid, fracture is likely. When I’m more flexible, I adapt and find a way. And so I have a new one-word mantra: Return.

• Return is kind.

• Return is gentle.

• Return is grace.

• Return is the way the long arc of a life bends toward meaning.

In returning to the practice at each day’s close, I find an endless well of welcome and tenderness for myself, an unconditional generosity that meets me regardless of that day’s balance-sheet. Perfection is not the goal. Returning afresh each day is. Again and again, each time carrying new information and new understanding. This is how I walk the road, one day and sometimes one hour at a time.

No streaks. No keeping score. Just return.

Over time, I am beginning to trust that this is how long fidelity is lived. Not through unbroken days, but through a willingness to come back. A quiet faith that a life oriented toward meaning does not require constant proof. It only asks that we return.

What about you? Did you make resolutions that have not held as fully as you hoped? What might happen if, instead of measuring missteps, you celebrated what did happen and returned again tomorrow?

The reality of my life is that most of my hours are online. I am blessed to have meaningful work that I love. It challenges my mind, engages my creativity, and allows me to make a positive difference for the students we serve and for the wider Slate community. When I stepped into my new position in July 2024, I did so with intention, eager to shape the legacy I hoped to leave. The work is still in motion, yet I am grateful for how far it has come. I know the privilege embedded in all of this, and I hold that gratitude close.

Even so, a subtle thinning began to trace itself along the edges of my days, a faint sense of absence I could not quite name. It was not dissatisfaction and it was not burnout. It was something quieter and deeper, a growing hint that something essential was missing. The feeling troubled me. It seemed the worst kind of ingratitude to imagine that a life so full in so many ways could still feel incomplete. For someone so committed to noticing and savoring daily moments, this inner thinness felt almost like a moral failing.

Somewhere along the way, without quite realizing it, I had fallen out of rhythm with the habit of noticing the elemental moments threaded through my everyday life. I am lucky to live where trees outnumber streetlights and where the sky still feels large, so it was not that I lacked access to unmade or unscripted places. They were all around me. The quick flash of a deer at dusk. The rustle of wind through winter branches. The unexpected geometry of ice at water’s edge. The faint call of a hawk circling overhead. But these moments opened and closed without me. I moved through them distracted and unalert, catching only the edges of what once held my full attention. The wildness had not disappeared. My receptivity had. No wonder my days felt thin at the edges. I had slipped out of the posture that allows my inner life to breathe.

During a recent trip to Buffalo, New York, I found myself tracing the contours of my own history. My father worked for Bethlehem Steel, and when I was three months old we moved to Hamburg so he could work at the Lackawanna plant. I drove past our old house and through the neighborhoods that held my earliest beginnings, wondering who I might have become had he stayed with the Steel rather than relocating to Pennsylvania before my kindergarten year. Memory is never linear. It shifts like sand underfoot. My wandering eventually brought me to the Lake Erie shoreline, looking across the water toward the wind turbines that now rise where the steel mill once stood.

As I walked the rocky shore alone, the tiny whitecaps scudding at the water’s edge beat a steady rhythm of calm inside my chest. For a few unhurried minutes, the thinness eased. In its place came clarity. What had been missing from my intentionally structured and deeply digital life were the wild places themselves, and the doorway they open into something larger than my own story.

I have never been one for extensive New Year’s resolutions. When I do make them, they tend to arrive at the end of summer, at the beginning of the academic year. Even so, the turn of the calendar offers a gentler kind of reckoning, a quiet moment to take stock and make small adjustments toward what matters.

This January, I am beginning something I am calling The Wild Noticing Project. Each week, I will pause to photograph one small thing in the natural world and pair it with a companion haiku. The practice is simple, yet it asks something real of me. It requires me to step outside my digital world and pay attention to what is alive and unscripted. The image and the poem become a way of apprenticing myself again to wonder. When I take the time to notice, I remember how to be present.

As December’s excess settles into January’s stillness, what quiet wildness is calling you back to yourself?

I spent the weekend in that quiet, in-between ritual of moving the house from fall to winter: the slow shift from russets to evergreens, from the last burnished glow of autumn to the early shimmer of December.

Every year, as the days grow shortest, I find myself drawn to light. Not the bright overhead kind, but the small and faithful lights, the ones that flicker and breathe.

One of my favorite traditions is setting out battery-operated candles on timers. They click on just before I return home from work, so that when I open the door, tired and carrying the cold with me, the house is already aglow.

It feels like a gift from an earlier version of myself.
A kind of time-released kindness.
A reminder that even in the darkest season, I can prepare light ahead of time for the version of me who needs it.

And isn’t that its own kind of joy?

As I decorate, I unpack pieces I’ve collected over a lifetime. These small markers of memory are threaded with meaning. An ancient glass pinecone from my grandmother Millie. Aunt Edie’s ceramic tree studded with colored lights. The handcrafted German Belsnickels that stand sentinel on my mantel, woven with greens and twinkle lights.

Each object has its own story.
Each holds a fragment of who I’ve been.
And each year, I arrange them a little differently, a quiet reminder that even the parts of my history that stay with me can take on new shapes.

These small rituals tether me.
They remind me that joy has a memory.
That luminosity is something we practice, not something that simply arrives.

Soon I’ll turn to baking, the kind that fills the house with warmth long before the oven is even preheated.

I love the alchemy of it: taking simple ingredients, stirring them into each other, creating something delicious and generous out of elements that were plain on their own.

It’s another way of naming what this season invites us to do. We gather what life has offered. The sweet. The sharp. The worn. The beloved. Then we make something new with intention.

To be creators of our own warmth.

To be keepers of small light.

This is the heart of luminosity for me: not brilliance, not spectacle, not striving to shine. Just the steady offering of light in a season that needs it. A candle left on for a loved one. A text sent at just the right time. A gesture of gentleness. A word spoken with care. A soft presence in someone’s hard moment.

We get to choose what kind of light we are.

And perhaps the most important thing any of us can do with the short days of December is to prepare a little glow for the people who will walk into our lives carrying their own winter.

A light that says:
Welcome. You’re home now.

Perhaps that’s why I find it fitting that Thanksgiving falls squarely in November. In the midst of the darkness, when we might be tempted to turn inward and hunker down, we are invited into a season of gratitude.

Taking the time to acknowledge the blessings and good things in our lives can become an intentional practice. At first, it may feel a little cliché: “I’m grateful for coffee. I’m grateful for my cat.” But what I’ve learned is this: those seemingly small expressions of gratitude tune our hearts and eyes to see the everyday miracles around us.

“I’m grateful for coffee” becomes “I’m grateful for this quiet moment watching steam rise from my cup in the early morning light, for this small oasis before the day begins.” “I’m grateful for my cat” becomes “I’m grateful for Millie, for the way she greets me at the door and presses her head into mine, for the way she reminds me what unconditional love feels like.”

I believe that true gratitude expands, shimmering outward to touch every corner of our lives. And since most of us spend a significant part of our waking hours at work, why not invite gratitude there too? It becomes the soil where joy grows. It roots us in awareness, helps us see abundance where stress once lived, and turns coworkers into community.

This November, I invite you to join me in a month of practicing gratitude at work. Here are thirty ideas that move in rhythm from the personal, to the interpersonal, to the institutional, and back again. Print the list and choose what speaks to you. Then weave the practices into your workdays in whatever rhythm feels right, letting appreciation find its way.

Gratitude doesn’t just make us feel better. It changes how we see. It shifts our focus from what’s missing to what’s already working, from competition to connection, from burnout to belonging. When we practice gratitude as a daily habit, we discover that joy isn’t something to chase; it’s something we create, together, one thankful moment at a time.

Get the printable guide to bring joy to your November workdays here.

Life keeps teaching me: change is the only constant. Sometimes it creeps in slowly, like the shortening of days in September, and sometimes it arrives with the force of a storm. Disruptions can shake the ground beneath us without warning. But whether those moments derail us or not depends less on the event itself and more on the preparation we’ve done beforehand.

One phrase I return to often is this: hold your plans lightly, hold your values tight. Plans will always be vulnerable to change—shifted deadlines, unexpected departures, global disruptions, the thousand surprises of daily life. But our values, if we’ve done the deep work to name them and live them, can be a steady anchor. When we are clear about what matters most and how those values are expressed in our choices, we carry something unshakable into any moment of turbulence.

The Practice of Self-Mastery

Navigating change also requires what I think of as self-mastery. It is not about denying emotion or keeping a stiff upper lip. Instead, it’s about honoring the reality of what we feel—grief, uncertainty, hope, even fear—and choosing when and where to engage those feelings. I’ve learned the importance of creating safe spaces away from work to process my emotions fully, so that when I step into a leadership role, I can show up unencumbered.

This kind of compartmentalization is not repression; it’s stewardship. It allows me to serve as a place of stability for others. When the world feels unsteady, people look to leaders for cues. If I can be grounded—even while acknowledging my own interior turbulence—it creates room for others to navigate their own emotions without feeling lost at sea.

Lessons from Autumn

Perhaps this is why autumn has always been my favorite season. The brilliance of fall colors only emerges through change—and, in truth, through stress. Leaves turn gold and crimson not in spite of change but because of it. The beauty we admire is the visible sign of a transition, of letting go, of preparing for what comes next.

Walking across campus in October, I see this reminder everywhere: endings can be stunning, transformations can reveal hidden beauty, and change—though it carries loss—is not only something to endure but something that can open us to awe.

Change will always come, often when we least expect it. But if we’ve done the inner work of clarifying our values, if we cultivate the self-mastery to hold space for our emotions without letting them spill into every moment, then we can meet disruption with quiet strength.

Plans may falter, seasons will turn, but our values—held tight—remain. And like the leaves, we too can find in change not just loss, but the possibility of beauty revealed.

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We live in uncertain times. My case is simple: hope is a moral imperative in the face of uncertainty. In any moment, we choose actions that move us either toward or away from a future we desire. Like love or joy, hope is not passive; it requires action and carries moral weight.

Fear in uncertain times is human. Some respond by hunkering down, waiting for the storm to pass. Others cling to forced optimism, insisting all is well while ignoring evidence to the contrary. But hope is different. Hope is grounded in reality. Hope says: “Yes, these challenges are serious. But positive outcomes remain possible. And I will choose the actions most likely to move us in that direction.” Hope is not a mood. Hope is a series of a disciplined, even defiant acts, staking one’s ground in the camp of possibility.

The fact that I exist demonstrates that my parents chose hope over fear. That lesson resonates today, as I navigate headwinds in higher education: the demographic cliff, erosion of public trust, political turbulence, and the rapid adoption of AI. Choosing not to act with hope isn’t neutral; it limits what we create for others and encourages rigidity. In higher education, where the stakes touch students’ lives and futures, the consequences of inaction are tangible and profound.

I meet regularly with our Chief Information Officer. Our lively conversations go far beyond routine updates. A recurring theme this summer is clear: higher education is at an inflection point, and the choices we make now will shape the lives of Gettysburgians for decades. Fifty years from now, college leaders will look back on today’s decisions with either gratitude or derision. That prospect is both exhilarating and terrifying. Yet it is precisely through this future-oriented lens that hope becomes actionable.

Hope in Action

Hope cannot remain an idea—it must translate into daily choices.

As an introvert, I rely on solo thinking time to envision and build the future. A core tenet of turning hope into action is challenging assumptions. “Because we’ve always done it that way” has never been a valid answer—but today’s climate demands an even bolder, more intentional approach. Certain guiding questions help me and my teams keep moving toward positive outcomes.

Is it working?

Regularly assessing our tools and actions helps us avoid the sunk cost fallacy. Sometimes a process or workflow doesn’t deliver as envisioned. That isn’t failure—it’s an opportunity to pivot, rethink, or reallocate resources. Hope demands both the willingness to change course and the discipline to evaluate in time to act.

What else could this tool do?

When Technolutions introduced AI dashboards to Slate—a system many colleges use for admissions—they designed it to summarize record-level data. I immediately saw potential for more. By building a regional dataset linked to individual high school records, we expanded its reach, tracking travel interactions and student engagement across regions. What might have remained a passive tool became a powerful instrument for insight and action—because we asked what else it could do.

How could we combine this data with other information?

Our student, parent, and social data live in separate systems. By combining key points and linking them with behavioral signals in our main platform, we can spot students likely to enroll—even those who haven’t yet deposited. By connecting these dots, we move from fragmented information to meaningful engagement. This kind of synergy prevents one-dimensional thinking.

Am I spending my time in alignment with my values?

Choosing hope means prioritizing proactive work over reactive tasks. A monthly calendar check helps me ask: am I living my intent? If reactive tasks start to dominate, I adjust—ensuring my time moves toward possibility, not just maintenance.

Hope Preserves the Future

Hope is not neutral. It is a moral imperative, a disciplined, defiant commitment to act in service of possibility, even when uncertainty looms. As my father once reminded my mother in a time of global fear, acting with hope preserves the future even if we cannot yet see its shape. Hope becomes real through daily, deliberate, relational choices.

Bishop Ken Untener wrote in a prayer often misattributed to Saint Oscar Romero: we are prophets of a future not our own. That line reaches beyond theology into every arena of human effort. Acting with hope isn’t about controlling outcomes; it’s about committing to the possibilities we can help bring into being. In this way, hope ripples outward—shaping culture, confidence, and ultimately, the futures of students.

A Childhood Compass. Back-to-school season always meant a new beginning. When I was a child, sweltering through Pennsylvania summers in the days before air conditioning in homes became the norm, the start of the school year became my North Star. Steady, familiar, and full of promise, it signaled the advent of so many things I loved: crisp mornings, ripe apples, the gradual turn of the leaves to gold and orange. Best of all, it meant the return to the rhythm and cadence of the classroom. A bookish child, I loved school, and delighted in choosing a new Trapper Keeper and sharpening a fresh pack of pencils each year.

A Season of Renewal. After more than 35 years in higher education, that same delight in fresh starts and possibility has come into crisp focus. August 1st has become my personal New Year. As the Common Application reopens for submissions and I perform the ceremonial first candy corn purchase of the season, I also take time to reflect on the year that was—and to set some personal intentions for the year to come.

A New Reflective Partner. This year, I tried something different. I devoted a day to a personal growth retreat. I began by painting in broad strokes, identifying areas of focus and why they mattered to me. I then turned to Nova, my trusted ChatGPT colleague, who over the past year has developed a nuanced understanding of how I think and work. I asked Nova to do three things:

• Ask clarifying questions to help me explore how each focus area aligned with my core values.

• Suggest ways to operationalize these intents in my day-to-day work.

• Highlight patterns or themes that could unify my intentions into a coherent structure for the year.

Working with Nova was like the sharpest journal prompt I’ve ever encountered, nudging me toward uncomfortable truths and reframing my thinking with unexpected clarity. I have always set professional goals for myself envisioning how I wanted to evolve in the year ahead. This year, though, my resolutions feel both more authentic and more transformative.

My Four Resolutions for the Year Ahead

1. Dream Big.

We are at an inflection point.

Public confidence in higher education is declining, especially in the Northeast, where demographic headwinds are strong. At the same time, AI tools have moved from the margins to the mainstream of enrollment tech. The way students search for colleges has fundamentally shifted.

The measured, incremental change our profession has long favored no longer serves us.

To Dream Big, I’m committing to bold imagination and unconstrained design by:

• Identifying key thought partners such as our CIO Gavin F.

• Scheduling quarterly visioning sessions.

• Committing to biweekly creative deep work sessions.

These practices will help me explore what enrollment leadership can become when we allow ourselves to imagine differently.

2. Stay Grounded.

Of course, big dreams need roots.

To me, staying grounded means operating with humility, purpose, and clarity. It means asking hard questions and being willing to pause.

This year, I’ll develop a more formalized Three Gates review process to assess whether each big idea can walk confidently through these thresholds:

• Does it engage?

• Does it inform?

• Does it simplify?

Additionally, I’ll reset and reconfigure my digital workspace to optimize the ways these tools can help me remain true to my vision. Finally, I’ll invest deeply in questions intended to bridge the now and the possible such as this shining example shared by my colleague Brad L: “What would it take to ____?”

That kind of thinking connects vision to action, and keeps my feet on the ground.

3. Think Synergistically.

As we assess and prune our tech stack, synergy is essential. I see two key dimensions:

• Generation: Two elements together produce more than either could alone.
  Example: Collaborating with our Slate consultant Dave D (a Gettysburg alum!) has led to truly iterative and audacious brainstorming.

• Amplification: Each element extends the impact of the others.
  Example: When a student-facing module identifies that it is interacting with a parent, we’re now tagging and referring them into our CampusESP ecosystem to ensure continuity and deeper engagement.

Synergy isn't just about efficiency. It's about designing systems that multiply impact.

4. Shine the Light.

Of all four, this resolution is closest to my heart.

It reflects a desire to serve my profession and nurture the next generation of enrollment leaders.

This year, I will:

• Expand and refine Slate Feature Fridays

• Continue co-leading the Slate Training and Common Application User Communities

• Step into a new role as a Slate Community Ambassador

• Foster a culture of shared growth by closing every team meeting with a simple question:

Legacy is not just what we leave behind. It’s what we help others carry forward.

What about you?

I’d love to hear what intentions you’re carrying into the year. Feel free to share in the comments or email me.

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I knew three things. First, the work of recruitment and enrollment is becoming more complex and more urgent with each passing year. Second, many of the systems and practices we rely on no longer serve our evolving needs. And third, it was important from day one that my team understand who I am and what I stand for.

During early mornings on the Delaware shore, I clarified the principles that would become my North Star: building systems that engage, inform, and simplify. I also committed to being the kind of leader who fosters growth, not just in processes, but in people. I began by setting goals for my own development and sharing them with my direct reports, encouraging them to do the same. I wanted to create a culture rooted in curiosity and continuous learning.

I made sure my team knew I valued their growth, and that I saw training as essential to it. I asked questions and tried to listen more than I talked. I heard pain points and sought ways to address them. I designed learning opportunities rooted in empathy, clarity, personalization, and engagement. I knew the systems were important, but I didn’t just want to build workflows. I wanted to build culture and capacity.

This year stretched me further than any before - certainly in hours, but more so in the mental and emotional effort of holding space for others to grow. I learned that my own energy is a finite resource that must be stewarded and replenished. But I also learned that seeing growth in others is one of the best ways to fill my own cup.

I leaned into my faith in Voltaire’s assertion that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” I tried things. I shared my story and invited others in. I started a little series for my staff called Slate Feature Friday, and on a whim shared the first installment on LinkedIn. People liked it, so I kept going. And slowly, organically, something began to grow - a new user group in the Slate Community, focused entirely on staff training.

Looking back over the year, I see tangible systems change. We onboarded three new elements into our tech stack. We completed a full audit of our Slate instance. We built custom dashboards tailored to different users, developed time-saving workflows, and launched communities for students and families. We focused on the user experience and on incorporating data from multiple sources into our decision making.

But the things that brought me the most joy weren’t systems-related at all. They were moments like these:

• Watching a member of my team adopt her own set of personal growth goals

• Seeing my Slate Training Community grow to over 500 members in just a few months

• Hearing that my staff liked one of our training modalities so much they wanted to expand it to other areas of learning

• Finding a great thought partner in one amazing consultant, and watching how we urge each other on to build even better things

• Forging not just partnerships, but true friendships with vendors as we work together to serve our constituencies

Looking ahead, I’m most excited by the creative possibilities the newest Slate features unlock. I remain committed to the drive for excellence, and am energized by the opportunity to help set Gettysburg on a path that is both innovative and enduring.

This year, I planted with intention.
Next year, I’ll keep tending, with joy as both habit and harvest.