Hello

I grew up in a special sliver of Montana called the Rocky Mountain Front — the only place in the lower 48 where grizzly bears still regularly roam the prairies where they originally evolved. This place is the heart of the Blackfeet cosmology (aka, the Backbone of the World), though I didn't know that until after I left for college. Before somewhat accidentally moving into academia, I had a wide-ranging career in gardening/local food, outdoor/sustainability education, community development, science journalism, and illustration/photography. I did most of this work as a freelancer, solopreneur, and/or professional volunteer.

 

This means my take on what’s useful and what’s problematic about higher education is informed by not having spent most of my life and career becoming “used to” how these systems work. Plus, we have more resources in academia than I’ve ever had access to in the nonprofit/community sector. We should be using them for good, not hoarding and pretending we don’t have enough money to make a difference!

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I’m an inveterate fixer, group activity leader, and love nothing more than identifying a programmatic issue that can be solved with a co-produced planning process (defining values and goals, identifying policies and procedures to shift toward those Vs & Gs, and articulating a work plan to get it done, together). I am committed to transdisciplinary and collaborative projects, because any real change we want to accomplish in the world requires a team effort.

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​A big part of my motivation for all this work is that I was a first-generation college student, a nontraditional and first-gen graduate student, one of the only people in my family with any degrees at all, and I was a cultural/linguistic minority immigrant in French Canada. I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck, I’ve made beds and waited tables, and I’ve weeded gardens and wiped noses. I come from a rural, smalltown childhood, do not have a PhD, my job is not on the tenure track, and almost all my work has been in science though little of my formal training was.

 

So, I understand what it’s like to be the odd one out, to recognize systems that aren’t built or run with me in mind. ​Now, I work to make space for the many kinds of people, like me, with backgrounds and perspectives that are uncommon but vital for academia.

 

My podcast, blog/newsletter/what-have-you, and a lot of my "fun" writing are my way of sharing what I’ve learned about doing that change-making successfully and sustainably. My scholarship, teaching, programs, and academic publications are my way of working for this systems change.

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Today, I live in rural Wyoming, where I’m learning again (for the umpteenth time in a lifetime of gardening) that there is no autopilot. This summer, I gave up and let the ground squirrels have the garden — I quit when they started climbing the fences, having realized the futility in tunneling into the well-protected boundary. My first-and-best dog isn’t allowed to chase wildlife, so he’s no help. My husband and I are busy working on other projects (like my return to pottery after a 20-year lapse). So, the garden has become my daily reminder that non-attachment is a vital emotional practice (and that gardening is an extreme sport at 7,200' in elevation!).