Back to School: 2026

Today continued a tradition that I have carried on for approximately 25 years: it was the first day of classes. For the third time in my life, this was as a teacher rather than a student. However, as either a faculty member or a student, I have not missed a back to school day since I started as a student. This is the first time I decided to report about it, but I figure I may just keep this up going forward. In planning out this as a series going into the future, I think that my reflection here will serve as a template that I will build on in successive years.

First things first: fit check. Today I decided that corduroy was the theme with my dark tan slacks and light pink shirt. It should be noted that the day’s high in Tucson hit 104 Fahrenheit, but I’m not about to wear shorts to teach in (I’ve joked that that’s a “post-tenure activity”). While I have pretty diverse fashion tastes, I like to wear “prep” clothes to teach in. I feel like it is a good mix of accessible and professional that is not overly formal to students but still demonstrates to them that I take their education seriously. I feel like it is a sign of respect as an educator to wear a buttoned collar at a minimum. In essence I follow the fashion guidelines of time-place-occasion, generally meaning that I try to match my outfits to the season and nature of gathering. I am pretty much an acolyte of Derek Guy when it comes to men’s fashion, and the thing that is most important to me is that an outfit is cohesive and well-fit to the setting. Outside of the classroom I often wear various “street” fashion styles, but I make an effort to make outfits internally cohesive. It dovetails with my thrifting hobby.

Next up: the itinerary for the day. I was on campus to teach my major class for the semester, News in Society. This is a 100-level general education course that is meant to serve as the first journalism class for non-majors. This semester marks my third time teaching it, so it is pretty familiar at this point. While it was in a complete state when it was given to me to teach, it is a general education class so I had a lot of creative liberties in designing it. Because it is targeted at non-majors, the primary change I made is that I pivoted it to be focused on training students as news readers rather than future journalists. I strongly believe that news readers need training in the contemporary media environment, which seems to become increasingly hard to parse in ways that are enlightening to members of society. Despite it having a large enrollment, I design this course with many opportunities for in class engagement and structured reflection. This is a habit of mine that betrays my pedagogical background which emphasizes reflection. This semester, our first discussion was lively with quite a few students hopping in. That’s always nice to see. If you have taken a class with me, you know that I am not afraid to let us sit uncomfortably in silence if no one wants to engage.

Finally: my soundtrack for the day. I have recently revised my Spotify playlists in order to be fully prepared for the big day. I ended up gravitating to my hip hop playlist (the title, “Hip Hop (Not Radio)” is a reference to a spoken line from the track “Baby” on J Dilla’s “The Shining“). I couldn’t tell you why, but walking around campus often puts me in the mood for a hip hop mix. As I was unwinding tonight, I was listening to “Dots and Loops” by Stereolab. I’ve been really diving into their catalogue lately. I’ve seen it described as “post-rock,” which I can see for their evolution from traditional rock in “Peng!” to more synthesized and modal inspired works (especially in “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” or “Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night“). I think that terms like that can be useful for describing such evolutions over time, as you can still hear a guitar-driven rock sound on as far afield Stereolab tracks as “Infinity Girl” even if the vocals are oriented to developing a polyrhythm. But still, is everything post-[something] now? I find it a bit hard to take post-postmodernism seriously as a label. I envision a future where we can describe media and intellectual traditions according to their merits as opposed to their relationship to the 20th century.

As of writing, this was a better than usual first day of classes. This was a fun exercise to have some unstructured thoughts at the end of my first day and I’m excited to see how these change over the years. If you are involved in education I would love to see something similar from you too.