Alison O. Bender

Well, it’s official: Monday was the last day of my editing class (where my students brought in champagne and a very sweet card and gift), Wednesday I gave the final for my journalism class and just now I pressed “submit” on my final grades!

Sierra Nevada College is such a unique college and I really enjoyed teaching. The students are more involved than I ever remember students being at Penn State, and took such active roles in their own education. Add to that, the staff is very hands-on, as well. As soon as any staff noticed a student struggling, there was a team of people ready to help or redirect so that the student got all the help possible. It was a really cool thing to be a part of, not only because of the environment, but also, because I had such small classes, I felt like I could really see improvements in (at least some) students, which was so cool to feel like I really had an impact. Anyway, I think there are exciting changes for the program ahead and I’m looking forward to seeing the changes and improvements at SNC moving forward! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to having my days back—I never realized how many hours of planning could go into each 1.25 hour class! I think I’m treating myself to a much-needed pedicure next week!

Big day as today was basically my last day teaching at Sierra Nevada College! Next week we’ll spend Monday editing and preparing to produce the seventh and final issue of the Eagle’s Eye for the semester, then Wednesday my journalism class has its final.

The semester seems like it flew by. I’ve loved teaching, but it will be nice to take a break. The journalism department at SNC is undergoing a transformation, so classes are combining and changing. Which I think will lead to some good and necessary changes for the program. Right now, the biggest issue is the lack of students in the journalism classes (my workshop class, for example, had only two students), so I think combining them will be a nice way to get bigger class sizes, more collaboration and more crossing over between subjects, so that journalism can, as it’s doing in real life, hopefully cross over to more mediums than just print.

I also spent this morning touring a lakeside Incline Village home. Beautiful remodel designed by the talented Elise Fett, and very enjoyable to be able to not just tour but also meet the wonderful homeowners. I should tour my remaining homes next week, then hopefully power through my articles before the holidays gear up entirely. I feel like it’s an ambitious goal given the other things going on, but here’s hoping! And either way, it’ll be nice to make a dent in the workload before the Christmas chaos.

Whew. I’ve been bad about posting again, but in my defense I’ve been crazed for about the past month or so! School is going well, but unfortunately a few weeks ago, Tanya Canino, the teacher whom I’d taken over for while she focused on her cancer treatments, died. It was a huge blow to the students, and has been hard on me, too, as she was still helping me out with class information, scheduling, advice. Anyway, it’s been very sad, but we are trying to push on while preserving her memory.

On another note, I’m taking four students to a conference in Washington D.C. in about two weeks! We’re attending the National College Media Convention. Should be incredible: Keynote speakers are Edward Snowden, Bob Woodward, Donna Brazile and Jose Antonio Vargas. It will be great, if a little chaotic—students return late on a Sunday night, then have a long Monday putting together the next issue of the paper.

And speaking of chaos, I don’t think things will calm down much anytime too soon: I’ve got Home Tours for TQ’s Mountain Home Awards, my write-up for the Winter issue, plus some random travel (besides the conference, the family and I did last weekend in South Lake Tahoe and are going to San Francisco, then Sacramento twice in the next two months), my daughter’s birthday and Halloween (which we are already preparing for in my house). It’s good, but I feel like I’m going to blink and it’ll be Christmas! And on that note, I should get back to preparing tomorrow’s midterm.

I think this past week counted as the official end of summer for me: I’ve been swamped! I had an interview with the marvelous Marianne Rosenfeld last Sunday (she’ll be our featured artist for the next issue of TQ), and in between trying to put together that article for TQ, I’ve also been trying to update my syllabuses for the upcoming semester at Sierra Nevada College (class starts on August 22… eek!), finish three articles for the Tahoe Forest Health System (and they called yesterday to do see if I could write two more asap… double eek!) and prepare my 5-year-old to start kindergarten on Monday (my baby is off to school… triple eek!).

Anyway, it’s great, I love the work and it’s fun having such different projects to work on, but I’ve also been operating in chaos mode for the past few days. I’ve finished just about all the articles though, so now I can focus on the school year—mine and my daughter’s! I don’t know which of us I’m more nervous/excited for!

I’ve taken a summer break from blogging (I’ve taken a summer break from most things, as a matter of fact!) but break is just about over! It’s been fantastic: I spent time with family in Pennsylvania, my husband and I did a big European adventure—Paris, Budapest and Germany—then we got back to Nevada to spent nice long days at the pool, with friends, boating at Lake Tahoe… all sorts of good adventures.

In the meantime, the Summer issue of Tahoe Quarterly hit the stands (and looks fantastic!). This was the first issue with TQ’s new editor, Sylas Wright, at the reins. It was hard saying goodbye to Kyle, but I think Sylas will be a fantastic fit for the job. I’ve got an article about painter Jude Bischoff, and I wrote the Looking Back piece about the history of the Hyatt Lake Tahoe throughout the years. Before it was the Hyatt, it was a teamster-owned casino called Kings Castle. It didn’t last long: the owner kidnapped and threatened his keno manager, and it went bankrupt not too long after. Still, pretty interesting!

I’m not trying to start transitioning back into work mode—I’ve got an article to write for TQ’s Ski & Ride issue, some freelance work to complete, plus I need to start prepping for my second semester at Sierra Nevada College. I’ll be teaching the same classes as last semester and am really excited to return!

And in other news, I saw this Where Budapest in a hotel while I was traveling. I was pretty excited to see a publication that I’ve worked for in a very unfamiliar place!

I just submitted final grades for my classes, which means that my first semester teaching is officially DONE! We ended on a really high note: Tanya put together her annual Golden Quill Awards at Alibi in Incline, so we all gathered for beer and food. An old student of Tanya’s, Jason Paladino, came to talk to everyone. He’s doing some really interesting investigative reporting now and was such an inspiration to listen to! Tanya and I handed out awards (as was repeated through the night, “Journalists love to give each other awards.”), everyone had some drinks and food. I thought it was really interesting, too, because I got to meet some old students, some students in some of Tanya’s and Ann Marie’s classes, plus some people, like Mayumi of Moonshine Ink, whose name I’d heard forever and never had a face to match.

The final exam was on Monday and everyone did well enough on it. I thought it was really interesting: I made up a bunch of fake “facts” and had people construct a news story from it. If they need me to teach in the fall (which is still up in the air), I think this will be something I definitely try out as a lesson. It was amazing to me how different the stories were, even though everyone was working from the exact same set of information.

As much as I enjoyed the year and working at Sierra Nevada College, it felt good today to hit “submit” on my last batch of final exams. Now, time to celebrate!