The sky says two with the buffalo that drift across the grass.
Like shadows of my cloud you go the days your herd will pass.
The water tells the buffalo your leaders seek me out.
They smell my creek or water hole and save the herd from drought.
The sky and water, wind and grass, the native people know long past all know the buffalo;
from time so long ago.
The wind will tell.
We do these sorts of trips for a number of different reasons.
First of all faculty member may come to the prairie and see something or hear something,
that if they can take back to their classes that will enrich their students experiences
in whatever kind of class the faculty might be teaching.
We also do these trips because it gives people at the college a chance to get to know each
other in a somewhat unstructured setting and that leads to a greater sense of a campus
community.
When you spend time with someone experiencing something new there is a kind of bonding that
happens.
It doesn't happen in a formal meeting environment or in a formal meeting over a process.
Whether it be accounting or some other college process.
We also do this because it's an example of what experiential is supposed to really be
about.
You immerse yourself in a place in an ecosystem, in a culture and you come away with a much
deeper understanding of what that is and how ecology and culture and food and work and
history all play together to create what we call a place and by doing experiential trips
like this Flint Hills trip we get a chance to actually see and feel what that kind of
learning looks like.
One thing this trip does is get me in touch with uh, and teach me about Kansas and how
Kansas is important and particular I use a lot of the information I gain on these trips
in my classes.
For example where a Kaw mission side and it's nice for the students to know what the relationship
of Kansas is to their Native American are or have been in the past.
As someone whose new to the area, that's part of what drove me to participate in the trip.
It gives me a little bit more sense of the place of my new home.
In that sense it's been incredibly useful because my own background has never brought
be this far west, so this is all very sort of new and strange to me and an enjoyable
sort of way.
It's been twenty nine years since I was in my last college classroom and I felt like
I was in one again except this one was a lot more fun.
I appreciated it a lot more.
It's been a really awesome experience and I really appreciated the opportunity to get
to go.
It's been great as far as learning some of the history of our country.
The history of Kansas and again not something that I learned because I grew up in Oregon.
So I didn't know very much about Kansas and all the history that has happened here.
So this trip has been very beneficial in teaching me about that.
I love when I get a chance as an adjunct, where all adjuncts can go to a conference
which is rare because it takes you outside your regular world and then you bring a lot
of stuff back.
This is not like a conference and you bring more back because it comes through your whole
soul.
I'm out there collecting the largest acorns I've ever seen in the world and I'm going
to share topics because of the uniqueness with metaphors with my students.
You can't not come here and go back changed and then who feels it; the students plus our
smiles when we see each other in the hallways.
That's right.
Plus a few of the nut cases back there.
So thank you so much for this interview and we appreciate everything that you're doing
for the college.
We hope to return, I mean I do.
If I get another chance I'll do it again.
Yes.
Bye.
The sky says two with the buffalo that drift across the grass.
Like shadows of my cloud you go the days your herd will pass.
The water tells the buffalo your leaders seek me out.
They smell my creek or water hole and save the herd from drought.
The sky and water, wind and grass, the native people know long past all know the buffalo;
from time so long ago.
The Indian tells the buffalo you give us all our power.
You help us feed our children as sunlight grows the flower.