Only Connect

Many of you may recognize this as the title of Bill Cronon’s classic (1998) essay, “‘Only Connect…’ The Goals of a Liberal Education,” which may have reached a point of overexposure a few years ago. But now, if you find yourself in need of recentering after submitting midterm grades and before diving into the next round of assignments, I’d recommend revisiting his reflections. In all of its earnestness tinged with elitism, the essay also gets directly to the heart of what remains inspirational about teaching in a liberal arts setting.

But the title itself is what is playing on repeat in my mind. “Only connect” is excellent advice for navigating the path between now and Thanksgiving.

Only connect with your students. About course materials, about their other classes and things on their minds, about something you noticed in the world on the way to work that will help you all connect to the world around us. This is the path through the challenges of midterms, grade anxieties, and genAI misuse into the satisfaction of learning.

Only connect with your colleagues. About the hard things, the good things, the random things, and the interesting things. About the deflating teaching moments and the class times when there’s no place you’d rather be. This is the path away from feeling like your teaching challenges belong only to you and toward remembering that we are a community of teacher-scholars.

Only connect with your own curiosity. About possibilities, conundrums, other people, and other ways of thinking. This is the path into intellectual and interpersonal engagement that energizes us in our teaching and scholarship instead of draining us.

As the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, the small steps matter even more. Only connect.