Hello readers! Welcome to the new home of Cedar’s Digest.

I have decided to integrate my blog with my professional website, no longer putting a wall between my blog and my website that presents a more professional and scholarly profile.

I began a blog in 2005, posting some book reviews that I submitted for the Virginia Quarterly Review (many did not actually get printed, as a graduate student, you could get a free review copy if you pledged to write a 500 word review). Here’s a good one on Rebekah Nathan’s My Freshmen Year, in which an anthropology professor goes back to college (undercover) and tells of her experience. I also posted random stuff I found that I thought was cool. Like the Chronicles of Narnia rap. Or extolling the virtues of McSweeney’s Lists.

As time has gone on, I have found my blog becoming more formal and bigger part of my professional and scholarly work. I find myself trying to restrict my blogging to issues where my training and expertise give me something unique to contribute, and therefore, while still often personal, it has become a lot more professional.

So now, in the tabs above, you can see how I structure some of the facets of my professional life. I hope that people who read or find the blog might also find some of the rest of the site useful as well. If you find yourself drawn into a blog post about higher education advising, you could read about my advising philosophy, or even find some useful forms that I use to guide my students through the process of asking for a recommendation.

One final note, I have also moved, from the wordpress.org website, to my own hosted site. I have been inspired by the Open VA conference, and wanted to take more control of my own web identity. My entire site in now hosted by Reclaim Hosting, a wonderful little company run by people associated with Mary Washington University, Jim Groom and Tim Owens. I have had a great experience with them so far, and I would recommend very Reclaim Hosting highly for anyone, especially academics, looking to take control of their own web identity. One benefit for you, dear reader, is that there will no longer be any ads on any pages.

Ok, thanks for reading, and I would welcome any comments on any aspect of the site.