By's Musings

Communication

By 6 Comments

Living with Aphasia- Chopping Down the Telephone Tree

Living with Aphasia

Chopping Down the Telephone Tree

By Baylis

After three recent telephone calls that were very frustrating, I had one of those “Wild: Out of the Blue Thoughts.” What if George Washington had chopped down his father’s telephone tree instead of his father’s cherry’ tree?

Telephone trees are those automated response systems that you get when you call many businesses or professional offices. You know the ones, where a very polite individual with either a very pleasant or super business-like voice says, “Please listen to the following options and select the most appropriate. If you want       information about XYZ, press 1; if you want information about PQR, press 2; if you want information about ABC, press 3; and usually after what seems to be half an hour, if you want to speak to an operator, press 0. Even before my aphasia, I had problems with these telephone trees. Many times, I had difficulty in relating my problem to the options provided, so most of the time I would dutifully press 0. After my aphasia I have two new problems: 1) I can’t follow the options. I don’t understand what they are saying as they are saying them; and 2) by the time the list is finished, I can’t remember what number corresponded with what option.  For awhile I tried writing down the options as they were listed. However, on many of these trees the speed at which the list was given was way too fast for me to follow and write down an intelligible note with corresponding number from the telephone pad. To get the list repeated, I couldn’t remember what number to push. I tried a plan that was suggested to me by a friend who said he had discovered a way around these telephone trees. He said he always punches in 0 repeatedly, as soon as the list starts and continues to press 0 until a real live person speaks on the other end of the phone. Before all of you start following this plan, the telephone companies are smart enough to know what people are doing, so they have recommended businesses change-up their options on their trees, sometimes even removing 0 as a viable alternative altogether.

Before everyone accuses me of hating all telephone trees, I will admit that there have been several times during my 40 years as an academic administrator that I have implemented them in offices that I was supervising. In each of these cases it was to ease the workload of an overworked receptionist who would have had to divert her attention from the steady stream of live students that had come into the office for service. Who do you want to offend the most, the student standing right in front of you or the individual on the phone that you can’t see and who can’t see you? The purpose of the tree was to direct calls to an appropriate person to handle the question, or in off-hour times when the office was closed, to get the customers to the appropriate answering machine or voice mail so that their question could be answered quickly the next time the office was opened. When we set up those phone trees, we tried to make them very simple and short with no more than 3 options, not like some of the ones that I have encountered recently. On one call last week, there were 8 options, not counting the option of talking to an operator which was option 7. If you pushed 0 on that tree, the list of options started all over again. “AHA, Tricky, we got you!”

I am convinced that some of these telephone trees would not pass muster with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Where’s George when you need him?

By Leave a Comment

Can Faculty Learn from a Broadway Musical

An article that first appeared in the July 4, 2010 e-edition of the Technology Section of The Chronicle of Higher Education was repeated in the July 9, 2010 e-edition of Academe Today. The article was entitled “Linked In With: A Writer Who Questions the Wisdom of Teaching with Technology.”  Because I was familiar with Carr’s writings, this article caught my attention and I had to read it, even though I was confident of what I was going to find. The author of the article, Marc Parry, was talking about and interviewing Nicholas Carr, the author of a book entitled, “The Shallows,” and many articles, including “IT Doesn’t Matter” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“As usual, Carr was questioning the efficacy of technology in assisting in the teaching and learning process. This article was vintage Carr.

I believe education is meeting students where they are and helping them to get to where they want and ought to be. If where they want to be is not where they ought to be, then our first job in education is to help them see where they ought to be. I believe every prospective teacher should watch the musical, “My Fair Lady.” Can teachers learn anything from a Broadway musical? I think they can if they are paying attention, especially if they are asked to reflect on one particular scene. The scene takes place in the Professor’s study, when he and the Colonel are celebrating Eliza’s triumphant debut at the gala. Colonel Pickering keeps saying, “You said that you could do it, and you did it.” Professor Higgins replies:”Yes I did it.” But did you see Eliza in the corner of the room crying and sobbing, “What have you done? “ They replied:”We made you a lady.” Eliza responded, “I never asked to be a lady. All I wanted was to be able to speak well enough to sell flowers at the corner shop. Now that I am a lady, there is nothing left for me to do, but to sell myself and marry a gentleman.” The Professor and the Colonel used good pedagogy and “taught her well”, but they didn’t listen to what she wanted, and they definitely didn’t help her understand what it was to be a lady and why that was important.

The following exchange between Perry and  Carr reminded me of that scene from “My Fair Lady:”Perry asked Carr: “If the Internet is making us so distracted, how did you manage to write a 224-page book and read all the dense academic studies that much of it is based on?” Carr responded, “It was hard. The reason I started writing it was because I noticed in myself this increasing inability to pay attention to stuff, whether it was reading or anything else. When I started to write the book, I found it very difficult to sit and write for a couple of hours on end or to sit down with a dense academic paper.” I have found that most of our students today don’t know how to sit down for a couple of hours to read or write. They mentally and physically can’t sit for a couple of hours to read or write. They definitely don’t know how to sit down and read a dense paper. They also don’t know why that should be important. It is not enough for us to tell them just to do it, because it is important and it is good for them. How often to our question of why, do we accept the answer, “Because I told you so; besides it is good for you; or you ought to do it.” At one point in the article after renouncing the use of the internet, Carr says, “my abilities to concentrate did seem to strengthen again. I felt in a weird way intellectually or mentally calmer. And I could sit down and write or read with a great deal of attentiveness for quite a long time.” Our students don’t know why that is important for them unless we help them learn that. Just telling that it is good and that it works for us is not enough. If we want to reach these students, we need to meet them where they are and help them see the benefits of the reflective pursuit of knowledge and truth for them. If we don’t do that, these students might well be like Eliza, sitting in the corner crying that we didn’t listen to them, and we haven’t. The other more likely possibility is they will give up, walk away and never engage in the reflective pursuit of knowledge.

My next question may sound like heresy coming from someone within the academy, “Is the reflective pursuit of knowledge the only way to obtain knowledge? The ancient Greeks allowed and even encouraged at least three different ways of knowing, theoria, poiesis and praxis. Theoria is the word from which we get our words theory and theoretical. In ancient Greece, it meant contemplation or seeing by observation. It developed into the idea of the theoretical pursuit of knowledge and truth through contemplation or reflection. Poiesis is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria  was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.

I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may not at first seem comfortable to us?

is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.
I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may at first not seem comfortable to us?

By Leave a Comment

Momentary Absences: Epilepsy, Aphasia or Senior Moments?

Momentary Absences: Epilepsy, Aphasia or Senior Moments?

Have you ever had one of those moments when you are not sure of where you are? They are sometimes called momentary absences. Or you know someone just asked you a question, but you didn’t understand the question or you can’t think of a reply, or you know the answer but can’t communicate it? Or you were doing something and you seemed to doze off? For those of us who are slightly age challenged, and have been diagnosed with epilepsy and aphasia, we have three conditions upon which we can blame these momentary absences. If they become more frequent, it behooves us to try to determine the source or sources of the absences.

When many hear the term epilepsy, they have a picture of violent convulsions or an attack of unconsciousness with either stiffness or floppiness. What is epilepsy? It is not a disease. According to the Encarta Dictionary, epilepsy is a medical disorder involving episodes of irregular electrical discharges in the brain and characterized by the periodic sudden loss or impairment of consciousness. These episodes are called seizures. Seizures can be large with total loss of consciousness and accompanied by convulsions, rigidity or floppiness, or small with what appears to be a momentary absence of some or several body functions. Some individuals are born with the tendency to have these irregular electrical discharges and hence, seizures. For others these irregular electrical discharges and hence, the seizures, begin after a traumatic brain event, such as a stroke, injury or operation. My seizures began after the removal of a benign brain tumor which was discovered when a blood vessel in the tumor burst, filling my cranial cavity with blood and causing all the symptoms of a stroke. My seizures most likely are a result of the scar tissue left after the removal of the tumor. I had four grand-mal or total generalized seizures within a 30 minute time-frame. I was hospitalized and stabilized. I was put on anti-seizure medication and I have not had any large-scale seizures since those first four.  I can’t tell you if I have had any “mini-seizures.” My neurologist has done several EEG’s. After one of them, she said that it showed lots of spurious activities. (I jokingly remarked, “So what’s new?”). When we asked her what that meant, she said that it could be a sign of lots of mini-seizures or the prelude to another major one.

I have come up with my own way of identifying my moments of absence. If I start to do something and before I can do it or finish it, I get sidetracked, that’s a senior moment. If I can’t remember to do something that I am supposed to do, again that’s a senior moment. If I find myself struggling in a conversation to find the right word or expression, that’s the aphasia. If I can’t understand the telephone answering tree when I call a company, that’s the aphasia. If I can’t understand and follow written instructions, that’s also the aphasia. If I am sitting in the lounger in the living room watching television, reading the newspaper, doing a crossword puzzle or a Sudoku, and I seem to zone out, then that’s probably the epilepsy. Of all the momentary absence, these scare my wife the most because she says that what happened in our car just before the first grand-mal seizure. One moment she was talking with me and I was slow responding to her. I was staring straight ahead with a blank expression on my face. Then I didn’t respond at all to her question and I became stiff and lost consciousness. When I zone out now, she keeps pumping me with questions to make sure that I am in there somewhere. Most of the time, I respond by her third question. Except for the dangers of seizures, it is convenient to have three excuses for unresponsiveness and lack of completing tasks. I used to have only one excuse, which was “selective hearing.” Occasionally, I still pull that one out of my back pocket to use.

By 1 Comment

Where are the Simon Cowells within the Academy

 Where are the Simon Cowells within the Academy?

By Baylis ?2

 

I am not an American Idol fanatic, but I will admit that I do enjoy watching it. I will even admit that Simon Cowell is my favorite judge. The reason that I like Simon is because I think he gives the most accurate evaluation of the contestants’ performances. Simon once said something that was almost profound. When asked why he was so hard on the contestants, he said, “I was not hired to be a friend to the contestants. I was hired to help them improve and to help the show to find the best performer.” This philosophy of accurate and consistent evaluations pegged to real world standards suggests a situation that I believe troubles the academy.

There are at least three manifestations of a lack of a Simon Cowell philosophy within the academy.  The first place it shows up is with student grades. Many of us use the expression, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” whether we believe it or not. A topical search of the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals more than 300 articles or blogs in the Chronicle about grade inflation. That’s a lot of smoke; is there a fire?

A 2001 highly publicized statement by Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield led to an investigative report by the Boston Globe. The report resulted in a stinging exposé the likes of which were normally reserved for political corruption. The report exposed the fact that many students were receiving A’s and being graduated with honors. Mansfield claimed that the grades that Harvard professors were now giving “deserved to be a scandal.” Some of the claims of Mansfield and the Boston Globe were collaborated by a 1993 U.S. News and World Report article that reported the following statistics: in 1992, 91 percent of all undergraduate grades at Harvard were B- or higher. In 1993, more than 80 percent of all Harvard seniors graduated with honors.

But Harvard was not the only university with these types of numbers. An internal Minnesota State University Mankato article on grade inflation reported an average GPA of 2.93 for all undergraduates, noting that this is nearly a B average. This Mankato report quoted  a 1993  U.S. News and World Report article written by John Leo entitled “A for Effort , or Showing Up” ,that suggested only 6 percent of all student grades at Stanford were C’s. Leo also claimed that prior to 1993, Stanford did not permit an F grade.

In 1995 Ron Darby, a Chemical Engineering Professor, wrote a memorandum to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate, on the subject of grading standards. Darby begins his memo by claiming “that a serious situation exists within our university that will probably result (if it hasn’t already) in very serious consequences relative to the credibility and reputation of this institution.” To what situation was he referring? The situation was the “establishment, enforcement, and maintenance of reasonable standards of performance for students, and related qualifications for degrees…”

Darby went to the Texas A&M University Regulations to point out that grades assigned by instructors should be assigned according to the degrees of achievement:

A         Excellent

B         Good

C         Satisfactory

D         Passing

F         Failing

Darby continued by suggesting that there should be a direct correspondence between these grading levels and the levels of proficiency demonstrated by our students. However, Darby continued by suggesting that the “vast majority of instructors on this campus consider the grade of C to be unsatisfactory.” Therefore, they assign other grades accordingly.  Darby gave an example of a report turned in by an undergraduate student in his department. Two other departmental faculty members decried the quality of this report, but noted that instead of the grade of D or F that it deserved, the report had actually received a grade of B-.

Darby with a certain sense of irony noted that the average grade in many of the departmental courses that emphasized technical writing was a B+ or A-. In spite of the fact that the department was frequently reminded by the employers that hired departmental graduates, those communication skills were the greatest weaknesses of Texas A&M grads.

Darby continues by outlining the problems that are a result of grade inflation.

The integrity of the institution can be questioned, if the institution is graduating students who have demonstrated less than satisfactory performance, the institution has lost its creditability in the eyes of the prospective employers of those graduates.,

  1. The students themselves eventually suffer because when they get into the “real world,” they will find that their sloppy work with which they got by in college will not cut it out there.
  2. The instructors suffer eventually because those less competent students that are graduated with good grades will reflect negatively on the instructors.
  3. The institution with low standards suffers via a bad reputation which will eventually effect recruitment of students, faculty, grants and gifts.
  4. The employers who hire graduates expecting them to be qualified and find that they are not reap the consequences of having to retrain those individuals or replace them with competent employees.
  5. The public suffers because the public does not get what it is paying for, whether through financial aid to students at private institutions or direct budget assistance to public institutions.

 

Darby concludes his memo with a proposed solution. Darby proposes that the institution and individual faculty members should adopt essentially the Simon Cowell philosophy for evaluating student performance, i.e., a standard consistent with the standard that they will experience after graduation. If the institution and faculty would do that, everyone would be assured that there was a definite correlation between performance in school and performance later on the job.

A 2002 Chronicle of Higher Education article written by Alfie Kohn began with the statement “grade inflation got started in the late 60’s and early 70’s.” Many people both inside and outside the academy believe this statement. However, Kohn continues by reminding us of the 1894 Harvard Committee on Raising the Standard which suggested that “grades of A and B were given too readily, with grades of A given got “work of no [sic] very high merit” and grades of B for “work not far above mediocrity.” The 1894 Harvard report concluded that “one of the chief obstacles to raising the standards of the degree is the readiness with which insincere students gain passable grades by sham work.” Apparently the concern about grade inflation among faculty has been around for more than a century.

Is grade inflation really a problem; and should we be concerned? What’s wrong with inflated grades? Ron Darby’s memo outlines a number of problems with inflated grades. What are the purposes of grades? Many in education and most people outside the academy believe that grades are supposed to be a gauge of how much a student knows or how well he or she can do something. If we inflate grades, it gives students and others an improper evaluation of the knowledge or skills of the given student, making us susceptible to the problems Darby outlines.

The second place we need the Simon Cowell philosophy is in the annual evaluations of both faculty and staff. At one institution at which I worked, I was asked by the Director of Human Resources to help design a better annual evaluation form. Why? The form that was in use had a number of characteristics listed relevant to the particular job under consideration. The supervisor was asked to indicate for each characteristic whether the employee met expectations, exceeded expectations, or failed to meet expectations. One year over 80% of employees exceeded expectations on 75% of the characteristics listed for their jobs. We were living in Lake Wobegon.

The one change to the form that I suggested was to require supervisors who gave an employee anything other than a rating of met expectations, to also give a concrete example what the employee did to exceed or fail to meet the expectations. The supervisor was also required to discuss the ratings with the employee in a short given time frame and the employee was given the opportunity to append a statement explaining his or her perspective on this matter. The number of employees who exceeded expectations dropped dramatically and very few employees disputed their fail to meet expectation ratings. After several years of using this new form, the Director of Human Resources had a paper trail to assist in decisions about promotions or dismissals. Since the employee had an opportunity to discuss each review annually and respond to what he or she thought were errors, the employee could not claim that he or she didn’t know how his or her performance was viewed by the supervisor and the institution.

  • In the Match 28, 2010 issue of the Chronicle Review, Ben Yogoda expressed the usual faculty thinking about annual evaluations in his article, Why I Hate Annual Evaluations. These evaluations are useless and evaluate the wrong things, or evaluate the right things improperly or in the wrong ways. Since many faculty members have a predisposition to the conclusions expressed by Yogoda, the mounds of research to the contrary are of no avail. If you have s positive interest in SEF or are dead set against them, you should check out Peter Centra’s book Reflective Faculty Evaluation and the research that is available at The Idea Center website www.ideacenter.org. Another good resource on faculty evaluation is a handbook for college faculty on art of evaluation and developing a comprehensive evaluation system written by  R. A. Areola, (2000), entitled. Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System: A Handbook for College Faculty and Administrators on Designing and Operating a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System.  None of these three resources will mention Simon Cowell by name. But all three emphasize the necessity of honest and consistent evaluation of performance measured against the ideal professional standard, which is what Simon calls for and is criticized for doing. However, it we follow this path, it will find us the best performer, whether on stage or in the classroom.

 

A post on Sprynet.com by Michael Huemer, entitled Student Evaluations: A Critical Review attempts to highlight the enormous body of literature on student evaluations of faculty performance (SEF).Sprynet is an inexpensive web posting service provided by Earthlink. Thus I will have to admit that Huemer’s posting is not peer-reviewed. However, most of the literature Huemer cites is peer-reviewed. I found very interesting two notes on the validity of ratings of instructors. The first note was on whether ratings of instructors change as years pass. Peter Centra in his book Reflective Faculty Evaluation makes the claim that SEF tend to correlate well with retrospective evaluations by alumni. Former students do not change their perceptions of their instructors over time. The second note was that one of the favorite evaluative methods espoused by faculty at least for tenure was found in multiple tests not to be valid. This evaluative method is peer evaluations and peer observations. In an article that appeared in Volume 52 (1997) of American Psychology written by Herbert W. Marsh and Lawrence Q. A. Roche, it was shown that multiple tests of ratings by colleagues and trained observers did not substantially agree with each other’s ratings of a given instructor. Thus these ratings were found not to be reliable which is a necessary condition for validity. This reminds me of the ratings given by the judges on American Idol. Many times the ratings and critiques did not agree. Why would faculty prefer peer evaluations when faculty generally close their classrooms off and don’t let each other know what they are doing? I have some suspicions. One is that faculty believe that colleagues will be easier on them than students since they are going through the same trials and tribulations. Here is where we need Simon Cowell as a colleague to give an honest assessment of our performance.

The third place the Simon Cowell philosophy is needed is on promotion and tenure committees. In spite of the recent publicity about professors being denied tenure, what happens when we dig into the statistics about tenure denials and tenure approvals? Peter Fogg in a Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled “No, NO, a Dozen Times No”[1] discusses the recent history of tenure decisions at University of North Texas., in particular, one year in which 12 faculty members up for tenure were denied. Fogg makes the claim that until 2003, getting tenure was almost a sure thing at UNT since “only one of the 33 professors who ever went up for tenure was denied. The year before, none of the 25 professors who applied got the thumbs down”

When I assumed the reins of CAO at one institution, I reviewed the recent promotion and tenure decisions at that institution. There was one recently tenured and promoted faculty member that caught my attention because I kept hearing rumors of incompetence. When I investigated, I came to believe the rumors. When I inquired of the Chair of the P & T committee concerning the rationale for promoting and granting tenure to this individual, I was somewhat surprised by the answer. The Chair responded that the committee knew the faculty member was not a good teacher; however, the faculty member was a great person and was a close friend of many members of the P & T committee. Their children played together. How could they turn such a good person out into the streets? Tenure’s Up or Out Policy is difficult to apply to friends. In the meantime, the department in which this faculty member taught was suffering badly and rapidly losing students each year. I had to remind the P&T Committee of its responsibility to help provide quality education for students and not to reward their friends. We needed Simon Cowell on our P & T Committee.

[1] Information taken from Peter Fogg’s article, No,NO A Dozen Times No” which was written October 1, 2oo4, but appeared in Chronicle of Higher Education April 20, 2010 in the  Faculty Volume 51, Issue 6, Page A12

By Leave a Comment

Hello world!

Welcome to my site. THe following Grand Rapids Press article tells a little bit about my story. This story told the story to October 2009. On December 30, 2009, another adventure began. I had four grand mal seizures and was hospitalized again for a week. I am now classified as an epileptic with all the challenges of that disease. I hope the blog will help me speak about higher education the thing that I love the most besides God, my wife and the rest of my family. I hope to post an original essay each Monday and a commentary on a selected news item from the top Higher Education Newsletters.  For those who are wondering what’s up with the beta squared, since my initials are BB and I am a mathematician, I have been using beta squared for years as my initials. ?2

Former Cornerstone University provost develops aphasia after blood vessel bursts in brain

By Nardy Baeza Bickel | The Grand Rapids Pr…

November 21, 2009, 4:35AM

GRAND RAPIDS — For 40 years, Bayard “By” Baylis has worked with words to develop curriculum for students and to help faculty teach better, most recently as the provost at Cornerstone University.

But after undergoing brain surgery earlier this year, words have been a bit tricky for Baylis: They behave like cats, not dogs, the educator said.

Bayard BaylisCourtesy Photo of Former Cornerstone University provost Bayard Baylis, shown here with his wife, Elaine Baylis, had a blood vessel burst in a brain tumor and developed aphasia, a disorder that impairs language skills.“Dogs come when you want them, but cats … they come to you when they want to come to you, not when you call them,” said Baylis, trying to explain what it feels to live with mild aphasia, a communication disorder that limits a person’s usage and
understanding of language.

Learning how to pick through his brain to find the right words has not been easy for the 63-year-old, who until recently spent his days revamping Cornerstone’s curriculum and designing new strategies to improve student retention and enrollment at Christian institutions.

“He was a beloved provost because of his humble manner. Faculty and students could sense that he cared about them. He’s such a good listener,” said Alan Blanchard, who worked with Baylis in developing Cornerstone’s journalism program he directs.

“He really seems to genuinely care about people.”

Now, Baylis keeps a small notebook in his shirt pocket to make sure he will capture the ideas as they come to him. He also color-codes the ideas throughout his writings to make sure he does not leave any of them without proper explanation.

“That’s part of the insidiousness of the disease. There are times that I know I sound as if I’m making sense, but it’s not the sense I wanted to make. This week I’ve been (writing) an article about liberal arts and practical education, and I’m trying to understand the ancient Greek system. It’s just been a battle,” he said.

The experience has done nothing but strengthen his relationship with God, Baylis said.

“God is a god of miracles and not a god of convenience,” Baylis said. “The timing of the episode was a small miracle. If it had happened 15 minutes later, I would have been making 70 mph on I-96. And if it had happened a couple of months later, we would have been in Illinois, not knowing many people, not having doctors, not knowing the medical (community).”

“That in itself was a miracle,” agreed his wife, Elaine Baylis.

This spring, Baylis resigned as the second-in-command at Cornerstone to revamp the academic curriculum at Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL, where he was to become dean and vice president of academic affairs.

He was in a meeting with faculty and staff at Cornerstone when he got the worst headache he ever has had.

His speech became slurred, he broke out in a cold sweat, and his face became ash-white.

Baylis has no recollection of what happened later: Of his friends calling 911, fearing he had suffered a stroke; of the ambulance ride to the hospital and of doctors finding, and removing, a non-cancerous tumor in his brain.

His wife, 63, was told to gather the family. If he made it out of the operating room, doctors told her, he never would be the same.

When Baylis woke up after surgery, his speech was altered, but he couldn’t tell the difference.

“It was so frustrating. There was a word that described the condition I wanted to describe and I couldn’t come up with it. I would have trouble following directions, oral or written,” Baylis said.

After months of physical, occupational and speech therapy, Baylis said, he is doing much better. Now retired, he had to pass up the job at Trinity.

He can follow a conversation without much help and already passed a test to regain his driver’s license.

But he still is easily exhausted and, once in a while, words elude him, he said.

Just recently, while attending a funeral service for a Cornerstone employee, Baylis said he had trouble recalling names of former colleagues.

“I knew what they did. I knew what they taught. I knew where their offices were, but I couldn’t come up with their names,” he said.

Still, he pushes forward. Baylis and his wife hope to move soon to Pennsylvania to be close to his family. They still spend most of the mornings, and some afternoons, talking with colleagues about the future of academia and what colleges should do to better to educate students.

E-mail Nardy Bickel: nbickel@grpress.com