Weekly Wisdom

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle

I like to consider myself a pretty good student. I am normally good about getting my homework done on time and being prepared for class. In turn I would say that I became an excellent student. But everything changed this semester. I am in a class where all motivation is lost; all habits I once possessed got thrown out the window as soon as I became aware of the "no-so-negative consequences--at least I thought. It turns out now that I have just set myself self up for defeat. I have put off a major paper and am struggling to do everything last minute. This might sound normal for many of you, but for a major research paper like this it is not good for anyone to wait until the last minute to still have research to do. I put this upon myself as soon as I checked my good habits. It will be a struggle, but I am going to work hard to get out of this rut; it is not too late. 

I want to remind you all the same: it is not too late. The semester is coming to a quick close and many things must get done. To be frank, you would be surprised how much you can actually accomplish if you resist taking a two hour nap in the afternoon, find a good study group that motivates you to actually work, shut off the television while you work, and many more... As Aristotle has made plausible, it is not about whether or not you have the ability to do something but rather if you have the will to get it done. These are two different things; don't let you fear of incapability get in the way of trying to be excellent. In this sense you truly can accomplish anything you set you mind on.

-Margaret Gruhler

Author Spotlight

Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

Famous Works Include: Horton Hears a Who (1954), The Cat in the Hat (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), The Lorax (1971), and The Butter Battle Book (1984).

Born Theodor Seuss Geisel, the famous rhyming Doctor wrote the film Design for Death, which won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Over the course of his life, Dr. Seuss published 46 different children's books, which are often characterized by imaginative characters, fantastical rhymes, and the frequent use of anapestic meter (a poetical meter that features two short syllables followed by a long syllable).

Quotes from Dr. Seuss:

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

"The more you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go."

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from the March 2009 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Weekly Wisdom

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased consistently, or it vanishes." -Peter Drucker

We have come to a crucial part of the semester. We are ready for not only spring weather to arrive, but for classes to conclude. Some are even waiting every day in anticipation for Flunk Day. While all of these things promise to come, we still have a very important thing to worry about--finishing our classes strong. It may be tough to go to classes when you know the end is in sight (only about 7 weeks left) but that is why I chose this quote.

Our goal of being here at college is to improve our knowledge, but you cannot improve if there is no effort. That is why we need to challenge knowledge. We need to challenge in order to gain a better understanding and thus continually increase our knowledge. It is no one's intention to have their knowledge vanish , but if we do not push through these past 7 weeks that is exactly what will happen. I urge everyone to take this note and work hard this week. Challenge knowledge and watch it increase and improve.

-Margaret Gruhler

Author Spotlight

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Famous Works Include: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1817), and Persuasion (1817).

Jane Austen was an English novelist of the early 19th century whose works of romantic fiction have cemented her place as one of the most widely read authors in English Literature. Sequels, prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort have been based on Austen's novels, proving her staying power in the Canon.

Quotes from Jane Austen:

"Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does."

"There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves."

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from the February 2009 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Weekly Wisdom

"Humility in our quest for success provides for the strongest sort of sustainable leadership, and facilitates the attainment of true success. It is the core of moral character and is a surprising springboard to both personal and competitive excellence." - Tom Morris

It took be by surprise when I stumbled across this quote because I just finished writing something for a class about how I lack humility. I am a quiet, shy, and highly respectable, and for those reasons when it comes to admitting my faults I freeze. We did this activity in class where we shared mean things we had said so we could see how much our words (no matter how seemingly small) hurt those around us. I, however, could not get past my own insecurities for the purpose of the assignment showing that I had no humility.

I wanted to share this with all of you in the hopes that I can make you think about your interactions with others. I always thought I was the kind of person who could show some humility when it was necessary but had my thoughts broken by one in-class activity. This one activity has caused me to think more critically about what I say and to whom I say things. Humility is not just being able to admit your own faults but to think before you speak that you would not put yourself on the level to hurt someone else. It is all about being considerate and thinking about the needs of those around you before your own. Show a random act of kindness day may have passed, but I urge all of you to keep it going this week and show a little humility.

-Margaret Gruhler

Author Spotlight

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Famous Works Include: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), Walden (1854), Autumnal Tints (1862), and The Maine Woods (1864).

Thoreau, a Harvard graduate, is admired for his observations of the natural world and the expression of his social philosophies in such essays as "Resistance to Civil Government" and "Life Without Principle." For two years, two months, and two days, Thoreau living in a small cabin near Walden Pond, using his experience of living the "simple life" as the basis for his book Walden.

Quotes from Henry David Thoreau:

"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from the January 2009 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Weekly Wisdom

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." -Margaret Atwood

Now that spring break is in full swing for Coe College I am excited to post about the changing of seasons. My favorite season is spring and for the very reason of smelling like dirt as Margaret Atwood has described above. Maybe this sounds gross, but just a few weeks ago I was walking around campus and remember getting excited because it smelled like dirt. It was refreshing, and gave me hope that spring would soon come. It was a glimpse of everything that is to come.

Spring is my favorite season because it is a time of getting rid of the old and bringing in the new. The semester winds down in the spring and our summer break begins during spring. Most of these things happen near the end, but the thought of all of these things comes at the beginning. When it is winter the times seem to drag on and on and is very dreary (especially in February). As soon as spring rolls around my attitude and mood changes; I can feel the end drawing closer and I become motivated to finish strong.

I encourage all of you to do the same--smell the dirt and finish strong because the end is in sight.

-Margaret Gruhler

Author Spotlight

Shel Silverstein (1930 - 1999)

Famous Works Include: The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Falling Up.

Silverstein's work did not include writing for children when he first began his career, but his editor and girlfriend, Ursula Nordstrom, encouraged him to write children's poetry. After having used his clever, silly ideas in his first book, Silverstein decided that he enjoyed the product and wanted to do it again.

He wrote the music and lyrics for "A Boy Named Sue," performed by Johnny Cash, for which Silverstein won a Grammy in 1970.

Silverstein confirmed that he never studied the poetry of others, and therefore developed his own style: laid-back and conversational, occasionally employing profanity and slang.

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from the December 2008 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

A Visit from the WPA!

This past Monday, our weekly staff meeting was given over to a visit from two members of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA). Doug Hesse and Eileen Schell were on campus for a three day visit in order to assess Coe's writing program and wanted to talk to the Writing Center staff in order to get our unique perspective on writing at Coe.

We talked for an hour, discussing the Writing Across the Curriculum program and the Writing Fellow program that so many of us have participated in. After our talk, we were able to take a staff photo with our guests! 

- The Blog Team

Weekly Wisdom

"How did it get so late so soon?" -Dr. Seuss

First I would like to apologize for not posting the last couple of weeks. While I have no excuse, I chose this quote because it really describes my life in the past weeks and how I have now become (as many would classify) a real "college student".

Life as a typical college student usually consists of long nights studying for upcoming tests or finishing assignments that are due the next day. This was not the case for me until the past couple of weeks. Before I was able to make it to bed by nine o'clock every night with all of my homework complete, but recently have not made it to bed before eleven o'clock just so I can finish all of my work. The ironic part of the whole situation is that it wasn't difficult; I kept anticipating a time where I would crash from sheer exhaustion and not be able to focus, but that didn't happen. In fact, I was working on a presentation earlier last week and thought to myself "wow! It is already after one o'clock in the morning and I am not even tired." I was essentially asking myself "how did it get so late so soon?"

You may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with you. I reply by testifying that this is college. All of the things that I found myself staying up late to work on were things that were of interest to me--work for my elementary education courses. If it was for work in any other course I cannot imagine straining myself to go beyond my usual limits of nine o'clock to complete work. This is the beauty of college: you get to study (for the most part) the things that interest you. This is at least my experience so far and if you take one thing out of this post I hope that it would be to embrace your studies and your interests and you too will be asking yourself "how did it get so late so soon?" Hopefully you will be eager to continue your studies no matter the time just because they are of interest to you.

-Margaret Gruhler

Author Spotlight

Anne McCaffrey (1926 - 2011)

Famous Works Include: Dragonriders of Pern series, Acorna series, The Tower and Hive series, The Brain and Brawn series, The Crystal Singer series.

McCaffrey is an American-born Irish writer of fantasy and science-fiction. In 1968 McCaffrey's short story "Weyr Search," the first story in the Dragonriders of Pern series, won a Hugo Award for Best Novella. McCaffrey thus became the first woman to win a Hugo for fiction. In 1978 her novel The White Dragon was published and became the first hardcover science fiction novel to make The New York Times bestseller list.

Until her death in 2011, she lived in a house of her own design in County Wicklow, Ireland and called her home Dragonhold-Underhill.

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Visitors to Coe College: Shelby Steele

This week's author is Shelby Steele, who visited Coe College in 1999.

Born in 1946, Shelby Steele received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1990 for his book The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. He studies the impact of race relations, and his most recent work is A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

(information found on his Goodreads profile)

Author Spotlight

Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

Famous Works Include: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

One of the most famous stories involving Hemingway is about a bet between him and his fellow authors. In the 1920s, Hemingway bet $10 that he could write a complete short story in just six words. His colleagues were forced to pay up. His story: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Famous Quotes Include:

"Anyone who says he wants to be a writer and isn't writing, doesn't."


"I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied. [The problem was] getting the words right."

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Visitors to Coe College: Salman Rushdie

Recently, Coe College was honored to have Salman Rushdie visit campus and give a speech.

Salman Rushdie was born in India in 1947, and used that nation as the setting for many of his early works. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including a Knighthood in the United Kingdoms. 

During his speech, he made three comments in particular which stood out to me. The first is that a writer is a servant of their work, and they must use their talents to tell a story, not to make a point (though hopefully they should be able to do both). He also advised that writers write the books they have to write, rather than just writing books for money or prestige because "even if everyone stopped writing books today, there would still be too many books". 

Outside the bounds of writing though, he was asked about his thoughts on freedom of speech as it related to hate speech. He stated that, while he lived in the United Kingdoms, there were laws in place which punished those who committed acts of hate speech, and he thought them wise and fair. However, upon spending more time in America, he decided that banning hate speech was unwise, because if it is spoken it can be brought to the light and dealt with, rather than festering in the darkness.

(more information found on his Goodreads profile)

Author Spotlight

Toni Morrison (1931 -   )

Famous Works Include: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Paradise, Love, A Mercy, Jazz, I Sula, The Big Box, and The Book of Mean People.

Morrison is quite the character -- she wrote her thesis on suicide in the works of Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. Her works too are somewhat polarizing, with difficult, controversial subject matter. She is also quite out-spoken; she famously called Bill Clinton "the first black President," saying that "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

Her gregarious nature seems to have served her well, though, as she is the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Morrison has also won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for Beloved, which has been made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Visitors to Coe College: Debra Marquart

This week's author is Debra Marquart, who visited Coe College in 2001.

Debra Marquart spent some time as a traveling musician, an experience she drew on in writing a collection of short stories she later published. She is currently employeed at Iowa State University, where she teaches English and MFAs in Creative Writing. Her most recent book: The Horizontal World: Growing Up in the Middle of Nowhere: A Memoir discusses rural life and was published in 2006.

(information found on her Goodreads profile)

Weekly Wisdom

"Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

This quote reflects a lot about my past week. My attention was demanded in so many different directions that it was difficult to stay focused and actually get things done. College can be tough and sometimes you have more to do than time allows but all that means is that you need to figure out how to get your priorities straight. For me it helps to write out my schedule on a white board. It gives me motivation to get things done not only on time but early so that I have more “free” time. Balance your time wisely and free time, even for a college student, is possible. In the past I have been the queen of free time; I have found it quite possible to get all of my homework done, on time, and still make it to bed by 9 or 10 at night. Maybe this makes me abnormal, but I know quite a few people who are quite jealous of this ability of mine.

Despite my previous notion of “free” time, I did mention that this past week has been quite difficult. I must admit that I am becoming more and more like the typical college student. Studying late and becoming sleep deprived. I have a huge course load this semester and I am doing everything I can not to be an “octopus”.

This happens to be my recent “octopus” experience, but I have a feeling all of you have similar experiences. Whether it is academic or not, I suggest that keeping your eye on one thing at a time. No matter how many things you have to do, many places you have to be, many people you have to see; you can’t do it all at once so you might as well prioritize and tackle it one at a time. The semester seems to have only begun and yet it is already a quarter of the way complete. Stay calm. Stay focused. Make it to spring break!

-Margaret Gruhler

CWC Blog Instagram of the Week

Here is the first edition of our Instagram of the Week! This is a (very artsy and square-shaped) photo of the CWC Blog Team's very own Patrick Johnson hard at work!

Stay tuned for more!

-Jane L

Author Spotlight

Kenzaburō Ōe (1935 -    )

Famous Works Include: Prize Catch, Nip the Buds Shoot the Kids, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, and A Personal Matter.

Ōe is a Japanese author and major figure in Japanese literature and critical theory. His works tend to focus on political, social, and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. He also pays close attention to the bombing of Hiroshima and his personal struggle with raising his mentally handicapped son. 

Ōe has been recognized both in Japan and internationally, winning a Nobel Prize in Literature (1994) for his work. He is also on record as the only person to refuse the Order of Culture, as awarded by the Emperor of Japan. 

In the words of Mr. Ōe, "I have always wanted to write about our country, our society, and feelings about the contemporary scene. But, there is a big difference between us and classic Japanese literature." If you've read the Tale of Genji, then you're probably well-versed in these differences.

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC!

- Anna H.

Staff Spotlight

This week our staff spotlight goes to Heather Job.  Heather is a lively and zealous sophomore with many interests.  Her scholarly passions are spent on a double major of creative writing and film studies. These passions go back to her childhood.  Heather grew up as an introvert who loved to read so she found comfort and solace in books.  Since books were such an important part of her childhood and life, she wants to provide that same solace to other people.  Besides books, she also enjoys movies and hopes that with her skills gained here she can go into screenwriting in the future.  Besides writing up some future Oscar-winning screenplays, Heather is involved in many other activities on campus.  She has another job in the Speaking Center where she talks to people so they can become better at talking.  She is a sister of the panda-loving and spunky Alpha Omicron Pi sorority.  She also owns a 1.5 liter mug perfect for tea that helps her stay awake while being an editor for the college newspaper The Cosmos.  Heather's enthusiasm is displayed through her involvement with all of these activities and within the writing center.  One thing Heather is really excited about is that she is going to Ireland this coming May.  It would come as no surprise if her experiences abroad end up being the next blockbuster.