When I interviewed at Knox College in April 2024, I’d like to think I had an open mind. I wasn’t sure about leaving my previous institution, but I was curious about what opportunities might be available with the job. So I showed up to meet people, give a lecture, teach a class, see the rural part of Illinois. My worst case scenario was I’d spend a couple of days at Knox then spend a day visiting my mom in the suburbs of Chicago. Free family visit. Of course I ended up taking the job. The big sell? Walking around with a student tour guide. Let’s recap what I learned on that walk:

• Knox College has an urban farm. A farm. There are two urban farming courses that students can take and lots of students volunteer to help.
• Knox College has tremendous art. The art building has student work on display during the spring term (for public award consideration, critiques, that sort of thing).
• Knox College participates in Blessings in a Backpack … a program that provides fresh food to local kids in need (some of that food from the farm). My tour guide’s first experience with Knox was getting that assistance in 5th grade. It was a dream come true for her to be studying at the college and as a student she gave back by volunteering with the program.
• Knox College commits to open work with its archives and special collections, providing students with an opportunity to get involved there.
• Knox College has a biological field station….with a prairie…with an annual prairie burn. In April of 2025, I joined the burn myself, documenting it and subsequently commissioning Michael Takeo Magruder to produce a stunning exhibition of his original photographs and videos (re-envisioned through his AI processing) and material from the Knox College archives. You can see part of the re:Generated Prairie exhibition and a photo from the burn below, and I’ll try to update this with a link once Takeo has a page up on his professional site.
• Knox College was the site of the 5th and most important Lincoln-Douglas debate, the one where Lincoln first made a public case against slavery. You can visit the site and sit in a chair that, supposedly, Lincoln did. You’re not, however, allowed to climb through the window that he used to get on the debate stage (Douglas walked around to the stairs).

Some things I’ve learned since.

• That archive? It has a lot of cool stuff. It has one of twelve existing first-edition copies of Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems. When I teach the Galileo Affair in January of 2026, I will do so in the library and we will do it with Galileo’s famed work present (along with several other works, such as a second edition of his The New Physics).
• The farm? Faculty can volunteer too and the students love to have us show up.
• There is an observatory on the top of the science building, and during Homecoming weekend the students and faculty invite interlopers to come see a distant nebula and the like.
• The theater and music students are first rate.
• Speaking at our Commencement opens the door to the U.S. Presidency, especially for folks with a commitment to a better world (just ask Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama).
• The students are a tremendous array of committed and thoughtful people who make class fun.

Visit us. Support us. Join us. Whatever makes sense for you. Be part of a tremendous community. I’m grateful to be.