From The Outside Looking In: A May Without May Term

Reflections on What Was and What Will Be

*In May 2024, I lost my job as an associate professor at Northland College as the institution went through financial exigency. From the Outside Looking In will be a series about my reflections on leaving academia.

May is a strange month for me. For most academics, some date in May marks the transition to the summer season—the end of an academic year, the start of a summer of possibilities. Which, for me, usually all-too-quickly transitioned to a summer of "things I never got to."

However, May took on particular meaning when I began working at Northland College. Northland has a four-week May Term, during which students usually take one class. This allows classes to offer experiential learning that doesn't fit a traditional semester format well.

At Northland, I taught two May Term courses. A course on Indigenous Museum Studies included day trips to museums and cultural centers in our region. This was the class I taught my first year at Northland in May 2018. At the time, I was tired from my first year teaching in a tenure-track faculty position. I regretted that I didn't negotiate for a course release. Then, I fell in love with my small class of six students and one community member. I was hooked on May Term.

The next year, I co-taught a class called Lake Superior Circumnavigation. It was a class for first-year students in a program called Superior Connections. In the fall, they took four classes focused on Lake Superior. Then in May, they could sign up for "Circumnav" and travel around the entire Lake in approximately 3 weeks, mainly camping. This is the Lake Superior Circle Tour with an intensive experiential learning and educational component built in. The trip is approximately 1,300 miles.

Circumanv had a reputation for being a challenging course to teach. Several professors taught it once and never again. But I figured I loved Lake Superior and camping. I had driven all parts of the tour at least once, and some I had driven many times in my life. I figured it might be a challenge, but I'd enjoy it.

One thing about traveling along Lake Superior in May after a winter with a lot of snow is that the waterfalls are absolutely phenomenal. This is Aguasabon Falls and Gorge outside of Terrace Bay, Ontario.

Turns out I underestimated how challenging it would be. I underestimated the weather. I had camped in the shoulder seasons near the Big Lake before, but never for three weeks. I upgraded some gear before the trip and figured I'd be good to go. But it was a particularly cold and wet year. Many nights had lows in the 20s (Fahrenheit), and one night dipped down to about 10. Many days had highs of 30. We had snow. We had freezing rain. We had slush. We had high winds. We had rain.

Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park is one of my favorite stops when traveling around Lake Superior. The first time I visited it was May 2019 on Circumnav. It was a cold, grey day. But it was also beautiful. The students made snowballs and tossed them into the canyon.

I also underestimated how challenging it can be to deal with eighteen-year-olds for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for three weeks. I particularly underestimated how much they would struggle with the longer travel days in the van. And our longest had probably 5 hours of van time, so we weren't doing twelve-hour marathons. But it sure took a toll on their moods and energy levels. And I had no idea how much they would overestimate their outdoors skills!

Time in the van came with some beautiful views, but travel days were usually some of the most emotionally draining.

I came away from the course with many memories and lessons learned about camping, group dynamics, and myself. It started my fraught but enduring relationship with MSR stoves, like Whisperlites and Dragonflies.

A delicious meal I’ve made on Whisperlites and Dragonflies: Mexican rice with black beans and veggies. It pairs well with cheese quesadillas or a non-vegetarian protein like steak or chicken.

I taught the course again in 2021. But because of Covid, we couldn’t cross the U.S.-Canada border to do a traditional Circumnavigation around the lake. So instead, we circumnavigated the UP of Michigan and then drove the Minnesota North Shore and the Gunflint Trail.

Our first overnight stop was Fayette State Park in the Garden Peninsula in May 2021. It was cloudy, but mild compared to our first night at Gooseberry Falls State Park in 2019. We had rain rather than snow, and there was green grass.

We nicknamed it “CircumUP,” even though the name didn’t capture the Minnesota portion of the route. It was a much easier trip in terms of weather, but I had some particularly challenging student dynamics. And the warmer temps meant a lot more bugs.

I was supposed to teach the course again in 2023, but I had a year-long sabbatical from teaching for a research fellowship in Chicago. So instead, I taught the course in 2024—a traditional full circumnavigation.

Another example of the warm temperatures we hade in May 2021. Spring flowers were blooming in the Porcupine Mountains! In May 2019, we visited the Porkies later in May and not only were there no flowers blooming, it snowed!

In March 2024, Northland College announced it might close at the end of the academic year. May Term began, and we had no clear answers. Then, on our first night camping with the students at Temperance River State Park, we got the news (through email) that the school would stay open in exigency. This meant faculty would be getting cut. Approximately two weeks later, still teaching Circumnav, I learned I was one of those faculty.

I was still expected to finish the course. I tried. I did my best. But it was a struggle. I had lost my job and my place in a community, which I loved more than anywhere else I'd been a student or worked. I was crushed on so many levels.

The Log Slide at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is one of my favorite stops along Lake Superior. We visited it with students in 2019, 2021, and 202. Visiting it in 2024 is a bittersweet memory for me because we visited it the day after I learned I got cut.

And now I begin my first May as an adult, not in academia. I am so many things. Sad. Uncertain. Hopeful. Relieved. And as I process it all, I know there will never be another Cicumnav. In February 2025, Northland College announced it would close at the end of May. The Sup Con program got dismantled through the cuts last year. So there is no Circumnav this year. Last year was the last one. Ever.

I wish it had ended on a high note, not a low one. But that's life. You don't always get what you want. There were some really special moments for me during that trip. My favorite were evenings at Fort William Historic Park, when it was closed to the public. From the sunsets from the watchtower to hot chocolate and cookies around a fire to playing sardines in the dark, I’m really grateful to have these memories.

Fort William Historic Park at sunset the first week of in May 2024.

Last Fall, I completed an amazing Circle Tour around the Lake with Eugene. My Circumnav experiences enriched that trip, and it felt so good to have time around the lake that was mine, not controlled by the needs of others.

Pukaskwa National Park is on the Ontario North Shore of Superior. We never visited this stop on Circumnav because there was no road access in 2019, and we never made it to this area in 2021 (due to the border) or in 2024 (due to several injuries in our group that were serious enough to warrant altering our plans).

I still wish I had gotten one more chance at Circumnav, to go the traditional clockwise route in a year when the college wasn’t having an existential crisis, to take what I had learned in the first year and the other years and apply it in that setting. I remind myself that not having this opportunity was not something I lost—it was something beyond my control.

This year, May is not a May Term for me. May is not the end of my academic year or the official start of academic summer. I've thought a lot about summers and what they meant to me. They represented freedom, and I loved them. But I also struggled with them as an academic.

Late May and early June marked a time of exhaustion when I would try to rest a bit. Then I'd try to tackle some academic projects. I'd also want to spend more time outdoors, but June is one of the worst months to spend time outside in the Northwoods (because of bugs, #ifyky). So I'd try and double down on all the research and writing I didn't get to while teaching. Then in July, I'd finally get some decent outdoor time (selectively and strategically, because of bugs).

As July progressed, I'd also try to tackle some course prep. Then August would arrive. One of the best months weather-wise in the Northwoods. But also the increasing realization that summer would soon be over. And the increasing pressure of responsibility of the start of another academic year. Just as September, the best weather month in the Northwoods, begins.

So now I begin to reclaim my May. This May will not be the start of anything major. It will not be constant stress. It will not be crushing. It will be another month at work for me. Outside of work, I will go for walks. I will hike. I will forage. I will sit by fires. I will sit by lakes, rivers, and streams. I may go camping. I will read. I will write. I will spend time with friends.

Despite the challenges, each May Term had beautiful moments. I will miss it and I know I’m still processing that. Sometimes I still feel incredibly sad thinking about it. But I’m also hopeful I will create new May memories with Eugene as I reclaim May.

I will continue to put my life together in an increasingly uncertain world. What else can I do if I want to continue to care for this place that I call home?