Finding Meaning in Academe: From Physiological and Ecosystem Ecology to Autism

Being recognized as a distinguished Alum of Yale's School of the Environment

I was so honored to be recognized (especially as a late diagnosed autistic person) as one of two distinguished alumni by the Yale School of the Environment (YES) on Saturday (10/25/2025) at their 125th reunion allowing me to join a small group that is a “whose who” of people who made major contributions to the health and science of the environment at the country’s oldest forestry (and environment) school started by Gifford Pinchot. I mean, I never thought that anyone would have Aldo Leopold and me on the same short list.

Humorous Back Story

I received a letter a few months ago alerting me that I was going to be one of two people recognized as distinguished alums from YES at their 125th reunion in October, 2025. I was very happy. But, I was also pretty dumbfounded. I mean, I assumed they sent the letter to the wrong Jim Coleman.

There is a reason for that. There was a famous educational sociologist who had the same name as me, James S. Coleman. He coined the phrase “social capital.” My father had several of his books on his bookshelf. Every once in a while a book or paper he wrote finds its way to my Google Scholar page causing my citations to jump from around 10,000 to over 300,000.

When I was about four or five years old, my brother, who was 11 or 12, would take me into my dad’s office. He would walk me over to the bookshelf and point at a book by James S. Coleman and say something like, “look— you wrote this book!” I would retort “no, I didn’t!” My brother would then say “It’s written by James S. Coleman. So, you must have written the book. Right?” I did not have the verbal nimbleness or vocabulary at the time to make a solid defense against such a ridiculous accusation. So, I did what a four-year-old does when it becomes clear that the debate was over— I started crying.

I look back on that day and wonder why I didn’t respond, “Yeah.. I wrote that book and it is award winning. And, I wrote these other two on the shelf. So, tell me, brother, what books did you publish when you were four?”

In any case, when I received the letter in May regarding being a distinguished alum, I assumed that once again, I had been confused with a now deceased James S. Coleman. But since he was already dead, I went ahead and accepted the recognition. I knew that the other James S. Coleman did not go to YES and I did, so maybe it wasn’t a mistake.

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Finding meaning in academe: From Plant Physiological and Ecosystem Ecology to Autism

I was asked to give a 15-20 minute talk, I discussed how meaning in my life and career has changed for me over time. You can watch and listen to the talk here. It was perhaps the best received presentation I ever made.

Here is a summary of the four phases of meaning in my career

🗝️ A Research phase where meaning came from research and discovery that began because of a great professor, Steve Scheckler, at Virginia Tech, and was launched by the incredible PhD program at the Yale School of the Environment and a great PhD advisor, Clive Jones.

🗝️ An administrative phase where meaning came from helping others and organizations succeed- these first two phases were recognized by being elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for my contributions to plant physiological ecology and building research infrastructure. I am also proud of implementing structures in universities to help students succeed.

🗝️ A return to teaching phase, the most meaningful time of my career, where I find meaning facilitating a student body at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, that is over 60% Pell eligible; over 50% first generation: and over 40% transfer, mostly from community colleges, to transition to successful and meaningful lives (how ever they determine meaning and success). And that was recognized by UNCG’s student government when they made me, by surprise, their sole nominee last year (May 2025) for the UNC System’s William Friday Lifetime achievement award for serving students. You can see some student comments here.

As a dean and provost, I approached student success by implementing research-based best practices to help retain students through graduation and using metrics at the scale of a whole population of students to measure success. A metaphor for this perspective is “climate science”. Understanding large scale climate patterns helps us understand the probability of weather events. When I returned to teaching in 2021, I realized that I had to be a “meteorologist” as a teacher, because every student in my class was their own weather event with their own set of complex local conditions not explained by the larger scale patterns. “Climate science”, in this metaphor, enabled me and other faculty to implement practices that statistically improve student learning or success. But, as a teacher my goals is to facilitate every student reaching their full potential in the class (not just a statistically significant sample), so I have to meet students where they are and understand their “local” conditions to reach that goal. This was kind of an epiphany for me.

🗝️ An an advocacy phase where I work to support autistic people and write about my experiences, and to bring my experience in supporting students and being neurodiverse at the national level with my appointment last year to National Science Foundation (NSF)‘s Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering.

I am also a late-diagnosed autistic person and I serve on the board and volunteer as part of pet therapy team with my dog, Brea at Lionheart Academy of the Triad.

I learned from my volunteering that it is important for people who are high functioning autistic people to be willing to be a role model for younger people who aren’t sure how to navigate society as autistic people.

So, that is one reason to write such a post that is largely shameless self promotion. And, because you won’t be hearing this stuff from UNCG.

Postscript

One would think that after 40 years in academe and having giving hundreds of talks, seminars and class lectures that I would have learned not to say “um” and “uh.” But,.. uh…um… I haven’t. So, I have a hard time watching recordings of myself since I don’t know how to break the habit.

On the other hand, perhaps there is something sort of endearing about it. The lack of polish may align nicely with the autistic trait of being pathologically genuine.

You can find out for yourself by watching this recording of a very special occasion for me.

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