"Love is a better teacher than duty".*

I encountered the concept of Coherence first as a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst while working with W. Barnett Pierce and Vernon Cronen, two of the leading scholars in the field of communication.  Their theory of communication as the "Coordinated Management of Meaning" offered an alternative view of communication that emphasized its epistemological implications and creative possibilities.     

In October of 2010 I had the honor of presenting the opening address at the Race and Pedagogy Conference at the University of Puget Sound in Washington.  The title of my address,  “Where Do We Learn From Here: The Rhetoric and Politics of (Dis)Integration” asked a fundamental question:  can education lead us out of racial conflict and division?