Laugh and learn: humor softens life's lessons.

For adjunct professor Juli Burney, life's challenges and blessings plus a slightly skewed vision provide constant material for her dual roles as educator and motivational humorist.

"My mother always told me that I would be a speaker and a teacher and I didn't believe her on either one of them," she said. "I suppose it was a daughter's rebellion and my lack of belief in myself, but she had been telling me both of those things since I lived at home. Now, she hasn't said it, but I know she thinks it, that she was right all along."

Burney, who teaches at Doane College's nontraditional campus in Lincoln, Nebraska, and travels the country doing motivational presentations, uses humor to make her point. "I don't tell jokes, I tell stories," she said. "One of the best things you can be as presenter is vulnerable and human."

Her reputation as a funny lady is well known. Having worked in all 48 continental United States and Canada, Burney has spoken to groups as diverse as the IRS and General Motors. One week she spoke at Harley Davidson on Tuesday and on Thursday to a group of Notre Dame nuns. She has filmed shows for Showtime and HBO. But educators are her favorite audience.

For the past 20 years she's been able to balance teaching with her travel thanks to the school's willingness to be flexible. "I'm a part-time, temporary adjunct instructor who teaches organizational communications in the non-traditional campus on an alternative schedule," Burney explained, tongue firmly planted in cheek. "They can't remove 'temporary' without paying for my insurance."

Consulted for her availability before the semester's schedule is finalized, (she did 200 presentations and taught seven classes in 2008), her dean constantly asks when she's going to come back and teach full-time again.

Burney entertained and educated the audience at the University of Nebraska's Women in Educational Leadership Conference held in Lincoln in October, fitting it around her gender communications class.