Category: life

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Speaking of Honor

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I was honored to be asked to present the faculty perspective on our school’s Honor Code at our annual Honor Convocation, a moment when all new students at the school are introduced to the Honor System and sign an Honor Pledge, committing themselves to that system.

I only had a week to prepare, so I turned to a number of colleagues and some fellow alums for ideas. Tim O’Donnell and Claudia Emerson were particularly helpful in shaping the direction of the speech.

Thanks to Anand Rao for recording and posting the video. If anyone’s interested, I could post the text of the talk as well.

In any case, I think it went well. It was a real honor to stand up on that stage and start off the academic year in that way and represent the faculty perspective to the entering students.

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Preparing for teaching in the Fall, Or the Manuscript that Ate My Summer

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This is a post that I wrote in late July, but never had the chance to finish. As I have a spare moment now that the manuscript is in, but the class papers haven’t yet arrived, I’ll post it and a series of other thoughts I’ve been meaning to get out….

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately as I contemplate the time remaining this summer and the things I’d planned to do during the so-called summer break. The manuscript due to my editor in early September is taking longer than I thought and so many of the other goals this summer have fallen to secondary or tertiary status. This includes delving in as much detail as I’d like into responding to recent posts by Shannon, Steve, Mike, and Gardner. Most depressing to me is that I’d love to spend lots more time on my fall classes this summer, especially my new First-Year Seminar. Then came Barbara’s beautiful post (Midsummer Preparations for Fall) on what she does in the summer to create new fall classes to make feel even more behind….

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve already spent a lot of time on the fall classes, including the new one, and I’ll have it ready on time. [I think the students are really going to like it.] But I’d like to have been able to spend a good month really getting them just right (or at least closer to where I’d like them to be). But balancing my scholarship, my instructional technology interests, and my teaching has been difficult, especially as I attempt to keep all that in balance with the time spent with my wonderful family….