Today I watched the streaming video of the presidential inauguration with two students (not my own).

A fairly simple statement, but its implications are staggering.

• An African-American man became president of the United States.
• A white professor
• teaching at a historically black college watched it
• with two African-American students, not her own, who ( Read more... )

Somebody stole the projector. It must have been the Grinch; all that was left were hooks and some wire.

At least I laughed and mentally added this to the ever-growing list of beginning-of-semester snafus.

[crossposted from the professional blog ( Read more... )

[cross-posted from my professional blog.]

During my last round of interviewing for academic jobs, one interviewer asked me, "What would you consider the perfect class to be?"

To this day, I wonder if she meant the perfect course. (I wasn't offered this particular job.) But, assuming that she meant an individual class meeting of a particular ( Read more... )

Rant Alert!

I was watching the CBS Evening News last night. The anchor began introducing a segment on Hurricane Ernesto: "Hurricane Ernesto has barreled up the East Coast, leaving five people dead. But Hurricane Ernesto is also putting a damper on people's holiday weekend."

What's wrong with this picture? A major storm kills five people, ( Read more... )