On Leaving

Friends,

The end of my academic year here in the Mountain West is rapidly drawing to close, two more weeks of classes, finals, and then done. I'll cash a check through the end of August, but barring some startling news from NJ, I'll be off to SE Georgia come early August.

It seems an appropriate time to reflect (at least to begin the process) on what I did and did not accomplish while in residence (as far as teaching).

I wanted to complete and defend my dissertation - completed it, defense is a week or so away, so hopefully that will go well and I can mark this down as "done." Less successful ( complete failure actually) was my desire to write new lectures for the survey classes. A professor I respect a great deal (easily the best classroom lecturer I ever had the joy to hear and work for), tossed out 1/4 of his lectures every year, read new literature and developed new material, so every four years he had an entirely new course. I'm on my sixth run through on my survey course and the material is getting tired, and I worry about simply delivering pro forma lectures. I've been reading a bit on college teaching pedagogy lately (wouldn't I be a thrilling date!) and thinking about moving away from the performance style lecturing I do now. The reality is that I am too proficient at this style (I know pride go-eth before the fall), and, perhaps, I've become a bit intellectually lazy as a consequence. Next year I'll have a raft of courses to develop from scratch, both sections of Western Civ, some course on history and ethics (What in the 'ell?), a one semester, soup to nuts US political course, contact through the last presidential election, and that will eat a great deal of time, so likely this desire will have to wait a year or so.

In one of my upper division classes I experimented with a non-linear approach to the time period, which, on a whole, was probably a failure. Students want (and deserve) a straightforward vision of the course, and I don't believe I provided that. Back to the drawing boards on the course, but I'll not have much of a chance to offer it in the next few years given the nature of the new school. It was enjoyable to work with a class full of students who had taken courses with me previously, which is why I hazarded the different approach. I'll need to reflect on that a bit more.