What week is this? What day is this?

So now that the semester has begun, I teach a least one class each day, Monday through Thursday. The calendar this year has been very strange.
First, because Labor Day was so late we started classes on Wednesday, September 2. I can only remember starting classes before Labor Day once before (and I have no memory of what year it was, only that I was still a doctoral student, so we're talking late 90's).
Second, the first Monday was a Labor Day, so Monday classes met on Friday of the first week of school. Since I teach two classes that meet twice a week on Monday and Wednesday, the first week of school I taught Wednesday, Thursday (my regularly scheduled Thursday class) and Friday.
The week of Labor Day I taught on Tuesday (my regularly scheduled Tuesday class), Wednesday and Thursday. Okay, now let's go to the week of September 14, the week after Labor Day.  Monday was Rosh Hashanah and we didn't have classes. So I taught Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday again.  And that brings us to the week that just ended-Wednesday was Yom Kippur. So I taught Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Next week will be my first "normal" week. Although who even knows what "normal" is anymore?
What about you? How has your college/university adapted to a late Labor Day and (somewhat) early High Holidays?

A new semester begins!

Before Labor Day, no less. But we all got through it, my students are wonderful, and I'm glad to be back.
I'll be experimenting with Poll Everywhere and I'm pretty excited about that.
And I'm teaching three learning communities; two with a business course, same professor, and one with an economics course.
So it will be a busy semester, in this, the fall semester of my penultimate year of teaching.

Did someone say "snow day?"

It's not just the students who enjoy snow days-I am happy that the weather changed my plans today.
I was going to drive into the city to get my hair cut. 

Instead, I'll stay at home, finish marking the last of my final exams (given a week early so that we can use the time scheduled for the final for final project presentations) and put up the Christmas tree.

And the best part is that today is a "study day" which means that the snow hasn't interfered at all with classes or final exams, which is perfect.

Here's what my driveway looks like at 8:15 AM-and it's been snowing for about 45 minutes.
Looks like we might get the three inches Brysen Van Eck promised!

So, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The beginning of the new school year

At Pace University, as I imagine at many universities across the country, we begin our fall semester and our new academic year this week.  Tomorrow we celebrate with convocation, a coming together of students and faculty to set the tone for the academic year ahead.

And classes begin on Wednesday, which is fitting in a way, since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year of 5773, begins at sundown on Wednesday.

For so many of us, the year begins in September.  Here in the Northeastern United States the weather starts getting crisper, the days shorter, and our clothes heavier.  I start thinking about sweaters and getting up in the dark and being indoors more often.

And teaching, and faculty meetings, and hours in front of the computer. 

Welcome back, everyone!

Summer!

Ah yes, a life geared to the academic calendar.

I survived the spring semester, my first teaching semester in four and one half years.  I forgot 1) how much work teaching is and 2) how much I love it (the work and the teaching).

And now the summer.  My "to do" list is incredibly long.  In addition to taking two courses towards my education to become a Commissioned Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, USA (more about that here) I'm taking fiddle lessons AND I promised myself that this would be the summer that I finally got my website up.  So I'm taking a class from Tom Antion on-line that will teach me how to use Wordpress.

Oh, and I'm going to learn Evernote, and I'm taking Meggin McIntosh's Workshop Business 101 four month course to get myself set up to deliver workshops.

You should see the piles of books in my office at home.  In fact, you are seeing the piles of books. 

They are arranged into meaningful piles, but perhaps only for me.  There's the meditation pile, the workshop 101 pile, the CIS 101 pile (did I mention that another summer project is reworking our gen ed computing course, the one that every student has to take and hates?).

They are piled on the floor because there is no room in the bookcases, which leads me to another (perpetual) project which is to CLEAN UP THIS OFFICE!  Sorry, I didn't mean to shout.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer-time to go back to whatever important thing it was that I was doing.

What does a professor do on sabbatical?

Well, I can only recount what this professor is doing on sabbatical.  The list is long and reflects things that suddenly arose, that were neglected, and things on my "someday-maybe list."

But the best of all is learning new things, practical things.  Developing my web site has been on my "someday-maybe" list for four years, ever since I took Meggin McIntosh's workshop "Make a Difference, Make Money, Teaching Teachers." So it's time to learn iWeb.

Learning how to use Evernote productively is also on the list.

Spending time actually reading all of my RSS feeds would be useful, as will pruning some of them back.

For the learning part, I'm experimenting with Grovo-can't remember how I first heard of Grovo, but so far the free classes have been very useful.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually get caught up on all that e-mail (or perhaps I'll just declare e-mail bankruptcy).

Sabbatical!

Sabbatical!  What a wonderful sound that word has, doesn't it?  The root is "sabbath" which literally means "ceasing."  And in this case, it means that I will cease being an interim dean, take a brief rest, and then go back and teach.

I have learned much during these last four years; I've learned to see the world through the eyes of others, I've learned to say "no" more frequently (but still not often enough), I've learned to be a bit more patient, and I've learned that I can't do everything myself.  I'm still not a great delegater but I've learned to delegate a little more.

Perhaps the strongest things that I've learned is that I am "called" to teach, that I miss teaching, that my work life is diminished without student interaction, and that I see teaching as a vocation.  Parker Palmer puts it so beautifully in The Courage to Teach
 

“If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.”
― Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life 

 

That might sound kind of abstract but even in teaching something as practical as database design I have learned that unless I am completely present the class doesn't "work" - I need to get into what

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls a state of flow, that feeling of total absorption.  And in doing so I think/hope that I share something of myself, of my love for my material.

Somehow that doesn't happen when I'm in a meeting.