Background In 2012, or thereabouts, I sat down with my boss, Dr. Kit Wesler. He didn’t really have an open door policy in spite of leaving his door open. Usually, an open door simply meant he was venting heat from his office into the hallway. Happens when one works in an old building with south-facing…
education is supposed to be about nurturing thoughtful creativity, yet we are often forced to “stay on script.”
One can never tell from where inspiration arises. The Maker Movement is one of the best, most inspiration movements to have arisen in the United States since the Boy or Girls Scouts. The Maker Movement draws inspiration from circumstances and people from all walks of life, is not limited by race or gender, and is…
In 2007 I began working for a nearby community college, my third such institution in Kentucky. In Kentucky, the community college system operates by a set of guiding principles and policies yet each institution also operates as a sort of franchise. The best way I can describe this is the application process. A person must…
You probably have never heard of Julius Rosenwald. Even if you grew up in Chicago the name, “Julius Rosenwald,” may not mean a thing, may ring no memory bells. However, if you have ever visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago you have him to thank. He was one of the important benefactors…
I’ve been an ESRI ArcGIS user since the days of Arc/INFO Ver. 5.0. Having used “command line GIS” since 1991 the rise of open source GIS solutions intrigues me. Trying new products and new software and learning new terminology and getting familiar with many different data formats are valuable jobs skills for me. However, being…
I read a considerable number of cosmology and physics books written mostly for the general public. Perhaps a better phrase is books written for “general consumption,” as I’m not sure how many people would really enjoy reading “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” (Kip Thorne) or “The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of…
I have numerous posts espousing changes I think I’d like to see in Higher Education. In May 2012, I posted Fostering Education Through Student Incubators (5-21-2012); in November 2013 I posted Education Is Like A Dysfunctional Family (11-6-2013); in December 2014 I was rather prolific over the holiday, posting Steal My Idea, Please! (12-13-2014) and…
The unfortunate position of blogging in situ circumstances is having to constantly prognosticate the down-stream consequences of words and assertions. If my words appear to deliberately obfuscate some details, you are observant. As the saying goes, names have been changed to protect the willfully ignorant. That is the saying, right? Upon my return to my…
My last day, Wednesday, arrives like a bottom-hitting roller coaster. The momentum builds as the days climb towards the apex of Tuesday night. Wednesday arrives as a crashing descent, slipping into the smooth arc of Wednesday evening. Once, I relished the late Thursday social dinner with me and 16,500 of my peers, either in Embarcadero Park…
