Finals Done

Turned my grades in only 2 hours late today! Woot!! Some special angel must have been watching over me because the registrar's office didn't turn off the electronic grade entry portal the way they typically do if you are late. So I didn't even have to make the walk of shame from my office to the administrative building to submit them.

I do, however, already have my first grade email from a student. She was making an A in the class before the final and ended up with an A-. She got A's in all her other courses even her HARDEST course. How in the world did she end up with an A- in mine - she asks. I'm quite certain she'll turn up in January demanding to see her final... I wonder if I should write comments on it now to save myself the trouble next semester?? I probably won't because I don't want to touch anything resembling student papers until mid-January.

Paranoid?! Who me?

We are in our current dean's third year. For the last two years he has hosted a December event at his home the day grades are turned in. It's usually a pretty nice spread with decent food and nice wine, etc. There hasn't been anything said about it this year, however, so I asked him at the school meeting if there was going to be party this December.

He got a little flustered, explained that because of the economic situation, etc. there would be no party.

Okay, fine. Seems reasonable. I saw him in the hall about 5 minutes later with a group of people and gave a off-handed apology since I'd put him on the spot. He just kind of smiled, but didn't say anything.

So now I'm worried that I really DID offend him. And right before we find out about raises, too! Ugh. One of my colleagues, with whom I discussed my fear, said I should write an apology email making it clear that I only asked because I really LOVED his parties. That seems overly creepy to me. It's time like this that I wish there was a clip system for faculty members like there is at my son's school. His 'clip' gets moved every time he does something bad, until he eventually ends up in the Principal's office. A ton of probably unnecessary stress could be relieved if I could just go look and see if the dean has moved my clip.

Negotiations with the Dean

I'm finding my first year as department chair to be a mixed bag. Some things have been fun - like getting to meet all the new history majors. Other parts are not so fun, especially dealing with my Dean. He's a decent guy, but his first response to whatever I ask is to be contrary. I understand sometimes being contrary is necessary - but it is annoying to have it as the default position.

Of course now that I KNOW he likes to go against everything I ask for, I'm just going to reverse the way I ask for things.

Instead of asking: "Hey can so-and-so get a course off in the fall to finish his book?", I'll say: "So-and-so wants a course off in the fall to finish his book, but I don't think he deserves it. What do you think?"

Instead of asking: "Could so-and-so get some extra travel money to present a paper overseas?" I'll say: "I don't think so-and-so should get extra money for his overseas conference. What do you think?"

Instead of saying: "Hey, it's not fair that history has a smaller budget per faculty member than all other departments!" I'll ask: "Hey isn't it great that history has been able to prosper so well with just an inequitable budget? I bet if you cut it, we could ever do better next year!"

Okay... maybe the last one wouldn't work.

It is really only the end of week four?

My return from sabbatical has been both refreshing and draining. I am enjoying being back in front of the classroom. There is really nothing better for one's ego than having a class of 30 students writing down every word that comes out of your mouth. At the same time, however, I don't have the stamina I had before sabbatical. By the time my last class of the day is finished I am ready to crawl back to my office and collapse.

Of course it doesn't help that I've taken over as department chair this year AND am on the executive committee of our faculty governing system. I thought I would be flush with power inherent in my new positions, instead I'm just overworked.

I would be looking forward to the weekend if it didn't contain the first REAL batch of grading for me to accomplish.

You Can't Cover Everything

There is a story in Education Week about the committee that is determining the history standards to be taught in Texas over the next 10 years. A couple of the committee members have recommended that less time be devoted to discussing historical figures like Chavez and Marshall. They suggest that historically these men aren't as important as founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin.

My initial response is to jump on a soap box and talk about the relevance of Marshall and Chavez to not only African American and Latino history, but to more general political history of the 1960s and 1970s. But if I take a step back and look at my own syllabus, well I need to be a bit more forgiving. Because let's face it, you can't cover everything. I think I mention Marshall during one paragraph of one lecture when I talk about the Civil Rights Movement and Chavez never comes up at all. Is this because I don't think they are important? Absolutely not. I do think they are important - but I'd rather talk more about the movements they led/worked in - then about the individuals. Indeed, I think Ben Franklin only gets a paragraph or two, as well, in spite of the fact that I spend several days talking about the American Revolution.

In part, I think my approach is inspired by what I expect teaching history to demonstrate. What I want to show is NOT hey look at these great men and what they were able to do, but rather hey look at these fundamental changes that occurred in our political and social system and the role that activists played in accomplishing them.

Another Famous History Major

Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was an undergraduate history major at Princeton.

A New York Times' story had this to say about Sotomayor's undergraduate education.

She was the history major and Puerto Rican student activist at Princeton who spent her first year at that bastion of the Ivy League “too intimidated to ask questions.”

…In 1976, she wrote her senior thesis at Princeton on Luis Muñoz Marín, the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico, and dedicated it in part “to the people of my island — for the rich history that is mine.”

Ugliest Presidents in History

5. William McKinnley - jowls like a bulldog, eyebrows like shag rug from the 1970s.

















4. John Tyler – anorexic before it was fashionable.


















3. James Madison – if he HAD hair on top, he’d have a mullet. At least he had his height to fall back on… oh wait, no he didn’t.
















2. Lyndon Johnson – big nose, big ears, and deep set eyes - a hulking figure with no respect for other people’s personal space.
















1. Martin Van Buren – picture speaks for itself. What scares me though is that if THIS is how he looked on ‘picture day’ imagine what he must have looked like every other day of his life.

Student Rights

"The only right a student has as a student is the right to receive the best possible education that the college can give." - Dean Virginia Gildersleeve