Totally worth it

Sometimes when I start off doing something asking myself, "What have I got myself in to?" it winds up having been worth the effort.

That was true today with the soil-critters lab. Even though I was all pessimistic ("It's been dry and it's been cold") about what they might find, they found all kinds of stuff.

One group even found a pseudoscorpion, which is (in my opinion) about the most unusual organism you could find in a soil of this nature (this is from under the leafpile in my backyard. Granted, I don't use herbicides or pesticides, but still - it's practically downtown in an area that's been built up for at least 60 years (and was farmed, apparently, before that).

And one person got excited when she realized she could correctly identify members of order Coleoptera (the beetles) from body shape and other morphological features. And another saw a small earthworm under magnification and strong light for the first time, and realized you can see the intestinal tract of said worm. ("Its insides! They're MOVING.")

This is one of the favorite labs; even lab-averse people (some of the pre-meds, for example, don't seem to relish the field labs much) enjoy it. And well they should; it's fun looking at bugs through a microscope.

It's also kind of fun for me - for one thing, other than digging up the soil, prep is minimal. And the math is minimal as well, so I'm not fielding lots of worried questions from the math-averse people. And I get to show off a bit: from having worked with the invertebrates as much as I have, I know most of them (at least to order) and so I can walk over and say "Oh, yeah, that's a mite, order Acarina" or "What you have there is a rove beetle" and it kind of fascinates them that I know this stuff.

I read my evaluation comments (they came this morning). I was a little spooked because for the first time, the secretary adopted the policy of putting a blank sheet over the comments before putting them in the mailbox, and I was afraid that that meant I had received some very harsh ones she didn't want my colleagues seeing.

No. I received a few of the typical "The tests were too hard" and "I found this class uninteresting" comments, but in my majors classes, people said things like:

"Her door was always open, if you had a question or a problem she would help you"
"I learned a lot in this class. She had a way of making it interesting even if the topic wasn't your favorite thing."
"Thank you for this class." (That last from a student who admitted that after taking the class, they decided they really didn't want to continue on in ecology after all.)
"I was able to get an internship using the knowledge I gained in this class."
"She was always enthusiastic and clearly cared a lot about what she was teaching."

In the majors class, I received more - and more substantive - positive than negative comments. (Oh, I got negative comments, but some were ones like "the tests were too hard" and stuff, where I kind of shrug and go, "that's what you think.")

So, I might not be the most exciting or entertaining instructor ever (And I know that, and I own that fact: it's not who I am), but at least I feel like I'm giving the students something of value. And it looks like either I did unusually well this past spring, or else I had a class full of more committed students.

I got a laugh in class today.

I was handing out exams, and going through my usual spiel (if you have a question, ask me, etc.) I talked about how if people got a "defective" exam (it's rare, and with this one I didn't have time to look through every single copy, and sometimes an exam will be missing a page) to alert me.

A couple of the kids in the back mumbled something, and guessing what their remark was, I said, after a brief pause, "...and the exam is NOT defective if you just can't answer every last thing on it."

Some of the students groaned and some laughed. That was gratifying because I almost never get laughs - either because my jokes are a bit too esoteric, or because they're ones only I think are funny (I dropped the bit about Mrs. Potato Head asking if a pair of jeans made her butt look "starchy," even though I kind of like it because it shows the analogy between starch as a storage tissue in plants and fat as a storage tissue in animals), or because the students are just kind of afraid to laugh.

I hope this bodes well for the semester: when I used the "stop and think" example out of the book (about hypothesis generation) concerning "your" co-worker Homer and the donuts all going missing, one of the students responded with "D'Oh!" after I read the example.

I like them to think they can have a little fun in the class. I don't find that kind of thing disruptive at all, and it's much better than having people stealth-text under the table.

I did also suggest "Lenny and Carl" as an "alternative hypothesis" and I think some of them thought that was funny.

(And it's a little shocking to realize that for most of them, they don't remember - or, in some cases, have never been alive during - a time when the Simpsons were NOT on television.)

In honor of the first day of the new semester, one of my favorite pieces of music ever. (Because it's Brahms' Academic Festival Overture)



I love this piece because for me, it really sums up what my romantic ideals (as a girl) of what life on a college campus would be - the purposefulness (much of that piece sounds like people striding rapidly across campus to class, their academic robes* flapping in the wind, discussing deep stuff as they go). The swelling music, capturing the joy that a bookish nerd feels upon facing a new academic challenge or a new semester - all the new books, new pencils, new things to be learned. Even the old drinking songs that are incorporated - though I have to admit my observation (not participation) of on-campus drinking suggested it was more like a really bad punk song than a comic scene from Shakespeare (In that, rather than in vino veritas - or in vino ridemus - it was more in vino, puking and bad hook-ups).

(*Yes, I admit it, I sort of wish American universities had kept the British tradition of students and faculty wearing the academic robes over their clothes. I would probably complain about the impracticality in real life, but in my romantic imaginings, everyone looks a bit like a combination between Hogwarts and the stories I've read featuring Oxbridge in the 20s and 30s)

And then there's the Gaudeamus at the end. Which is sometimes sung at graduations (well, not here, it isn't), and so seems such an appropriate summing-up. (Even if the Gaudeamus is essentially another drinking song).

I don't know, it's hard to explain. There's a lighthearted and yet serious quality to my imaginings of academic life - lighthearted in the sense that you were apart from the rest of the world, that you could almost imagine yourself above the grubbing and politicking that happened out in business and, well, politics (though sadly, that is not the case - though I have managed to avoid MOST campus politics, and am grateful for that). And the serious quality: well, learning is, I've always believed, serious business. (or, if you prefer, srs bzns). And yet, at the same time, it's FUN. It's about the best fun I know.

from the Gaudeamus: (I don't know Latin but I've seen the English translation of it, and probably most of you can figure out what it's saying):

Vivat academia!
Vivant professores!
Vivat membrum quodlibet
Vivant membra quaelibet
Semper sint in flore.

I walked in this morning to find the long-awaited (long-dreaded in my case) teaching evaluation comments for spring.

I've finally decided on the removing-a-band-aid approach: read them fast and right away, and then try not to obsess over any negative comments.

Well, there really weren't any this time, aside from a few:

"soils class was at an inconvenient time." (Too bad, so sad. We need to have SOME 8 am classes or else we cannot schedule the rooms. And frankly, a 4 pm lecture (the other option) would be inconvenient for ME.)

Complaints from pre-meds that ecology should not be required. Whatever. I don't set the requirements. And there is such a thing as being well-rounded. I get this complaint both in person and on evaluations a lot. I don't know...do people in the humanities complain about being asked to take natural sciences? Do bio majors complain about being asked to take humanities classes? (Wait, wait, don't answer that one...I already know, having heard all of the groans of displeasure from a student being "made" to take a theater appreciation class. Just wait until you're 40 or so, dude, then you will realize, "Wow, there's a whole big world of stuff out there to learn about! And I have so little time left!")

The usual "there was toooooooo muuuuuuuuucccccchhhh innnnnnnforrrrrmation!" for the non-majors class. (Again, whatever. They didn't see what I WANTED to teach and cut out in the interests of time).

But I did have some good comments, including my much-treasured, "You know, I never thought science could be interesting before I took this class" from one in the non majors class. So I must be doing something right.

Okay, this is a minor rant.

In one of my courses, students have to write a project proposal for a project they do. I make this assignment on the FIRST day of class (which was August 18th, this year). They have about a month to do them. I kept talking about the proposals, reminding them of them, reminding them of the "firm" due date of the start of class on the 19th.

I got 21 proposals. Out of a 24 student class.

So I graded what I had.

And I come in this morning - what do I find, but one of the missing proposals stuck in my mailbox. I last checked this mailbox at about 3:30 on Friday, so I know this is a way-late paper.

My main irritation with late papers is this (and maybe this is just me and I need to get over it) - but what I "hear" when I get a late paper is "Your time is unimportant enough that you can make the time to grade MY paper even though you did the rest of the class' several days ago." or "You have so much free time that grading this late paper should not be a burden."

It is, in my mind, not unlike the administrator who calls a meeting for 3:30, and then shows up at 4 pm, because they can make people wait - because they think their time is more important than others'.

We all are allotted 24 hours a day. Stealing someone's time is worse than stealing possessions, because time is truly the most limited and precious thing we have.

And yes, maybe it will only take me 15 minutes to grade this chap's paper. But that was 15 minutes I was not banking on spending today, or tomorrow, or the next day. And I made it abundantly clear that I didn't want late papers. (If I were a more assertive person, I'd probably copy the page of the syllabus that says "NO LATE PAPERS," staple it to his paper, and hand it back ungraded.)

Oh, and dude handed in a late lab assignment at the same time.

What I SHOULD do is refuse to grade them. What I probably WILL do, because I don't have the guts right now to deal with someone who's all upset because I adhered to a rule I made and he knew about, is wait until I have time to grade them, then knock some credit off for lateness.

(The fact that this guy and I have a "history" doesn't help - this is the fourth time he's signed up for this class. The first three he attended the first couple weeks then just disappeared, earning himself an F. [my campus has a policy of expunging failing grades if you retake the class]. He also signed up for a directed readings class I teach - in the summer, without asking my permission first, and it's a Permission of Instructor class. Then he never came to meet with me to choose his book, and when I tracked him down to ask him about it, he got rather huffy and said, "But I didn't KNOW who was teaching it!" Gah. That's the POINT of a Permission of Instructor - you find out who it is FIRST, then talk to them, THEN get permission.)

The kicker? This guy wants to go to seminary and be a minister. Not with this attitude, buddy.

Argh. People frustrate me sometimes.

On second thought - in one of my other classes I flat-out refused a late paper. Maybe I SHOULD refuse these.

Professor Foret's helpful hints for studying history (and by extension, other things.)

I particularly like this bit of advice:

Yes, I’ll admit: I’m crazy about History. I get excited over historical questions, and love learning the answers, either from other historians, or even on my own as a practicing historian. I know that’s difficult for most of you to understand. After all, our culture in general has little use for history: Henry Ford spoke for many of his countrymen, then and now, when he dismissed history as “ more or less bunk.”[1] And most of you are barely out of your teens, and lets just say that you have other concerns. (I was once that age myself, you know.) One day, you probably will become interested in history, too. I say this only because I have been told, over and over again, something along the lines of, “I hated history in high school/college/when I was younger, but now I can’t get enough of it…”

Why do I love history? Part of it is simply that History speaks to me. What do I mean by that? I see patterns, shapes, forces in the past, and I want to know where they came from, how they became what they were, where they went, and why. I love mysteries: Sherlock Holmes, Brother Caedfel, Jim Chee, and Joe Leaphorn are among my favorite fictional characters of all time. History, for me, has the same excitement of the mystery genre with an added bonus. History not only gives us answers to interesting questions, but those answers help us understand our world and how to get around in it. True, History’s answers are not always as nice and neat as the ones Brother Caedfel and Joe Leaphorn give us. But that just gives us another mystery to solve, doesn’t it. History, like life itself, is as much about the journey as the destination.

And this:

We also think that you need some history if you are going to be a good citizen in our representative democracy, and that idea goes at least back to George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other notable figures you may have heard of from the late eighteenth century. We don’t believe as a culture in everything they believed in, but we still think an educated citizenry is a pretty good idea.

(emphasis mine).

I found this by searching for some stuff on virgin soil epidemics for an upcoming ecology of disease lecture, but it was too interesting to me not to read.

I just handed in my "what I did this past year" thing for tenure and promotion (but for me, it's still an 'off year' - I already have tenure and it's not time yet to apply for Full Professor).

I think the fact that I no longer feel like I want to throw up after handing one of these in is an improvement.

(Seriously: I used to - in the pre-tenure and immediately post-tenure days - have to do it at the VERY END OF THE DAY and hand it in and then go home and watch lots of cartoons or something to scrub the sinking feeling that I hadn't done ENOUGH in the past year out of my head.

Of course, it helps to be able to claim that you presented at an "international" (and heck, it is - if there are speakers from South Africa, and Thailand, and Denmark, and who knows where else, even if it's held on the soil of my own country, that counts as "international" in my book) conference this past year.)


(And I just realized - while doing Regular Vita Maintenance - that one of my papers is available online. Kind of cool.)

One other little thing, this is from the I Love Teaching files:

Yesterday, in one of my labs, we did a titration, OK? (Titrations, for those who've never done them, are a chemical way of determining the concentration of a substance you don't know the concentration of. They can be kind of a pain to do because it's easy to overshoot, and if you do, you have to start over).

Well, one of the teams in my class hit the equilibration point PERFECTLY on the first try. And the guy exclaimed, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!"

I had never heard that before but it made me laugh, especially in the context of a chemistry lab type thing.

Just in case you're curious about soil liquefaction:

liquefaction website

I also found a short USGS video: Hidden Fury, part 8

Part of my ongoing efforts to try and make soils class more interesting.