Continue reading “The IGEA workshop and the Teaching Professor conference”
Six years ago today, I went to Pepperdine for a job interview. It was my first time on campus and I remember it distinctly. I met some of my current colleagues during the first two interviews, both of which were held in a room that I’ve walked by all the time since then yet, oddly enough, have never entered again. I had lunch with two faculty, and we sat outside of the cafeteria and looked at the beautiful ocean in the distance.
Continue reading ““Absolute unity of evening”: A vocational anniversary of mine”
“How many classes,” asked a faculty at the end of a committee meeting three years ago, “is a tenured professor at Stanford required to teach each year?” None of us gave the correct answer, which is one. The same is probably true at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and other top Research I universities in America. I have no idea how teaching is evaluated among these folks—or if it is a category for evaluation. I’d guess, however, that teaching evaluations matter little or not at all at these institutions.
Continue reading “Explaining teaching evaluations to my first-year students”
Continue reading “A former student’s reflective essay on Plato and exercise”
Continue reading “My students on Langdon Gilkey’s Shantung Compound”
This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Tet Offensive. The event has generated perhaps more publications in the English language – government reports, media accounts, academic studies, amateur histories, memoirs, etc. – than any other from the Vietnam War. A sucker for anniversaries of publications and releases of films and music, I wish to commemorate it by inviting non-Vietnamese to listen to a very well-known song among Vietnamese.
Continue reading “Bài ca dành cho những xác người: Song for the human corpses”
I was on campus today for my first meeting of the new school year. It was the first time back since late May, meaning that yesterday was the unofficial last day of my summer. Like last summer, I worked at home and it gave me more downtime and a chance to catch up with popular culture.
Continue reading “I know what you watched last summer #2: my dancing portfolio”
