First Day as Teacher

By Scott:

Tonight I taught my first class as a College Professor. There were only three students and it is a graduate course that is a reading and conference class but it is still a big first step. With some advice from my brother Kevin who has been doing this for a while, I drafted a syllabus. The course is called Environment of Business, it is a Business law and ethics course so my J.D. is sufficient to qualify to teach. The students read a couple of chapters on their own then we have a one hour meeting to discuss the readings, basically a give and take where I throw out questions and issues and let the students run with it. I am grading them on a term paper, final exam and attendance at the 11 required meetings. I am also tutoring two undergraduates in Business Law who are taking the course by exam starting tomorrow.

Katie and I really feel like we are making a difference. You can tell the students are excited about evening staff and having someone who can answer their questions or at least start the process of getting an answer. I have set up a campus wide meeting next Saturday (the 30th) to have the students meet the new dean and registrar and I hope that we see a lot of attendees. The attitude here by the students seems to be antagonistic because there have been problems with student services in the past and that is a big reason we are here. We are working long hours but it definitely feels rewarding. The past two weeks have been end of the spring quarter, summer registration and start of summer quarter so we came during one of the four times a year rush. A baptism by fire. Hopefully things slow down as we get deeper into the quarter but our accreditation visit is looming in August-September and is going to be a ton of work.

I also had another reminder that the Dean's portfolio is rather large. We had a donation of furniture for our canteen so I spent an hour and a half moving furniture from a storage bin to a truck and then from the truck to our canteen. The first half done in a pair of slacks which wasn't the best use of clothing though all the dirt and grim seems to have washed out. Whatever needs to get done, that what the Dean does down here.

Yesterday we biked down to Fosters for a shopping run and then did an exercise ride up to North Sound. We are really looking forward to this weekend and our stay at the Reef Resort to celebrate, one month late, our first anniversary. We will let you all know what the resort is like.