Miscellany

[stoutfellow]

I see that I forgot one of the books I ordered from Amazon: Possible and Probable Languages, by Frederick J. Newmeyer. I'm not entirely sure what it's about, but it sure sounds intriguing!

(On a related note, about half the order arrived today; I've dived happily into volume one of Digger. The artwork has changed quite a bit since the beginning, but not in the usual way: it's gotten less realistic, more stylized.)

Just now, while channel-surfing, I noticed a familiar name. There's a new show called "The Unusuals", which isn't getting good reviews, and I doubt I'll watch it, but it caught my eye because Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia") is in it. That's not the familiar name. The blurb for tonight's episode mentions a character named Frank Lutz. That rang a bell; it took me a few seconds to remember where. Frank Lutz is the name of the mayor of Scranton in Blish's A Life for the Stars. I doubt there's a connection, but it's an odd coincidence.

This summer, I was assigned to teach our course in Mathematical Reasoning. (It's a sophomore-level course, a gateway to the more advanced courses.) Shortly afterward, a group of senior and graduate students went to the chairman and asked if he could arrange for a special course in topology this summer for them. Guess who got asked to teach it? This will be the first time I've taught two courses in summer. Today I met with the students to work out the schedule. The constraints were tight enough that we wound up agreeing to meet four hours a week - from 11 to 1 on Tuesdays, and from 3 to 5... on Tuesdays. (Normally I wouldn't agree to such concentrated timing, but the administration is cracking down on small class sizes, and I can't afford to lose even one of them if I want the course to run.)

One more lecture, in differential geometry tomorrow; finals week is next week. I'm also trying to get my Masters' student squared away - she has to make her presentation next week, and is very nervous about it.

Research proceeds apace; we've reached the "new and surprising levels of bafflement" stage - lots of information, some of it very strange, but no overarching theory.

:yawn:

Bedtime.

Comments

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

the administration is cracking down on small class sizes,

Why would they 'crack down' on small class sizes? I could see it if the class kept you from teaching something in higher demand (like the Mathematical Reasoning class) but it's not like your pay is inversely proportional to the number of students in your class, right? And the building would be heated/cooled whether there were classes going on or not. So why do they not like it? I thought small classes were a feature colleges dangled in front of potential students, not a bug to be brushed off. (And how's that for mixing my metaphors? *G*)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure, but I'd guess it's a resource-allocation problem: they want to be sure that they're getting enough bang for the buck. (Our contracts say that we're expected to teach a certain number of classes per year; they don't say how many students we're supposed to have.) Be that as it may, at each level there's a threshold - five for graduate classes, ten for senior classes, etc. - and classes that don't meet the threshold are liable to cancellation. For some reason, the math department is the second-most prone to this. How strictly the policy is enforced varies with the economic climate (among other things); right now, they're being very strict.

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

we're expected to teach a certain number of classes per year

Ah! OK, that makes sense from an administrative level, at least. If you consistently ran under the limits they'd have to hire more people (I assume some of the grad students are also TAs?) to offer the same number of classes.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! Getting to teach a group of highly motivated students who actually *requested* a class on a particular topic...that should be really enjoyable.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to it, yes. I've never taught this particular subject before, but I know most of these students already and they're a good bunch.