Kelly in Kansas

Americans Pay Tribute to Rosa Parks - Yahoo! News: "Americans Pay Tribute to Rosa Parks

By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON -
President Bush, members of Congress and ordinary Americans paid tribute to Rosa Parks under the soaring dome of the Capitol Rotunda on Sunday, honoring the woman whose defiant act on a city bus challenged segregation in the South and inspired the civil rights movement.

Parks, a former seamstress, became the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda, sharing an honor bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other national leaders. Bush and congressional leaders paused to lay wreaths by her casket, while members of a university choir greeted her with 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'"

Chicago Tribune news : Local news, weather, traffic, shopping and classified: "Sox arrive downtown
Update: The world champion Chicago White Sox rode up LaSalle Street to a rally celebrating the team's World Series victory. Onlookers packed the sidewalks from one end of the Loop to the other."

We're here for a family wedding - interesting and crowded times! Walking/jogging along the lakefront each morning has been fabulous!

Inside Higher Ed :: The Professor as Personal Trainer: "The Professor as Personal Trainer

By Alex Golub

When asked to list the top 10 problems facing the academy today, I bet most professors would include the “commodification” of education. By that they mean a sort of creeping penetration of market-forces into the academy such that earning a B.A. is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from, say, buying a Camaro."

This is good and well worth reading . .. .

mamamusings: "Teenagers and the internet:

Kids ages 12-17 are more connected than others, more intense users. They love and use IM, they love and use their cell phones (only 45% have cell phones—but if they have them, they love them). If you combine their IM and cell phone use, teenagers are redefining what it means to be present (great quote). His daughter was featured in a news story entitled “the conversation never ends”. 8 out of 10 teenagers play online gains (54% gain in 2 years). Also a 38% increase in getting news online; 71% growth in buying things online (up to 43% of teens). They increasingly use the Internet for health information—particularly for “sensitive subjects.”

Strikingly, teens are creating content. He says they’re about to release a new report on this topic. (Yay!) New surveys show that 19% of teenagers have created blogs (3x the adult rate); an even higher % have created and worked on their own web sites.

Teenagers are frenetic multitaskers. Hardly any of them do a single thing at a time. They’ve been referred to as Generation “M” (for media). When you add up the time they spend using their various forms media, it’s about 8.5 hours a day—but they do it in 6.5 hours of real time."

Confessions of a Community College Dean: Odd Fantasies, or, Why Remediation is Always With Us: "Odd Fantasies, or, Why Remediation is Always With Us
My oddball fantasy:

Throughout this land, there would be a flourishing of taxpayer-funded schools, targeted at kids in the 13-to-17 age range. These schools could teach teenagers a love of learning, made possible by a solid grounding in the fundamentals: writing skills, multiple languages, rigorous math and science preparation, full engagement in the arts, hands-on training in trades, a sense of history, and a citizen’s knowledge of government. These schools would train body and mind, and inculcate a love of excellence. They would embrace a plethora of learning styles, preparing the college-bound for college and the trades-bound for trades. By virtue of their location in the economically and racially diverse towns and cities of this fine land, they would teach diversity awareness simply in the course of doing other things. We could call these strange places ‘high schools.’

Alas.

Instead, judging by the amount of remediation we have to do at the cc level, what we have for the 13-to-17 population could be described as holding tanks.

Remediation is a live wire, as a political topic. Yet, educationally, it’s an obvious need."

Here's my comment on the topic:
Kelly said...

It would be great to more fully design the curriculum for the fantasy high schools . . . . . the points you make to getting rid of remediation at colleges is well taken. It would also be a good reminder to college professors of any discipline to remember that teaching the communication skills of our disciplines is also something that needs to be continually reinforced, whether you are talking about freshmen or graduate students. That's part of why I like exploring the development of historical thinking skills in my discipline. They may differ in regard to specifics by course but all reinforce the same concepts and ways of thinking about history's being more than facts and dates randomly assembled.

6:51 AM

In Katrina's wake, a tattoo boom in New Orleans - Yahoo! News: "In Katrina's wake, a tattoo boom in New Orleans

By Kevin Krolicki Thu Oct 20, 7:53 AM ET

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Natalie, 20, knows what she needs to capture her complicated feelings about Hurricane Katrina and its devastation of New Orleans: a tattoo.
ADVERTISEMENT

On a recent night at Crescent City Tattoo in New Orleans, she is lined up with about a dozen others to have messages and images inked on their bodies, many prompted by the killer storm that ripped through New Orleans seven weeks earlier.

Tattoo artists report a surge in demand for designs that celebrate New Orleans: fleur-de-lis patterns, 'NOLA,' after the city's widely known abbreviation, and even a symbol modeled after the weather-map depiction of hurricanes."

You Are Likely a First Born

At your darkest moments, you feel guilty. At work and school, you do best when you're researching. When you love someone, you tend to agree with them often. In friendship, you are considerate and compromising. Your ideal careers are: business, research, counseling, promotion, and speaking. You will leave your mark on the world with discoveries, new information, and teaching people to dream.

Had a great time at the Western.

This is one of the best shows!

Have lesson plans, id items, and Peyton Place papers to grade - can you tell it's mid-semester?

Also have a colleague going up for tenure after 11 years here . . . .

And this tells you why I don't always fit in the ivory tower:

You Should Get a MBA (Masters of Business Administration)

You're a self starter with a drive for success. You'd make a great entrepreneur.

You Have A Type A Personality

A You are hyper, energetic, and always on the mood You tend to succeed at everything you attempt And if you don't succeed at first, you quickly climb your way to the top! You could be called a workaholic, but you also make time for fun As long as it's high energy and competitive, you're interested You have the perfect personality for business and atheltic success

The Chronicle: Daily news: 10/07/2005 -- 01: "Academic Press and Prolific Author Tell Google to Remove Their Books From Its Scanning Project

By VINCENT KIERNAN

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Headlines

House Republicans offer bill to aid colleges and students affected by hurricanes

Senate endorses a $40-million increase for defense research and scholarships

Copycat allegations roil sociologists at Penn, raising question of whether 'analytic schemes' can be plagiarized

Winner of 2005 Nobel Peace Prize taught at NYU

Overhauled GRE will feature new types of questions and last 90 minutes longer

Graduate schools should look outward by training for nonacademic jobs and helping society, report says

State Digest: a roundup of this week's news from the states

2 New Jersey colleges will offer academic programs for students with intellectual disabilities

This week at the Al-Arian trial: prosecutors present evidence of concern for 'the guys' in Gaza

Ig Nobel Prizes honor syrup-swimming test and prosthetic testicles for animals

Information Technology
Academic press and prolific author tell Google to remove their books from its scanning project

A well-known scholar and his publisher have demanded that Google withdraw his books from the digital archive that the Internet-search company is compiling from the holdings of five university and research libraries.

'The basic problem is copyright violation,' said Jacob Neusner, a research professor of theology at Bard College, who has written more than 900 books (The Chronicle, May 9, 1997).

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Neusner said that he had asked Google to remove his works from its Google Library project, but Google had insisted that he fill out a separate form for each of his books. That was wrong, said Mr. Neusner, because under copyright law it is Google's responsibility to seek permission to use a copyrighted work."

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There's more information at the Chronicle (subscription only). This is an interesting saga and deals with both copyright and accessibility. Where does the information superhighway end? or does it?

mamamusings: "He was an early adopter—CompuServe, GEnie, the WELL. Then when he finished American Gods, he discovered blogging. He told his editor he wanted to write about what happens between when you type “the end” and when the book hits the bestseller list. Nobody ever hears that story—what happens with getting rights to song lyrics, for example?

He had a great time writing the stories on the blog—and when the book came out, he had 20K readers of his blog! So he carried on. It was like the online community sites he’d used before in many ways.

Currently the blog has 1.2 million individual visitors (he doesn’t say in what time period—is that monthly? weekly?). That meant there were many people looking forward to the release of Anansi Boys, who went out and bought it as soon as it was released. (“And suddenly, Dan Brown was ground beneath my heel,” he says, to widespread laughter.)

But, he points out, it was a side effect of the blog, not the purpose of it. (This is really important…)"

http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2005/10/tips-for-faculty-job-candidates.html

"Last year we had a faculty search in which we got ridiculously strong applications from ridiculously prestigious institutions, and we promptly relegated many of those applications to the recycling bin. From the letters, it was abundantly clear that we were little more than a port in a storm, and that the applicants would deign to work here only until something they really wanted came along. No, thanks. I want people who want to work here. That may seem cold, but if you think about it from the employer’s perspective, it makes perfect sense.

Finally, keep in mind that the market, such as it is, is glutted, irrational, and largely random. It’s not just about you. Don’t let despair become self-doubt.

Good luck out there!"

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The same holds true for the majority of state schools that aren't the "U" or "State U" of their particular state.