Yesterday I taught all three of my courses for this semester. My first thought is that I haven’t forgotten how. Read on for more.
Thoughts on returning to teaching
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Category Archives: Musings
Professoring while Pregnant
Long story short: I was pregnant during the fall semester, my daughter Gwendolyn was born in early December, and I am on maternity leave this semester. We’re both doing very well.
I’ve been meaning to write this post since October, which should say something. For those who have been wondering why I haven’t been writing much, this is why.
This is a fairly personal post. Those mainly interested in the development of the CS program should look for a future post on managing my maternity leave and upcoming research leaves. Continue reading
Three summers of moving
This is the first summer in three years that I haven’t had to move offices. Nonetheless, this summer has its own disruptive events that have made planning difficult. Continue reading
On systems and breakdowns
David Allen’s Getting Things Done is no small part of what got me through my dissertation, and I’ve been using it ever since. I was introduced to the system and philosophy by the postdoc I shared my office with. (A.J. Brush, who has continued to get things done—if you are reading this, thanks again!)
However, I won’t say I apply it perfectly. I experience breakdowns pretty regularly, which means reflecting on my tools or routines to figure out what to change to make it work again. Continue reading
Post-SIGCSE reflections
It’s been a while since I blogged. Since I was in Seattle for SIGCSE 2017 and it’s the start of Spring Break, I decided to hang out here for a few extra days. It seems like a good time for a reflection on both SIGCSE and the first half of the spring semester. Continue reading
End-of-year reflections, 2016
With the busy-ness of the semester over and the turning of another year, it is a time for looking back and looking forward.
Last week my Grinnell colleague Sam Rebelsky shared some end-of-semester reflections. I’m going to try this exercise too. Continue reading
Pre-registration for Spring 2017
In what has become a tradition, I report on pre-registration for next semester. The highlights:
- Enrollments blew up at the 200-level.
- Enrollments in CS 167 and two out of three 300-level courses are strong but not overwhelming.
- Enrollments in Algorithms are underwhelming, but we’re not worried about it.
Choose two out of three
Academic labor is typically framed as falling into three categories: teaching, scholarship, and service. There is also a common saying about tradeoffs in computer systems research: “X,Y,Z, choose two out of three.” Lately, I’m finding that in any given week I can be caught up on work for the CS program, or I can be caught up on grading, but not both. It’s a little harder to define being caught up on scholarship—meeting deadlines perhaps? In any case, if I meet a deadline for scholarship, I’m surely not caught up on everything else. Continue reading
Academic honesty guidelines
Students often have difficulty understanding how principles of academic honesty applies to problems in computer science, and especially programming problems. In my nine years at Grinnell, I had all too many discussions with my colleagues about interpreting evidence of academic dishonesty.
While core values and principles are held in common, institutional policies and procedures differ. This is one of the things that made last year a lonely year for me professionally. I sorely missed having colleagues to consult with about potential academic honesty cases, colleagues familiar with institutional policies and the special problems of academic honesty in computer science.
Advice on making the leap from industry to liberal arts college
A Facebook friend commented on my last post:
How would someone from industry even apply? What are the priorities for hiring committees? People in industry generally haven’t been pumping out the publications.
I think a blog post about how to frame your application package would be very valuable.