Autumn Leaves (Frank Sinatra) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhB8H1YnRF0
Autumn Leaves (Nat "King" Cole) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY17gMP5QvI
Autumn Leaves (Andrea Bocelli) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAMy_hivbtk
Autumn Leaves (Jazz piano trio) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ZzjMNgkZg
Video of Roger Williams Playing Autumn
Leaves ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_1tp2APNcg
Video of Roger Williams Playing Autumn Leaves ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5cueCo0No

Winter is in the air. The past few nights
we've had hard freezes. Most of the maples and birches are bare, although some
leaves still cling to other types of trees in the woods. All and all it's been a
great foliage season. It's also been an exceptional year for the Boston Red Sox
and the New England Patriots.



Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and
if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
George Eliot
Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a
flower.
Albert Camus
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will
drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I
have seen in one Autumnal face.
John Donne Elegy IX--The Autumnal.
Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the
close of a winter day.
Elizabeth Bowen
Every season hath its pleasures; Spring may boast
her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures Brighten Autumn's sob'rer
time.
Thomas Moore Spring and Autumn.
In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of
the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil. And
at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour
effects as from August to November.
Rose G. Kingsley The Autumn Garden.
Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant
The morns are meeker
than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.
Emily Dickinson Nature XXVII, Autumn.
A San Antonio friend and hero named Tex Hill
died ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/TexHill.htm
Tidbits on October30, 2007
Bob Jensen
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
You can read about Erika's surgeries and see her pictures at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm
Personal pictures are at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/
Some personal videos are at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/Video/Personal/
Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Set up free conference calls at
http://www.freeconference.com/
Also see
http://www.yackpack.com/uc/
If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops ---
http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Trinity University's Football Miracle Play ---
http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/2007/10/28/trinity-millsaps-and-the-must-see-moment
Also see ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkR9D4W1g8A&feature=bz301
Denny Beresford called my attention to this video..
"Some Basic Features You Should Demand When Buying a PC,"
The Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2007; Page B1
Walt Mossberg's Wall Street Journal 2007 PC Buyer's Guide (includes video) ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119266187772362614.html
Computer Games on Campus is Being Used to Increase College
Enrollment ---
http://chronicle.com/media/video/v54/i09/gaming/
God Bless the USA (Chelsie Boyd at Fort Benning) ---
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DXcpCzK5vy8
God Bless America (Lee Greenwood) ---
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RssIN3ustUw
Bob Jensen's songs/messages of inspiration and patriotism ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm#Inspirational
Greatest hit songs of Accounting: ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSranciXOvs
Damon Scott & Bubbles ---
http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=3076
New Solar Buildings on Campus (video from the Chronicle of
Higher Education) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/flash/v54/i09/solar/
Marching band and cheerleader mishaps ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGk4tmJuCkk
She's Ready (Hillary Dances) ---
Click here: 2008
England's most downloaded YouTube video (Candid Video Part 1) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq8aopATYyw
England's most downloaded YouTube video (Candid Video Part 2) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMfUajhL24I
Hillary vs. Condi Ho Down (turn up your speakers) ---
http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/13180/HillaryCondi_HoDown.swf
How Does
This Button Work? (Geometry, Video) ---
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1606
Decade Volcanoes ---
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0709/vesuvius/volcano-map.html
Screen Star Deborah Kerr Dies at 86 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15405463
Also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Kerr
Tim Conway
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Remembering the Good Times (yes, I remember them
well) ---
http://www.bentbay.dk/in_oldDays.html
Debbie Boone (daughter of Pat Boone) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Boone
Pat Boone ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Boone
Bob Jensen’s 1950s and 1960s Nostalgia ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm#JukeBox
Atomic Platters: Cold War Music---
http://www.atomicplatters.com/
Charmed Life (Mick Jagger) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15524832
"The Perils of Being a Child Prodigy: Why
Ervin Nyiregyházi never lived up to his potential," by Barbara Jepson, The
Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110010774
When 17-year-old Hungarian pianist Ervin
Nyiregyházi arrived in the U.S. in 1920 for a concert tour that included his
Carnegie Hall debut, photographers documented the occasion. In Europe, the
slender prodigy had won acclaim for his keyboard prowess and youthful
compositions, giving his first public performance at the age of 6, playing
at Buckingham Palace at 8 and appearing as soloist with the Berlin
Philharmonic at 12. By then, he had developed a taste for caviar and an
unshakable sense of his own importance.
Many children who manifest exceptional
musical talent at an early age develop justly celebrated, sustained careers.
But despite his initial success here and abroad, Nyiregyházi (pronounced
NYEER-edge-hah-zee) never achieved his full artistic potential, performing
only sporadically after he moved to Los Angeles in 1928. And his life,
unsparingly but empathetically recorded in "Lost Genius: The Curious and
Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy," by Kevin Bazzana,
illustrates other patterns all too commonly seen among those promoted as
wunderkind. These include use of the child's gifts to raise the family's
economic and social status, and emotional damage inflicted by a critical,
controlling parent--in this case, young Ervin's mother.
In "Lost Genius," Mr. Bazzana provides an
extensively researched, nuanced account of a spectacularly dysfunctional
life. Nyiregyházi married 10 times, more than once for financial benefit. He
cheated compulsively on his wives, patronizing massage parlors or
prostitutes and having casual sex with both genders. He consumed vast
quantities of alcohol. He was embarrassed about bodily functions.
. . .
By necessity and preference, Nyiregyházi
lived in the seamier sections of Los Angeles and San Francisco, often
without a piano, even after a well-publicized but short-lived comeback
during the 1970s. Amazingly, two of his ex-wives continued to assist him
financially, and his fifth wife allowed him to live with her for a time
because his sixth wife lacked a private bathroom. (The author deconstructs
each union, the only time this otherwise gripping biography sags.)
At his death in 1987 at the age of 84, he
left more than a thousand largely unknown works. "I wouldn't make too many
claims about Nyiregyházi's compositions, nor do I dismiss them," says Mr.
Bazzana, "but as a pianist, he belongs at the very top."
Continued in article
Tow Nyiregyhazi Video Clips
Photographs and Art
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various
types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Poets & Writers ---
http://www.pw.org/
Dylan Thomas 'Do Not Go Gentle' Analysis and Commentary
---
http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/dylan_thomas___do_not_go_gentle_
Persuasion
by Jane Austen (1775-1817) ---
Click Here
A Photographer'S Day Out
by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) ---
Click Here
A Wonderland Miscellany by Lewis Carroll ---
Click Here
Photography Extraordinary
by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) ---
Click Here
The Red One by Jack London ---
Click Here
The Assignation by Edgar
Allan Poe ---
Click Here
Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson ---
Click Here
Tribute to the Great ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TributeToTheGreat.htm
Kindergarten Children should be Encouraged to Dance
Naked & Masturbate (in groupies); Norwegian
Child Expert --- Click
Here
A long quotation from the above article appears later on (below) in this edition
of Tidbits.
Meanwhile in the Maine, birth control pills will now be distributed free in
middle schools to children between elementary and high school ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15407239
The New York Times (October 21, 2007) reports much displeasure with this
practice ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
The pills are only dispensed after private consultation with the school's health
professionals.
Given the high number of pregnancies in the early teens (over 17,000 per year in
the U.S.), birth control pills are
probably a good idea.
I will not comment on pre-schooling in Norway other than
to say that such a groupie policy in the U.S. would most likely eliminate the current
shortage of pre-school teacher job applicants.
The existence of this so-called "magic circle" of
the Portuguese establishment, allegedly involved in an international paedophile
ring using boys and girls from Casa Pia, was last week likened to an earthquake
waiting to shake Portugal to its foundations. New allegations about the scale of
the network will be put before the country's highest court within the next few
weeks. Amid rumours of links to other paedophile gangs across Europe and the
U.S., international experts on child sex crimes and murders are expected to be
in court when the case re-opens, four years after a group of victims broke a
silence lasting more than 30 years.
Andre Malone and Vanessa Allen, "Why Portugal is a haven for
paedophiles - the disturbing backcloth to the Madeleine case," London Daily
Mail, October 21, 2007 ---
Click Here
The first Medal of Honor awarded for combat in
Afghanistan will be presented Monday to the family of a Navy SEAL from Long
Island, N.Y, who gave his life to make a radio call for help for his team.
President Bush is to present the nation's highest military honor for valor to
the family of Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue . . . N.Y. Murphy, Luttrell
and two other SEALs were searching for a terrorist in the Afghan mountains on
June 28, 2005, when their mission was compromised after they were spotted by
locals, who presumably alerted the Taliban to their presence. An intense gun
battle ensued, with more than 50 anti-coalition fighters swarming around the
outnumbered SEALs. Although wounded, Murphy is credited with risking his own
life by moving into the open for a better position to transmit a call for help.
Devlon Barrett, "Family of Navy SEAL
to Get Medal of Honor," AOL News, October 24, 2007 ---
Click Here
Fox News Version ---
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct22/0,4670,MedalofHonor,00.html
The salary of the chief executive of a large
corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the
nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.
John Kenneth Galbraith ---
Click Here
On October 18, 2007, Pete Stark made the following
comments on the House floor: "Republicans sure don't care about finding $200
billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money?
Are you going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're
going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children. But
you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if he can get enough kids to
grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the
President's amusement."
Pete Stark later apologized under threat of almost
certain censure by the House ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/washington/23cnd-stark.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Pete Stark is a California Democratic Congressman ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark
He who takes medicine and neglects to dies wastes
the skills of his doctors.
Chinese proverb quoted by University of Pennsylvania
(Wharton School) professor on October 17, 2007 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm;jsessionid=a830595f2dd3356c5f3a?articleid=1825
The article deals with Chinese turmoil over pros and cons
of Western medicine.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in
it, doesn't go away;
Philip K. Dick ---
Click Here
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists
in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
When the Israelis destroyed Saddam Hussein's
research nuclear reactor in 1981, the consequence was that Saddam Hussein
pursued his program secretly. He began to establish a huge military nuclear
program underground," he said. "The use of force can set things back, but it
does not deal with the roots of the problem.
IAEA director and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei
as quoted by Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, "Photographs Said to Show Israeli
Target Inside Syria," The Washington Post, October 24, 2007 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102302577_pf.html
Jensen Comment
But the U.S. media keeps insisting that Saddam was not developing weapons of
mass destruction. Who should we believe?
If only we were able to become united... how
beautiful and near at hand the future would be
Ernesto (Che) Guevara ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Guevara
The tax on capital gains directly affects investment
decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital . . . the ease or difficulty
experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and
potential for growth in the economy."
John F. Kennedy ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
That makes it a three-peat: All of the leading
Democratic contenders for President have endorsed higher taxes on stock
ownership. Hillary Clinton is the "moderate" in that so far she'd merely raise
the tax to 20% from the current 15% -- a 33% increase. John Edwards and Mr.
Obama want to nearly double it, to 28%. This would repeal not only the Bush
capital gains tax cut of 2003 but also the 1997 bipartisan tax cut signed by
Bill Clinton, which cut the rate to 20% from 28%. In explaining his proposal,
Mr. Obama ignores JFK's arguments about economic growth and instead plays the
envy card: "For decades, we've seen successful strategies to ride antitax
sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work." But it's
not only the wealthy who will take a hit from higher capital gains taxes. Recent
surveys indicate that roughly 52% of American adults own stock in some form, and
last year 8.5 million of these investors paid a capital gains tax. The value of
those assets will decline if capital gains taxes go up because financial markets
instantly capitalize higher taxes on stock profits into lower stock prices.
"A Capital Gains Primer," The Wall Street Journal, October
15, 2007; Page A22 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119240927948858793.html
. . . Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on
all stock market profits (including Retirement fund, 401Ks and Mutual
Funds! and CREF accounts) . . . When asked how these
new tax dollars would be spent, she replied "We need to raise the standard of
living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated
12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with
millions of unemployed minorities." "Windfall profits taxes could go a long ways
to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as
'Americans'."
Free Republic, October 16, 2007 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1911844/posts
Jensen Comment
If this Windfall Tax becomes reality after the Democrats sweep the 2008
election, it will be too bad that you're locked into your retirement savings
plans (e.g., CREF) that depend on the stock market, because the stock market
will plunge south as soon as it even appears that Pelosi's Windfall Tax has a
chance. But when the value of your retirement account plunges you won't have to
pay as much Windfall Tax. Should you look at this as good news or bad news?
This is about as close as you can get to a retroactive tax
without actually imposing a retroactive tax. Even the millions of employed
minorities have to fear this egalitarian confiscation of their savings. Even if
you shift your pension plan out of corporate equity investments (stocks), you
will be liable for accumulated capital gains up to the date you shift to other
investments. For example, if you started saving for retirement in CREF 30 years
ago, nearly all the value of your portfolio is capital gain subject to the
Windfall Tax. My advice is to devote much more of your income to retirement
savings now so you won't lose quite so much of your retirement income net of the
Windfall Tax.
This may be a shot in the arm for the real estate market as
investors cash in their corporate equity savings and invest in real estate. But
it won't do the working poor or the unemployed any good as the corporations cut
back on operations due to higher cost of capital. But don't panic yet! The
Democrats have recently proved (Senator
Reid in particular) that they're just as vulnerable, or possibly more
vulnerable, to corporate lobbying powerhouses.
Effective January 1, 2008, the maximum amount of
earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to
$102,000 from $97,500. Of the estimated 164 million workers who will pay Social
Security taxes in 2008, nearly 12 million will pay higher taxes as a result of
the increase in the taxable maximum.
AccountingWeb, October 2007 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=104129
Jensen Comment
No kidding! Each worker will soon be supporting more than one retiree. And just
think what will happen when Medicare is extended to everybody inside the U.S.
apart from just the old folks and those that now qualify for disability
benefits. Soon after 2008 half to two-thirds your income or more will be taken
by the government to support retirees like me as well as everybody else in
or sneaking into the U.S.A. You have a good day at work now and as of this
moment in time cut out the
latte in your life!
You can't say Charlie Rangel lacks for ambition. The
House Ways and Means Chairman has been saying he wants to pass "the mother of
all tax reforms," and even that doesn't do justice to the trillion-dollar tax
baby he delivered unto Washington yesterday. No one thinks his plan has a chance
of becoming law this year, but its beauty is as a signal of Democratic
intentions for 2009. In proposing what would be the largest tax increase in
history, Mr. Rangel is showing the world what he wants the tax code to look like
if Democrats run the entire government. None of the Presidential candidates will
admit this before November 2008, but give Mr. Rangel credit for having the
courage of Hillary Clinton's convictions.
"Trillion-Dollar Baby Charlie Rangel's very revealing tax
increase," The Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010781
Last Thursday, the Senate voted 47-46 to cut $2
million from the budget of the Office of Labor Management Standards, which among
other things collects so-called LM-2 forms. Revised in 2003 to require greater
detail on union finances, these forms require unions to account for how they
spend the tens of millions of dollars they collect each year. Under the Supreme
Court's Beck decision, for example, union members can't be compelled to
contribute to political causes they don't support. So the LM-2s are a way to
shine the light of accountability on union leaders.
"Union Blinders," The Wall Street Journal, October 22,
2007; Page A18 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119301682537566616.html
The draft Senate bill has the support of the
intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and Bush's
director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. It will include full immunity
for those companies that can demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to
a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United
States. Such a demonstration, which the bill says could be made in secret, would
wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by
telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of
e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001,
without receiving court warrants. Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto any
legislation that lacked this provision.
Jonathan Weisman and Ellen
Nakashima, "Senate and Bush Agree On Terms of Spying Bill: Some
Telecom Companies Would Receive Immunity," The Washington Post, October
18, 2007; Page A01 ---
Click Here
Innocents were killed at Haditha, as they inevitably
are in all wars--though that does not excuse or justify wrongdoing. Yet neither
was Haditha the atrocity or "massacre" that many assumed--though errors in
judgment may well have been committed. And while some violent crimes have been
visited on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, overall the highly disciplined
U.S. military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion. When there have been
aberrations, the services have typically held themselves accountable. The same
cannot be said of the political and media classes. Many, including Members of
Congress, were looking for another moral bonfire to discredit the cause in Iraq,
and they found a pretext in Haditha. The critics rushed to judgment; facts and
evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template. Most despicably, they
created and stoked a political atmosphere that exposes American soldiers in the
line of duty, risking and often losing their lives, to criminal liability for
the chaos of war. This is the deepest shame of Haditha, and the one for which
apologies ought to be made.
"What Happened at Haditha: The massacre that wasn't, and its political
exploitation," The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010752
South America's cocaine pipeline is always adapting,
particularly when the pressure is on. That pressure, applied in Colombia through
an American-backed anti-drug campaign, has had an unintended effect: Colombian
traffickers have set up shop in neighboring Venezuela. This has helped make
Venezuela a major platform to ship drugs on to Europe and the United States.
Juan Forero, "Cocaine Finds a New Latin American Home,"
NPR, October 22, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15126818
Chávez’s Plan for Development Bank Moves Ahead ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/world/americas/22bank.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Jensen Comment
The question is whether Chávez will help the poor of the U.S. through the long
winter with both cheaper prices on heating oil and cocaine this year?
Journalistically, I was lucky enough to work at CBS
News when it was still shaped by the influence of the Murrow boys. They knew and
taught that "everyone is entitled to his own opinions"--and they had them--"but
not his own facts." And I miss the rough old boys and girls of the front page,
who'd greet FDR with "Snappy suit, Mr. President," who'd bribe the guard to tell
them what the prisoner said on the way to the chair, and who were not rich and
important but performed an extremely important social function. They found out
who, what, where, when, why. And they would have looked at the half-baked,
overcooked junior Hemingway of Scott Thomas Beauchamp and said, "That sounds
like a buncha hooey."
Peggy Noonan, "Apocalypse No The New
Republic's editors seem to have mistaken Vietnam movies for real life," The Wall
Street Journal, October 26, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010780
They're right on policy, especially in their
opposition to expanding Schip to upwards of 300% of poverty. But this exercise
is largely political, with Democrats trucking out every last deception to
portray Republicans as something out of Oliver Twist. The rhetoric reached a
nadir on the House floor yesterday when California Democrat Pete Stark said the
Administration was unwilling to pay for children's care (not true) but would
instead spend money in Iraq where soldiers "get their heads blown off for the
President's amusement."
"Child Offensive," The Wall Street Journal, October 19,
2007; Page A18 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119275958218564468.html
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing.
If you can fake those, you've got it made.
Groucho Marx ---
Click Here
So determined are Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer to
"do something" about subprime mortgages that they have come up with a proposal
that is unnecessary, will do little to help distressed borrowers, and would
increase the risk to taxpayers from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Other than that,
it's a fabulous idea.
"Fannie More" The Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2007;
Page A18 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119309741437967766.html
A defendant accused of forcing a prostitute at
gunpoint to have sex with him and three other men got lucky, so to speak, last
week. A Philadelphia judge dropped all sex and assault charges at his
preliminary hearing. Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni instead held the defendant
on the bizarre charge of armed robbery for - get this - "theft of services." . .
. Deni told me she based her decision on the fact that the prostitute
consented to have sex with the defendant. "She consented and she didn't get paid
. . . I thought it was a robbery."
Jill Porter, Philadelphia Daily
News, October 12, 2007 ---
Click Here
In August
1988, college junior Tim Keck borrowed $7,000 from his mom,
rented a Mac Plus, and published a 12-page newspaper. His
ambition was hardly the stuff of future journalism symposiums:
He wanted to create a compelling way to deliver advertising to
his fellow students. Part of the first issue’s front page was
devoted to a story about a monster running amok at a local lake;
the rest was reserved for beer and pizza coupons. Almost 20
years later, The Onion stands as one of the
newspaper industry’s few great success stories in the
post-newspaper era. Currently, it prints 710,000 copies of each
weekly edition, roughly 6,000 more than The Denver Post,
the nation’s ninth-largest daily. Its syndicated radio
dispatches reach a weekly audience of 1 million, and it recently
started producing video clips too. Roughly 3,000 local
advertisers keep The Onion afloat, and the paper
plans to add 170 employees to its staff of 130 this year.
Craig Beato,
"Amusing Ourselves to Depth Is The Onion our most intelligent
newspaper?" Reason Magazine, November 2007 ---
http://www.reason.com/news/show/122453.html
You can read more about The Onion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
Proponents of educational choice tend to focus on
the underprivileged, which is understandable given that low-income kids are
overrepresented in failing inner-city public schools. But an emphasis on the
plight of the poor can leave the impression that middle-class public school
students are doing fine. And that would be a false impression, according to a
new book-length study by the Pacific Research Institute, "Not as Good as You
Think: Why the Middle-Class Needs School Choice." Conventional wisdom holds that
upscale communities tend to have "good" schools, and parents often buy homes in
expensive neighborhoods so their kids have a shot at a decent public education.
But the PRI study, which focused on California, found that in nearly 300 schools
in middle-class and affluent neighborhoods, "less than half of the students in
at least one grade level performed at proficiency in state math and English
tests."
"Worse Than You Think," The Wall Street Journal, October
24, 2007; Page A20 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119318401559369149.html
City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the
Sioux Gateway Airport's unflattering three-letter identifier - SUX - and instead
have made it the centerpiece of the airport's new marketing campaign. The code,
used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags,
will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport's new slogan, "FLY SUX."
It also forms the address of the airport's redesigned Web site -
http://www.flysux.com.
"Iowa Airport SUX And That's OK, City Says," WCBSTV, October 22,
2007 ---
http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/Sioux.City.airport.2.410671.html
Jensen Question
Is SUX pronounced "sucks" or "Sue?"
Index on Censorship ---
http://www.indexonline.org/index.shtml
Reporters Without Borders (includes a press freedom index)
http://www.rsf.org
Iceland ranks Number 1
France ranks 31
United States ranks 48
Iran ranks 166
Russia ranks 168
Eritrea in
East Africa replaced North Korea in last place at 169
"General Sanchez's Scream," The Wall Street Journal,
October 18, 2007; Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119267146111962965.html
Whatever happens in Iraq, this country at
some point will have to think seriously (if possible) about the war's
effects on its politics and its institutions. Gen. Sanchez's scream is as
good a place as any to start.
With elided excerpts, I'll summarize what
he said. Body armor recommended.
• The media. "It seems that as long as
you get a front-page story there is little or no regard for the
'collateral damage' you will cause. Personal reputations have no value
and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for
unethical conduct. . . . [Y]ou assume that you are correct and on the
moral high ground."
"The speculative and often uninformed
initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly
becoming the standard of the industry." "[T]actically insignificant
events have become strategic defeats." And: "The death knell of your
ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to
align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you
are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our
country and killing our service members who are at war."
• The Bush administration. "When a
nation goes to war it must bring to bear all elements of power in order
to win. . . . [This] administration has failed to employ and synchronize
its political, economic and military power . . . and they have
definitely not communicated that reality to the American people."
• Congress and politics. "Since 2003,
the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the
Republican and Democratic parties struggled for power in Washington. . .
. National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that
have prevented us from devising effective, executable, supportable
solutions. These partisan struggles have led to political decisions that
endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The
unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than
our national security objectives."
• The bureaucracies. Gen. Sanchez
argues that "unity of effort" was hampered by the absence of any
coordinated authority over the war effort of the bureaucracies: "The
Administration, Congress and the entire interagency, especially the
Department of State, must shoulder the responsibility for this
catastrophic failure."
"Clearly," he says, "mistakes have been
made by the American military in its application of power. But even its
greatest failures in this war can be linked to America's lack of commitment,
priority and moral courage in this war effort…America has not been fully
committed to win this war."
He says leaving Iraq is not an option, and
he has no doubt about the threat: "As a nation we must recognize that the
enemy we face is committed to destroying our way of life."
In sum, what Gen. Sanchez is describing
here is a nation that is at risk and is in a state of disunity. Does
disunity matter? He is saying that in war, it does.
In politics, a degree of disunity is
normal. But in our time, partisan disunity has become the norm. The purpose
of politics now is to thwart, to stop.
We may have underestimated how corrosive
our disunity has been on the troops in Iraq, and how deeply it has damaged
us.
Those of us in politics -- politicians,
reporters, bureaucrats -- are largely inured to all this, and we seem to
have assumed that the system shares our infinite capacity for antipathy and
tumult. But is this occupational toughness natural to politics, or is it
cynicism? I don't think the soldiers or the American people see the
difference.
Arguably it is the proper role of politics
to intervene, to question. But during Vietnam and again now, we haven't been
able to avoid simultaneously putting troops on the battlefield while
fighting bitterly amongst ourselves at home for the length of the war.
The U.S. officer corps is aware of this.
While no one is talking about a stab in the back, they may conclude that the
home front and its institutions are unable to, or will not, protect their
back.
One may ask: Will we ever want to do this
again? Are we able to undertake military missions that prove difficult? Or
is the projection of U.S. military power into the world an idea that now
irreparably divides the American people? Before November 2008, we had better
have some answers, from our presidential candidates and from ourselves.
The End of the U.S., like the Roman Empire,
is Near According to the Liberal Press ---
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071029/holmes
This gloomy article offers no hope for any alternative for saving America, The
U.S was a short experiment in Democracy before we become totally Orwellian ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian
“He gets very emotional. He gets very
excited … a lot of spittle around the mouth and so on," says Ian Buruma of
Paul Berman, kicking off the latest round of polemical bloodletting between
the two liberal intellectuals.
The history of this spat is a bit tedious
and more than a bit convoluted, but here it is in a nutshell: In February
Buruma, a professor at Bard College, wrote a
profile of the Swiss-born Egyptian scholar Tariq Ramadan
for The New York Times Magazine. Buruma concluded that Ramadan's
"politics offer an alternative to violence, which, in the end, is reason
enough to engage with him, critically, but without fear."
Berman found that take dangerously naive
and simplistic. In a
28,000 word response that ran
across almost an entire issue of The New Republic, Berman delved
deep into Ramadan's written work and biography to paint a far more complex
-- and menacing -- picture of the controversial and wildly popular scholar
of Islam.
Buruma held his fire until late last
month when he took after Berman and other "such tub-thumpers for Bush's war"
as Christopher Hitchens and the French writer Pascal Bruckner in the course
of a
review
of Norman Podhoretz's new book, World War IV: The
Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Buruma's central point was that he
sees no difference between the views of "neo-left" thinkers like Berman and
neoconservative thinkers like Podhoretz. (Bruckner
and Buruma have tangled before on
the related issue of when tolerance for cultural differences becomes
tolerance for intolerance.)
Berman has just hit back with a
letter
to the editor in the latest issue
of The New York Review of Books, in which he claims that Buruma is
for some reason incapable of seeing the fine distinctions that Berman feels
he has drawn between his own position and that of President Bush's.
Berman and Buruma's ongoing spat -- which
shows every sign of intensifying in the near future -- speaks to a
much larger divide on the left
over how to aid the cause of reform in the Muslim world.
Buruma's position is seconded by the
New York University historian Tony Judt, most notably in
this essay in the
London Review of Books -- titled "Bush's Useful Idiots" -- and in
this op-ed in The New York
Times.
Elements of this debate have been playing
out in the pages of The Chronicle Review. Earlier this year Tariq
Ramadan
made a case for what
the West can learn from Islam. In 2004 Ian Buruma sketched out the origins
of
Occidentalism, which he defined as "a war against
a particular idea of the West, which is neither new nor unique to Islamist
extremism." And in 2003
Paul Berman implored intellectuals
to ask themselves what they are doing to
support "liberal values against the totalitarianism of the Muslim world and
its defenders in the West."
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are
at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Find out which questions (out of eleven) where the U.S. Presidential
candidates are most aligned with your responses ---
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460
Up Up and Away: Faculty and Administrative Salaries Soar
As of fall 2006, the average salary for a full-time
professor at the University of Illinois (UI) was $95,700, up $13,400 or 16
percent since 2002. When comparing that average salary to those at the 21
institutions, the UI ranks third from the bottom, behind Michigan, Texas and
North Carolina but ahead of Washington and Wisconsin....In recent years, as
turnovers have occurred in high-level positions at the university, salaries for
new employees have often risen well above the predecessor's pay. Four years ago,
the UI's vice president for technology and economic development, David Chicoine,
earned $262,500. UI College of Business Dean Avijit
Ghosh will assume that post in January and earn $339,000....Of
the more than 100 people who earn $200,000 or more at the UI, many are in the
business and law schools. And many hold endowed chairs, meaning some of the
salary is funded by a donor.Such top faculty earners include finance Professor
Jeff Brown, who has the title of William Karnes Professor of Mergers and
Acquisitions, and a salary of $245,000;
Christine Des Garennes, News-Gazette, October 28, 2007 ---
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/10/28/going_rate_is_going_up
Bob Jensen's threads on salary issues are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Salaries
Teaching versus Research versus Education
October 24, 2007 message from XXXXX
Bob,
I'm writing this to get your personal view of the relationship between
teaching and research? I think there's lots of ways to potentially answer
this question, but I'm curious as to your thoughts.
October 27, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi XXXXX,
Wow! This is a tough question!.
Since I know you're an award-winning teacher, I hope you will identify
yourself on the AECM and improve upon my comments below.
Your question initially is to comment on the relation between teaching and
research. In most instances research at some point in time led to virtually
everything we teach. In the long-run research thus becomes the foundation of
teaching. In the case of accounting education this research is based heavily on
normative and case method research. Many, probably most,
accountics researchers are not outstanding teachers of undergraduate
accounting unless they truly take the time for both preparation and student
interactions.
New education technologies may especially help these researchers teach better.
For example, adding video such as the BYU variable speed video described below
may replace bad lecturing in live classes with great video learning modules.
Similarly, master teachers and master educators are sometimes reputed researchers, but this is
probably the exception rather than the rule. Researchers have trouble finding
the time for great class preparation and open-door access.
********************
Firstly your question can be answered at the university-wide level where experts
think that students, especially undergraduate students, get short changed by
research professors. Top research professors sometimes only teach doctoral
students or advanced masters students who are already deemed experts.
Research professors often prefer this arrangement so that they can focus
upon there research even when "teaching" a tortured
esoteric course. Undergraduate students in
these universities are often taught by graduate student instructors who have
many demands on their time that impedes careful preparation for teaching
each class and for giving students a lot of time outside of class.
Often the highest ranked universities are among the worst universities in
terms of teaching. See
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#DoNotExcel
When top researchers are assigned undergraduate sections, their
sections are often the least popular. A management science professor years
ago (a top Carnegie-Mellon graduate) on the faculty at Michigan State University had no
students signing up for his elective courses. When assigned sections of
required courses, he only got students if students had no choice regarding
which section of a course they were forced into by the department head. This
professor who was avoided by students at almost all costs was one of the
most intelligent human beings I ever met in my entire life.
One of the huge problems is that research professors give more attention
to research activities than day-to-day class preparation. Bad preparation,
in turn, short changes students expecting more from teachers. I've certainly
experienced this as a student and as a faculty member where I've sometimes
been guilty of this as I look back in retrospect. A highly regarded
mathematics researcher at Stanford years ago had a reputation of being always unprepared for class. He often could not solve
his own illustrations
in class, flubbed up answering student questions, and confused himself while lecturing
in a very disjointed and unprepared manner. This is forgivable now an then,
but not repeatedly to a point where his campus reputation for bad teaching
is known by all. Yet if there was a Nobel Prize for mathematics, he would
have won such a prize. John Nash (the
"Beautiful Mind" at Princeton University who did win a Nobel Prize in
economics) had a similar teaching reputation, although his problems were
confounded by mental illness.
Then again, sometimes top researchers, I mean very top award-winning
researchers, are also the master teachers. For example, Bill Beaver, Mary
Barth, and some other top accounting research professors repeatedly won
outstanding teaching awards when teaching Stanford's MBA students and
doctoral students. I think in these instances,
their research makes them better teachers because they had so much leading
edge material to share with students. Some of our peers are just good at
anything they seriously undertake.
But when it gets down to it, there's no single mold for a top teacher and
a top educator. And top educators are often not award-sinning teachers.
Extremely popular teachers are not necessarily top educators ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
In fact, some top educators may be unpopular teachers who get relatively
low student evaluations. In a somewhat analogous manner, the best physicians
may get low ratings from patients due to abrupt, impersonal, and otherwise
lousy bedside manners. Patients generally want the best physicians even when
bedside manners are lousy. This is not always the case with students. For
example, an educator who realizes that student learn better when they're not
spoon fed and have to work like the
little red hen (plant the seed, weed the
field, fend off the pests, harvest the grain, mill the grain, and bake their
own meals) prefer their fast-food instructors, especially the easy grading
fast food instructors.
********************
Secondly your question can be answered at an individual level regarding
what constitutes a master educator or a master teacher. There are no molds
for such outstanding educators. Some are great researchers as well as being
exceptional teachers and/or educators. Many are not researchers, although
some of the non-researchers may be scholarly writers.
Some pay a price for devoting their lives to education administration and
teaching rather than research. For example, some who win all-campus teaching
awards and are selected by students and alumni as being the top educators on
campus are stuck as low paying associate professorship levels because they
did not do the requisite research for higher level promotions and pay.
Master Educators Who Deliver Exceptional Courses or
Entire Programs
But Have Little Contact With Individual Students
Before reading this section, you should be familiar with the document at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
Master educators can also be outstanding researchers, although research
is certainly not a requisite to being a master educator. Many master
educators are administrators of exceptional accounting education programs.
They're administrative duties typically leave little time for research,
although they may write about education and learning. Some master educators
are not even tenure track faculty.
What I've noticed in recent years is how technology can make a huge
difference. Nearly every college these days has some courses in selected
disciplines because they are utilizing some type exciting technology. Today I returned from a trip to Jackson, Mississippi where I
conduced a day-long
CPE session
on education technology for accounting educators in Mississippi
(what great southern hospitality by the way). So the audience would not have
to listen to me the entire day, I invited Cameron Earl from Brigham Young
University to make a presentation that ran for about 90 minutes. I learned
some things about top educators at BYU, which by the way is one
of the most respected universities in the world. If you factor out a
required religion course on the Book of Mormon, the most popular courses on
the BYU campus are the two basic accounting courses. By popular I mean in
terms of thousands of students who elect to take these courses even if they
have no intention of majoring in business or economics where these two courses are
required. Nearly all humanities and science students on campus try to sign up for
these two accounting courses.
After students take these two courses, capacity constraints restrict the
numbers of successful students in these courses who are then allowed to
become accounting majors at BYU. I mean I'm talking about a very, very small
percentage who are allowed to become accounting students. Students admitted
to the accounting program generally have over 3.7 minimum campus-wide grade
averages.
This begs the question of what makes the two basic accounting courses so
exceptionally popular in such a large and prestigious university?
- These two basic accounting courses are not sought out for easy
grades. In fact they are among the hardest courses for high grades at
BYU. I think that this is probably true in most business schools in the
nation.
- These two BYU courses are not sought out for face-to-face contact
with the instructor. The courses have thousands of students each term
such that most students do not see the instructor outside of class even
though he's available over ten hours per week for those who seek him
out. Each course only meets in live classes eight times per semester.
Most of the speakers in those eight classes are outstanding visiting
speakers who add a great deal to the popularity of the course. This is
often one difference between a course run by a master educator versus a
master teacher. A master educator often brings in top talent to inspire
and educate students.
- The courses undoubtedly benefit from the the shortage of accounting
graduates in colleges nationwide and the exceptional career
opportunities for students who want careers in accounting, taxation,
law, business management, government, criminal justice, and other
organizations. But these accountancy advantages exist for every college
that has an accounting education program. Most all colleges do not have
two basic accounting courses that are sought out by every student in the
entire university. That makes BYU's two basic accounting courses truly
exceptional.
- Some courses in every college are popular these days because they
are doing something exceptional with technology. These two BYU courses
increased in popularity when a self-made young man became a
multimillionaire and decided to devote his life to being a master
educator in these two accountancy courses at BYU. His name is Norman
Nemrow. He runs these courses full time without salary at BYU and is
neither a tenure track faculty member or a noted researcher at BYU. I
think he qualifies, however, as an education researcher even if he does
not publish his findings in academic journals. The video disks are
available to anyone in the world for a relatively small fee that goes to
BYU, but BYU is not doing this for purposes of making great profits. You
can read more about how to get the course disks at the following links:
- The students in these two courses learn the technical aspects of
from variable-speed video disks that were produced by Norman and a team
of video and learning experts. Cameron Earl is a recent graduate of BYU
who is part of the technical team that delivers these two courses on
video. Formal studies of Nemrow's video courses indicate that students
generally prefer to learn from the video relative to live lectures. The
course has computer labs run by teaching assistants who can give live
tutorials to individual students, but most students who have the video
disks for their own computers do not seek out the labs.
Trivia Question
At BYU most students on campus elect to take Norman Nemrow's two basic
accounting courses. In the distant past, what exceptional accounting
professor managed to get his basic accounting courses required at a renowned
university while he was teaching these courses?
Trivia Answer
Bill Paton is one of the all-time great accounting professors in history.
His home campus was the University of Michigan, and for a period of time
virtually all students at his university had to take basic accounting (or at
least so I was told by several of Paton's former doctoral students). Bill
Paton was one of the first to be inducted into the
Accounting Hall of Fame.
| As an aside, I might mention
that I favor requiring two basic accounting courses for every
student admitted to a college or university, including colleges
who do not even have business education programs.
But the "required accounting
courses" would not, in my viewpoint, be a traditional basic
accounting courses. About two thirds or more of these courses
should be devoted to personal finance, investing, business law,
tax planning. The remainder of the courses should touch on
accounting basics for keeping score of business firms and
budgeting for every organization in society.
At the moment, the majority of
college graduates do not have a clue about the time value of
money and the basics of finance and accounting that they will
face the rest of their lives. |
There are other ways of being "mastery educators" without being master
teachers in a traditional sense. Three professors of accounting at the
University of Virginia developed and taught a year-long intermediate
accounting case where students virtually had to teach themselves in a manner
that they found painful and frustrating. But there are metacognitive reasons
where the end result made this year-long active learning task one of the
most meaningful and memorable experiences in their entire education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
They often painfully grumbled with such comments as "everything I'm learned
in this course I'm having to learn by myself."
You can read about mastery learning and all its frustrations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
Master Teachers Who Deliver Exceptional Courses
But Have Little Contact With Individual Students
Before reading this section, you should be familiar with the document at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
Master teachers can also be outstanding researchers, although research is
certainly not a requisite to being a master teacher. Some, not many, master
teachers also win awards for leading empirical and analytical research. I've
already mentioned Bill Beaver and Mary Barth at Stanford University. One
common characteristic is exceptional preparation for each class coupled with
life experiences to draw upon when fielding student questions. These life
experiences often come from the real world of business apart from the more
narrow worlds of mathematical modeling where these professors are also
renowned researchers.
Frequently master teachers teach via cases and are also known as
exceptional case-method researchers and writers of cases. The Harvard
Business School every year has some leading professors who are widely known
as master teachers and master researchers. Michael Porter may become one of
Harvard's all time legends. Some of the current leading master teachers at
Harvard and elsewhere who consistently stand head and shoulders above their
colleagues are listed at
http://rakeshkhurana.typepad.com/rakesh_khuranas_weblog/2005/12/index.html
Some of the all-time great case teachers were not noted researchers or
gifted case writers. Master case teachers are generally gifted
actors/actresses with carefully prepared scripts and even case
choreographies in terms of how and were to stand in front of and among the
class. The scripts are highly adaptable to most any conceivable question or
answer given by a student at any point in the case analysis.
Most master case teachers get psyched up for each class. One of Harvard's
all time great case teachers,
C. Roland (Chris) Christensen, admitted after years of teaching to still
throwing up in the men's room before entering the classroom.
In some of these top case-method schools like the Harvard Business School
and Darden (University of Virginia) have very large classes. Master teachers
in those instances cannot become really close with each and every student
they educate and inspire.
Some widely noted case researchers and writers are not especially good in
the classroom. In fact I've known several who are considered poor teachers
that students avoided whenever possible even thought their cases are popular
worldwide.
Open-Door Master Teachers Who Have Exceptional One-On-One Relations
With Students
Not all master teachers are particularly outstanding in the classroom.
Two women colleagues in my lifetime stand out as open-door master teachers who were
prepared in class and good teachers but were/are not necessarily exceptional
in classroom performances. What made them masters teachers is exceptional
one-on-one relations with students outside the classroom. These master
teachers were exceptional teachers in their offices and virtually had open
door policies each and every day. Both Alice Nichols at Florida State
University and Petrea Sandlin at Trinity University got to know each student
and even some students' parents very closely. Many open-door master
teachers' former students rank them at the very top of all the teachers they
ever had in college. Many students elected to major in accounting because
these two women became such important parts of their lives in college.
But not all these open-door master teachers are promoted and well-paid by
their universities. They often have neither the time nor aptitude for
research and publishing in top academic journals. Sometimes the university
bends over backwards to grant them tenure but then locks them in at
low-paying associate ranks with lots of back patting and departmental or
campus-wide teaching awards. Some open-door master teachers never attain the
rank and prestige of full professor because they did not do enough research
and writing to pass the promotion hurdles. Most open-door master teachers find their
rewards in relations with their students rather than relations with their
colleges.
Sometimes master teachers teach content extremely well without
necessarily being noted for the extent of coverage. On occasion they may
skip very lightly over some of the most difficult parts of the textbooks
such as the parts dealing with FAS 133, IAS 39, and FIN 46. Sometimes the
most difficult topics to learn make students frustrated with the course and
the instructor who nevertheless makes them learn those most difficult topics
even when the textbook coverage is superficial and outside technical
learning material has to be brought into the course. Less popular teachers
are sometimes despised taskmasters.
Your question initially was to comment on the relation between teaching and
research. In most instances research at some point in time led to virtually
everything we teach. In the long-run research thus becomes the foundation of
teaching. In the case of accounting education this research is based heavily on
normative and case method research. Many, probably most,
accountics researchers are not outstanding teachers of undergraduate
accounting unless they truly take the time for both preparation and student
interactions.
New education technologies may especially help these researchers teach better.
For example, adding video such as the BYU variable speed video described above
may replace bad lecturing in live classes with great video learning modules.
Similarly, master teachers and master educators are sometimes reputed researchers, but this is
probably the exception rather than the rule. Researchers have trouble finding
the time for great class preparation and open-door access.
And lastly,
accountics researchers research in accounting has not been especially
noteworthy, apart from case-method research, in providing great teaching
material for our undergraduate and masters-level courses. If it was noteworthy
it would have at least been replicated ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#Replication
If it was noteworthy for textbooks and teaching, practitioners would be at least
interested in some of it as well ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AcademicsVersusProfession
"‘Too Good’ for Tenure?" by Alison Wunderland (pseudonym), Inside Higher
Ed, October 26, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/10/26/wunderland
But what most small colleges won’t tell you — not
even in the fine print — is that teaching and students often really don’t
come first. And for the professors, they can’t. Once upon a time teaching
colleges taught and research institutions researched. But these days, with
the market for students competitive, and teaching schools scrambling for
recognition, they have shifted their priorities. Now they market what is
measurable — not good teaching, but big names and publications. They look to
hire new faculty from top research universities who will embellish the
faculty roster and bring attention to the school by publishing. And they can
do this, because even job candidates who don’t really want to be at places
like Rural College (although it is ranked quite well) are grateful to get a
tenure-track position.
And here is where the problem is compounded. Small
schools want books instead of teaching; and many new faculty — even the
mediocre scholars — want to publish instead of teach. In the new small
college, both win. Everyone looks the other way while courses are neglected
for the sake of publications. What few devoted teachers will admit — because
to do so would be impolitic — is that it is impossible to teach a 4-4 or
even a 3-3 load effectively and publish a book pre-tenure without working
“too hard.” What’s more, when you suggest that a small teaching college
should prioritize teaching over publishing, what your colleagues hear you
say is, “I am not good enough to publish.”
Sadly, many of the students also think they win in
this scenario. They get good grades with little work. Once a culture like
this is established, a new faculty member who is serious about teaching
rocks the boat. And if she still somehow manages to excel in all the other
required areas, she might be sunk. Unfortunately for the small schools, the
best solution for her might be to jump ship.
"Teaching Professors to Be More Effective Teachers," Elizabeth Redden,
Inside Higher Ed, October 31, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/31/ballstate
David W. Concepción, an associate professor of
philosophy, came to the first workshop series in 2003 wondering why
“students in courses for some number of years said, ‘I get nothing out of
the reading’” (specifically the primary philosophy texts). Discovering
through student focus groups that what they meant was that they couldn’t
ascertain the main points, Concepción realized that he needed to explain the
dialogical nature of philosophy texts to students in his 40-person
introductory philosophy course.
Whereas high school texts tend to be linear and
students read them with the objective of highlighting facts paragraph by
paragraph that they could be tested on, “Primary philosophical texts are
dialogical. Which is to say an author will present an idea, present a
criticism of that idea, rebut the criticism to support the idea, maybe
consider a rejoinder to the rebuttal of the criticism, and then show why the
rejoinder doesn’t work and then get on to the second point,” Concepción
says.
“If you are reading philosophy and you’re assuming
it’s linear and you’re looking for facts, you’re going to be horribly,
horribly frustrated.”
Out of the workshop, Concepción designed an initial
pedagogical plan, which he ran by fellow workshop participants, fellow
philosophy faculty, junior and senior philosophy majors, and freshmen
philosophy students for feedback. He developed a “how-to” document for
reading philosophy texts (included in a December 2004 article he published
in Teaching Philosophy, “Reading Philosophy with Background Knowledge and
Metacognition,” which won the American Association of Philosophy Teachers’
Mark Lenssen Prize for scholarship on the instruction of philosophy).
Based on the constructivist theory of learning
suggesting that students make sense of new information by joining it with
information they already have, his guidelines suggest that students begin
with a quick pre-read, in which they underline words they don’t know but
don’t stop reading until they reach the end. They then would follow up with
a more careful read in which they look up definitions, write notes
summarizing an author’s argument into their own words on a separate piece of
paper, and make notations in the margins such that if they were to return to
the reading one week later they could figure out in 15 seconds what the text
says (a process Concepción calls “flagging).
Concepción also designed a series of assignments in
which his introductory students are trained in the method of reading
philosophy texts. They are asked to summarize and evaluate a paragraph-long
argument before and after learning the guidelines (and then write a report
about their different approaches to the exercise before and after getting
the “how-to” document on reading philosophy), turn in a photocopy of an
article with their notations, and summarize that same article in writing.
They participate in a class discussion in which they present the top five
most important things about reading philosophy and face short-answer
questions on the midterm about reading strategies (after that, Concepción
says, students are expected to apply the knowledge they’ve learned on their
own, without further direct evaluation).
The extra reading instruction has proven most
beneficial for the weakest students, Concepción says — suggesting that the
high-performing students generally already have the advanced reading skills
that lower performers do not.
“What happened in terms of grade distribution in my
classes is that the bottom of the curve pushed up. So the number of Fs went
down to zero one semester, the Ds went down and the Cs stayed about the same
in the sense that some of the former C performers got themselves in the B
range and the Fs and the Ds got themselves in the C range. There was no
difference in the A range, and not much difference in the B range.”
Meanwhile, in his weekly, 90-person lecture class
on World Mythology, William Magrath, a full professor of classics, also saw
significant drops in the number of Fs after developing targeted group work
to attack a pressing problem: About a quarter of freshmen had been failing.
“I had been keeping very close records on student
performance over the semester for the previous five or six years and noticed
that there was a pattern wherein a lot of the freshmen were having real
difficulty with the course. But it wasn’t so much that they weren’t
performing on the instruments that they were given but rather that they
weren’t taking the quizzes or weren’t taking the tests or weren’t getting
the assignments in,” Magrath says.
Discovering that he could predict final grades
based on student performance in just the first four weeks of class with
remarkable accuracy, he divided the freshmen into groups based on their
projected grades: the A/Bs, B/Cs and Ds/Fs (No – he didn’t call them by
those names, but instead gave the groups more innocuous titles like “The
Panthers.”)
Meeting with each set of students once every three
weeks for one hour before class, he gave the A/Bs a series of supplemental
assignments designed to challenge them. For instance, he would give them a
myth on a particular theme and ask them to find three other myths connected
to that theme for a group discussion. Meanwhile, the Ds/Fs took a more
structured, step-by-step approach, completing readings together and
discussing basic questions like, “How do you approach a story, what do you
look for when you face a story, how would you apply this theory to a story?”
Meanwhile, Magrath says, the B/C students didn’t
complete supplemental reading, but were instead expected to post questions
about the readings or lectures that he would answer on the electronic class
bulletin board – with the idea that they would remain engaged and involved
in class.
In the end, Magrath found the smallest difference
for B/C students. But the overall average of students climbed from 1.9 in
1999-2002, before the group work was put in place, to 2.4 in 2003-5. Of all
the Fs he gave, the percentage given to freshmen (as opposed to
upperclassmen in the class, who did not participate in the group work) fell
from 63 to 11 percent.
When, in 2006, Magrath stopped conducting the group
work in order to see what the effect might be, performance returned to
earlier levels.
“The dynamic of this class is a large lecture class
with the lights dimmed at night on Thursdays once a week. The kids feel
anonymous almost right away. That anonymity gets broken by virtue of being
with me,” Magrath says. He adds that while he has also replicated the group
work format in the spring semester, the results weren’t as dramatic —
suggesting, he says, that freshman fall is the critical time to get students
on track.
“If what [first-semester freshmen] are experiencing
in the classroom isn’t accommodating for them, they don’t know what to do.
They genuinely don’t know what to do,” he says.
As for steps forward, Ranieri, the leader of the
initiative, says that the Lumina grant – which included funds for faculty
stipends of $2,400 the first year and $2,000 in subsequent years (faculty
who participated in the first two years continued to participate in
workshops and receive funding through the end of the three-year cycle) — has
been exhausted. However, he hopes to expand a report he’s writing — which
tracks retention and GPA data for students who enrolled in the “Lumina”
courses as freshmen throughout their college careers — for publication.
So far, Ranieri says, the various professors
involved have given 13 national or international presentations and produced
four peer-reviewed publications.
“One of the biggest problems you have in higher
education,” he says, “is allowing faculty members to be rewarded for this
kind of work.”
October 30, 2007 reply from Linda A Kidwell
[lkidwell@UWYO.EDU]
There was an article in the Smith College Alumnae
Magazine several years ago about one of my favorite professors at Smith,
Randy Bartlett in economics. My second semester of senior year, I was done
with all my required courses and swore I would not take another 8:00 class,
but one of my friends told me to give his 8am Urban Economics class a try.
He opened class that first day by reading Carl Sandberg's poem Chicago, and
I was hooked -- back into an unnecessary 8 o'clock class by choice! And he
was indeed a wonderful teacher. He read that poem again after a semester of
urban econ, and it took on a whole new meaning.
Although I was unaware of his research activities
at the time, the article I mentioned contained this wonderful quote I have
kept on my wall since then:
"I carry out the research and publish because it
keeps my mind lively. I can't ask my students to take on hard work without
my doing the same."
When I wonder about the significance of my
contributions to the field, I read that quote.
For those who don't know the poem, here it is:
CHICAGO
| HOG Butcher for
the World, |
|
| Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, |
|
| Player with Railroads and the
Nation’s Freight Handler; |
|
| Stormy, husky, brawling, |
|
| City of the Big Shoulders: |
5 |
| |
| They tell me you are wicked and I
believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas
lamps luring the farm boys. |
|
| And they tell me you are crooked and I
answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free
to kill again. |
|
| And they tell me you are brutal and my
reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the
marks of wanton hunger. |
|
| And having answered so I turn once
more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back
the sneer and say to them: |
|
| Come and show me another city with
lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong
and cunning. |
10 |
| Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil
of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid
against the little soft cities; |
|
| Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping
for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, |
|
| Bareheaded, |
|
| Shoveling, |
|
| Wrecking, |
15 |
| Planning, |
|
| Building, breaking, rebuilding, |
|
| Under the smoke, dust all over his
mouth, laughing with white teeth, |
|
| Under the terrible burden of destiny
laughing as a young man laughs, |
|
| Laughing even as an ignorant fighter
laughs who has never lost a battle, |
20 |
| Bragging and laughing that under his
wrist is the pulse. and under his ribs the heart of the people, |
|
| Laughing! |
|
| Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling
laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and
Freight Handler to the Nation. |
Carl Sandberg 1916
Linda Kidwell University of Wyoming
October 30, 2007 reply from Patricia Doherty
[pdoherty@BU.EDU]
You know, Linda, somehow your post brought to my
mind something from my own undergraduate days at Duquesne University. I was
a Liberal Arts student, and had to take, among other things, 4 semesters of
history. I came into it dreading it - I'd hated history in high school - all
memorization and outlining of chapters. The first college semester was no
improvement - an auditorium lecture with hundreds of students, a professor
lecturing for 50 minutes, and a TA taking attendance. Then came the second
semester. I looked for, and found, a smaller class. The professor (whose
name escapes me right now) was a "church historian," researching history
from the viewpoint of world religions. He began the first class by reading
an excerpt from Will Cuppy's "The Decline and Fall of Practically
Everybody." Had us rolling in the aisles. He kept at it the whole term,
interspersing history with Cuppy readings and anecdotes from actual history.
I loved that class.
And Will Cuppy is on my shelf to this day. And that
professor awakened in me a love of history. I read history, historical
novels, watch history films (fiction and non) to this day. All because one
professor thought history was a living thing, not a dead timeline, and
managed to convey that to a bunch of jaded sophomores.
p
How to Teach With "Start" and "Remote Control" and UserView in
Windows
You should become very familiar with the Landmark Act before designing any
course materials
For over two years, after we bought our retirement home in New Hampshire, and
before I retired from Trinity University in Texas, I used GoToMyPC to remotely
operate my desktop computer in Texas from hotel rooms and my home in NH during
summers, holiday breaks, a sabbatical leave, and other visits to NH. GoToMyPC
works great and did penetrate my university's firewall. This is an annual-fee
based option for remotely controlling your office computer or the computer of a
friend or student in a distant location ---
https://www.gotomypc.com
I now use Cisco's VPN which is free to me when I want to download files into
various servers on the Trinity University Network. But VPN is not quite the same
as a remote control system for operating a distant computer ---
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/vpn/p/ciscovpnclient.htm
Since I no longer have an office and desktop computer in Texas, I no longer
use GoToMyPC. However, the other day I had call to use a free utility that is
built into the Windows operating system. I simply clicked on "Start" and "Remote
Control" and gave a Trinity University computer technician remote control of my
PC (actually it's joint control since we both had control of my computer). This
remote control can be granted for any specified amount of time (e.g., 20 minutes
or two hours) and can be granted without having to give your password to the
remote operator, although you can also choose the password-required option.
Note especially that the pre-specified time allotment is a key advantage over
the free "Start" and "Remote Control" alternative relative to the
fee-based GoToMyPC alternative. However, GoToMyPC has some key advantages when
the remote user is on public computers such as Internet cafes and public library
computers.
The remotely located technician named Gabe and I were both on the telephone
and jointly operating my computer. He performed some repairs and updates to my
computer's email system while I watched. He also explained what he was doing on
the phone. This saved us both a lot of time relative to the typical technical
support phone call in which the technician asks you over the phone to do a
sequence of complicated things on your computer. You have to fumble with your
keyboard and phone at the same time, and the technician sits and waits doing
nothing for periods of time. It is much faster to use "Start" and "Remote
Control" and let the technician do the work while you watch and listen. I might
add that I did not have to turn off my firewall for this, although firewalls may
be a problem for some users.
It suddenly struck me that "Start" and "Remote Control" might be a
useful option for teaching one-on-one to a student at a remote site ranging from
an on-campus dorm room to a site half way around the world. It would be much
more efficient than trying to explain something technical on the phone with the
student and then having to wait until the student makes it work on her/his
computer.
This could be especially useful as a free alternative for remotely teaching
certain types of handicapped students such as students having limited use of
their arms or hands. Special course materials could even be designed with the
"Start" and "Remote Control" features in mind.
It also struck me that Gabe and other technicians are often doing the same
things over and over with computer users. It would save a lot of money and time
if technicians like Gabe and Microsoft made Camtasia videos explaining common
repetitive solutions to computer problems ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
UserView ---
http://www.techsmith.com/uservue/features.asp
TechSmith has a newer product called UserView that really sounds exciting,
although I’ve not yet tried it. It allows you to view and record what is
happening on someone else’s computer like a student’s computer. Multiple
computers can be viewed at the same time. Images and text can be recorded.
Pop-up comments can be inserted by the instructor to text written by students.
UserView can be used for remote testing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#OnlineOffCampus
Userview offers great hope for teaching disabled students such as sight
and/or hearing impaired students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Bob Jensen's threads on Technology Aids for the Handicapped and Learning
Challenged are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
You should become very familiar with the Landmark Act before designing any
course materials.
Question
What is the rate of growth in online enrollments in the U.S.?
"More Online Enrollments," by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2007
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/23/sloan
More students than ever are taking courses online,
but that doesn’t mean the growth will continue indefinitely. That’s the
takeaway from the Sloan Foundation’s latest survey, conducted with the
Babson Survey Research Group, of colleges’ online course offerings.
With
results from nearly 4,500 institutions of all types, the
report,
“Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning”,
found that in fall 2006, nearly 3.5
million students — or 19.8 percent of total postsecondary
enrollments — took at least one course online. That’s a
9.7-percent increase over the previous year, but growth has
been slowing significantly: last year, the jump was 36.5
percent.
But compared to
the growth rate for enrollment overall (1.3 percent), the
report notes, the online sector is still rapidly expanding.
Most of that expansion is happening where online classes are
already being offered.
“The number
of new institutions entering the online learning arena had
definitely slowed [by last fall]; most institutions that
plan to offer online education are now doing so,” the
report’s authors wrote.
The
institutions surveyed seem to believe that the most
important reason for offering online courses is to improve
student access, while the top cited obstacles to more
widespread online offerings are student’ discipline or study
habits, followed by faculty acceptance.
The survey
focuses solely on what it classifies as “online” courses:
those offering 80 percent or more of their content over the
Internet. As a result, trends in so-called “blended” or
“hybrid” courses, in which students occasionally meet in
person with their professors while also receiving
considerable instruction online, are not covered in the
report.
The
importance of online courses varies widely depending on the
type of institution. Public universities, for example, view
online education as much more critical to their long-term
strategies than private or even for-profit institutions. And
not surprisingly, two-year colleges have shown the most
growth, accounting for a full half of online enrollments
over the past five years:
Four-Year
Growt