I just got back from my 2-day new faculty orientation for new faculty at Mount St. Mary’s University. It was good to finally get some “face time” w/ the broader community beyond my department (though my department so far seems very nice).
So far I’m particularly impressed w/ the core curriculum. Certainly many arguments can be made for having a different core curriculum, but there’s something good (I think) about a solid foundation across the entire student body. It was a big draw for me. A lot of liberal arts environments are very eclectic (which is good), but then in any given classroom it’s hard to figure out what common background one can expect from students. It’s nice to know that every single first-year student will read pieces like Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” or Sophocles’s “Antigone”— and at the same time. Basically, it means that by the time students are in my 300-level courses, they will have taken three semesters of Western Civ, two of “American Experience,” two of philosophy, and one “non-Western” seminar (in addition to a number of other core requirements). Otherwise I’m anxious to start teaching.
I’ll miss the first week of classes though (which will put me a bit behind), as I fly to San Diego for a research project meeting at UCSD, then to Boston to give a paper at the annual APSA conference.
In between, my in-laws are visiting & will stay through a day or two after I leave for San Diego. They’ve even volunteered to watch Javi for an afternoon so K8 & I can go on a “date” … to watch Tropic Thunder.
All that means I’ll probably have limited email/web access between now & Labor Day. So if you’re looking for up-to-the-minute Bolivia analysis (which I’ll try to keep up as much as I can), you’ll have to go elsewhere for a short while.
Enjoy APSA and say hi to folks I may know (Miha told me she is gonna be there...).