I doubt he’d remember, but I first met G.W. Carlson in March 2002. Neither of us could have guessed that ten years later I’d be helping to make this movie about him: Back to March 2002… I had just turned in my dissertation and was in town for my brother’s wedding. We grew up in … More Commencement: A Tribute to G.W. Carlson
Here • I walked into church last Sunday and a friend of mine warned me not to read an op-ed piece in the St. Paul paper. Turns out it was David Levy’s half-baked critique of college teaching, which provided an opportunity to vent more than a little spleen to start the week. • In that … More That Was The Week That Was
The right time for a college professor like myself to read an op-ed piece asking the question above is not during a short break from a grading session that would end my spring “break” at 1am, five hours before I woke up to take my children to day care and then start a teaching day … More “Do college professors work hard enough?”
I wish it were William Farish’s fault. Grading that is. Google “history of grading” and you’ll find this Cambridge University tutor blamed for having invented grades ca. 1792 as a way to evaluate more students more quickly and thereby collect more fees. But according to Mary Lovett Smallwood’s 1935 monograph, Examinations and Grading Systems in … More Grading
Here • Eight of my students took a shot at defining what historians do. • Do political churches risk decline? Are apolitical churches drawing new members? Is there such a thing as an “apolitical” church? (For another critique of political partisanship in churches, see this from Chuck Gutenson.) • Another year, another Oscar ceremony. Perhaps … More That Was The Week That Was
One of my favorite things about spring semester is that I get to teach a section of our department’s capstone course, HIS499 Senior Seminar. It’s fun in part because it’s so unlike anything else I teach — as close to a graduate seminar as I’m going to (or would like to) get as a professor … More What Historians Do
Here I still think I might want to visit a Charles Dickens amusement park, chemical smell-pots and the Pizza Hut notwithstanding. I put the cart before the horse slightly and speculated from where a “Pietist vision” would come — without actually describing said “Pietist vision.” The last part in my series on World War I … More That Was The Week That Was
Key moments on my agenda for this particular workday: 7:45am – Drop off our twins (each suffering from an advanced case of being “terrible” two years old) at day care. Say quick prayer for their teachers. 9:00am – Deliver lecture in 100-level Western Civ course on post-exilic Judaism and its interactions with Hellenistic culture and … More The Dabbler
Before the beginning of the semester last fall, I wrote a post on the challenges (or, as I called them in the post title, “blessings”) of teaching the same course (Modern Europe) year in and year out. Today, the start of our spring semester at Bethel, brings a different kind of problem: teaching a course … More Human Rights in International History
About two years ago I was invited to give a talk to our faculty in recognition of having been awarded Bethel’s 2009 Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching. In part one of this (slightly updated) version of the talk, I described my experiences integrating podcasts into two courses and evaluated them in light of the “No … More A Different Significance: Online vs. F2F Education (part 2)
The Pietist Schoolman 