<p>BassDad … could you add another service project? My yard is beyond hope, or so it seems. ;-)</p>
<p>reedplay,</p>
<p>All you have to do is find a student who has never been to your yard before and get them to propose this as their project. The problem is that they will not be able to start until the first January after we open.</p>
<p>I am extremely patient. I’ve been waiting for years. I can wait a bit longer.</p>
<p>On second thought, you might want to make this a group project.</p>
<p>Has the Book Store Manager position been filled? I hereby submit my application. There will, of course, be a textbook aisle and we will have an assortment of logo items. But the focus of our store will be ensuring that everyone feels they “fit”. Hence we will carry all those specialty items that you can only get “back home”: Luzianne coffee with chicory, beignets(N Orleans), Mrs. Renfro’s (Texas) salsas, Taylor Pork Roll (NJ), Mallomars (East Coast), handmade tortillas (Ca. and Az.). Submit your requests - you name it, we will have it.</p>
<p>My son regrets the failure of his college to stock Snapple. So I suggest Snapple be put in Aisle 5, next to the Taylor Pork roll</p>
<p>I know a countertenor! Currently studying at the Royal Academy in London. Is it worth explaining College Confidentialia? Will he understand?</p>
<p>I nominate myself, momrath, cupcake (in the UK?) and robrym to launch the Perfect Fit Study Abroad program. Motto: We make you fit for study abroad.</p>
<p>Bumping this up so Curmudgeon can see what happened while he was gone!</p>
<p>Sorry - I don’t have the stamina this morning to read all the post I’ve missed, but it seemed obvious to me (maybe someone has already suggested it) that the mascot has to be a (computer) mouse. </p>
<p>I’d like to volunteer for the string department - not musical instruments, can’t read a note or sing, just string of any kind (I’m a very competent handweaver, so I’d start with that kind of string, but why stop there).</p>
<p>Our college will be both a LAC and a preprofessional school, attracting students who want to prepare for well-paying jobs and to be well-rounded, educated human beings, regardless of cost. We need someone to teach both underwater basketweaving and string theory. Maybe a combined appointment in the departments of practical arts and theoretical physics of Curmudgeon’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (somewhat less fractious than Harvard’s)?</p>
<p>Gee.Uh, Gee. I’m going to need some coffee.</p>
<p>First thought? This is just dandy. I’m the President and TheDad gets MY gad-fly spot. I’ll be a sitting duck.</p>
<p>While I’d be willing to serve, it would be solely as a figure-head, wielding slightly less power than a modern day British royal. I will do my best to keep the campus tabloids full. </p>
<p>Let’s see . First things first. Heinrich, whatever shall I wear to the all-campus costume ball? Is my brown shirt back from the cleaners? What did I do with Ward Churchill’s number? And remember- we need to re-stock the “hard liquor and colorful condoms bar”-the ultimate frisbee recruits will be here next weekend.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon - don’t forget to think of a saying to be etched on the base of your statue! (unfortunatley, “Knowledge is Good” has been used)</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, and, picking up on Firefly’s thought, we really need to make an appointment for you to sit for your official portrait. I’m picturing a little shrine in the library, complete with candles and incense.</p>
<p>And fresh fruits and flowers from our gardens out back!</p>
<p>Whoa - scrolling through and seeing my name in reference to the Socratic method! </p>
<p>Yes, some professors use Socratic, some think they are using Socratic, and some try to use Socratic but want to be nice to us. </p>
<p>True Socratic, IMO, is when a professor cold-calls you, stares you down, and grills you. Ideally, this is an experience that will push the student to understand more than the reading - he should understand the reading in the context of the course, the policy reasons for decisions, etc. In short, it involves a bit more than a recitation of the facts. Some of the better professors will use it to get students to work through hypos, just by tweaking the situations a little bit to test our reasoning and understanding.</p>
<p>Then there are the professors who kind of call on students to answer questions, but they aren’t asked anything that could not be quoted out of the last night’s reading. Finally, there are professors who try to be nice to us, so they ask for class participation, which is worse (because you either sit there like a slug or feel like a complete gunner). </p>
<p>Yes, Socratic for your new university would be lovely. Just require them all to come up with hypotheticals about ducks dropping out of the sky that fall on priceless antiques, which scares the dog, who bites an old lady who has a heart attack. Straight face required when asking a student to analyse.</p>
<p>Marite: I’ll teach ancient pottery and string theory, having some familiarity with both. Please? ;)</p>
<p>I nominate TheDad to be Dean of Sociolgy of Fly-Over Country, and TheMom to be Dean of TheDad. LOL</p>
<p>Curmudge, the rest of your daughter’s college search should take place long distance - there is no telling what we will get up to if you are absent again ;). Hope you two had a useful, fun trip.</p>
<p>What in the bloody Blue Pleiades is this thread…and how did I not see/connect with it for so long? (Still haven’t read most of it.)</p>
<p>I have no interest in being a Dean. Chancellor or Provost, possibly. Possibly Director of Performing Arts…by God there would be some good Dance to go with the theater, etc. (Saw the world premier of an opera put on at UCLA last night. While I thought today’s review in The Times was a bit malicious and mean spirited, I had to agree that the choreography was banal.)</p>
<p>TD, this is what happens at Confidentialia when you don’t come to faculty meeting: they make you the dean. In Curmudgeon’s case, take time off to make a long trip and you end up President. Or it may be because he started the thread, which started out only as a suggestion that the CC community might influence the selection process and ended up with a virtual college with name, motto, crest, school colors, mascot, fight song, curriculum and a faculty whose only qualification is that they don’t actually “do” in real life the subject they are teaching at Confidentialia.
Good luck in trying to resign from the deanship of this institution.</p>