…and this is a 
Good luck, Dave!
Category: Academics • Local
Posted on: May 16, 2008 7:23 PM, by PZ Myers
It's the end of our semester, and there's another transition here: one of our colleagues, Dave Hoppe, is retiring, to our regret but to his happy progress. We all got together for a retirement dinner yesterday, so here's the happy crew, the entire UMM biology discipline.
From left to right: Chris Cole, Tracey Anderson, Margaret Kuchenreuther, Dave Hoppe, PZ Myers, Timna Wyckoff, Pete Wyckoff, Van Gooch
We hope Dave can still drag himself away from his lakefront home to say hello to us all now and then!
Education & Careers
Comments
This is the crew I would like to chill with!
Posted by: Peter Vaht | May 16, 2008 7:40 PM
What? No blood dripping from your fangs? I thought you biology types were bad-ass baby giraffe eaters....
Posted by: Monsignor Henry Clay | May 16, 2008 7:47 PM
Statistically, what are the odds that all 8 of them would be wearing glasses?
Posted by: Marshall | May 16, 2008 7:56 PM
How does Dave look so young and manage to retire? I am so jealous!
Posted by: Geoff Lake | May 16, 2008 8:25 PM
Fairly high, I would guess. We scholarly types do tend to wear our eyes out... And lack the fashion consciousness to hide it with contacts. ;)
Posted by: Nentuaby | May 16, 2008 8:47 PM
Now that you have an opening in your department, watch out for stealth ID types coming in for interviews. What a coup it would be for them to infiltrate the 'bastion of atheism'.
Posted by: gary | May 16, 2008 9:01 PM
That's some weird wallpaper.
Posted by: craig | May 16, 2008 9:09 PM
"Retirement party?" Nonsense! Old professors don't retire, they just go emeritus.
Posted by: Kadath | May 16, 2008 9:13 PM
sorry this is a bit off topic, but could someone lend a hand here, just to stir things up a bit.
http://jasmin-aline-persch.newsvine.com/_news/2008/05/16/1493241-how-scientists-really-feel-about-god?threadId=265489&cmt=1810592#dynamicCommentBox_1809204
Posted by: mkuriluk | May 16, 2008 9:23 PM
please disregard #9, its nonsensical.
Posted by: mkuriluk | May 16, 2008 9:29 PM
You have eight full-time faculty in the bio department at Morris? What, does bio double as the crop sciences department? If not, I'm somewhat impressed. (Now if you were down in a real metropolis like Mankato, that'd be different.) Where do most of your majors envision themselves going/doing with a bio major?
Posted by: phein | May 16, 2008 10:41 PM
One word, Dave: Blog.
Raise wolverines, adopt a pond, collect pine cones from all over the world, become the online expert on great blue herons.
But then TELL us about it.
The world could use the thoughtful input of a retired biology professor.
As PZ can tell you, it's loads of fun, completely non-controversial, and dead easy.
Posted by: Hank Fox | May 16, 2008 11:10 PM
completely non-controversial
LOL
yeah.
OTOH, everyone needs something to keep their blood pressure up.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 16, 2008 11:13 PM
I thank God for blessing me with great kids, and UMM for educating them!!! The bio depart. is awesome!!!!. This is one VERY happy parent!!!
Posted by: mudderbadger | May 16, 2008 11:48 PM
p z, dawkins, randi...
hi Dennis!
aren't you banned here?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 17, 2008 12:00 AM
Helluva note to see one's little brother retire. Makes one feel old. :(
Say "Hi" to whatsername for me, Dave.
Posted by: RBH | May 17, 2008 1:09 AM
Um, make that "younger brother." :)
Posted by: RBH | May 17, 2008 1:16 AM
anonannoyer... seek help. I mean that sincerely. You're obsessing. I'm not criticizing, I've been there.
Posted by: craig | May 17, 2008 1:35 AM
to see how the entire atheist movement has been annihilated
can I play?
WATERLOOOO!!!!!
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 17, 2008 2:01 AM
My uncle retired from teaching recently. Actually, he still teaches and organises events and stuff. He probably should have retired to teaching - he was at loose ends there for a while until he got involved again.
Personally, the idea of retirement scares the carp out of me. I'd hate to have a job so bad that I'd want to retire from it, but if that were the case then it would also have to have been the case that I'd wasted a substantial portion of my life on it. If, on the other hand, that weren't the case, then I wouldn't want to retire to begin with, which makes the thought of mandatory retirement (a completely archaic concept, in my opinion) sound a lot like being discarded from my own life.
Glad this is all still well far off for me, in either case. Maybe I'll be sick of things in a few decades.
Posted by: JM Inc. | May 17, 2008 2:18 AM
# 5
..but haven't you got intelligently designed eyeballs like us non-glasses wearing people? I mean we all know Darwin said the eyeball was too complex to have evolved.
On another note, anyone want to take a stab at what the collective IQ of the folk in that photo is.? It makes my brain hurt just trying to think about it.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | May 17, 2008 2:54 AM
And two of the eight eye-glass wearers are wearing true eye-glasses, the nice old big ones, the anti-granny glasses, the ones where your peripheral vision is not cramped. 2 out eight is better than nothing I suppose. But I expected less fashion slavishness from the science crowd.
JM, whatever is the basis of your job, i.e., the intellectual hook, there is no reason why that hook can't still not be applied in some way after 'retirement.' I abhor the word retirement, and I think it is mainly used to denote that you will get some kind of pension income, not that you retire from your passions and your connection to the bigger world.
"to his happy progress." Well said, PZ!
Posted by: Logicel | May 17, 2008 4:25 AM
My congrats go out to Dave. I am an alumn of U or Mn,Morris, Geology 1979. I was a bio major for most of those years, and worked for Ellen Ordway on her Prairie Project 76 -79, as well as TA'd in the bio dept, until I changed over to Geology. I took Vertebrate Zoology from Dave. Those were the good old Days. Makes me feel sorta old. I feel lucky to have gotten such a great undergraduate education from such a nice, fun, excellent school.
Posted by: chuckgoecke | May 17, 2008 9:17 AM
The fashion slavishness lies elsewhere: in the supply.
I always take only the biggest glasses that are available, so I don't constantly see the edges -- and for the last 10 or 15 years nearly all have still been too small, even the ones that were twice as big as average. Glasses that aren't fashionable are simply not produced, no matter how searingly stupid that fashion is.
It's too late at night for my blood pressure to rise...
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | May 17, 2008 7:35 PM
That can't possibly be a workable tribe! :P
Posted by: madarab | May 17, 2008 9:30 PM
David
I had the same problem with a patient of mine when I used to be a nurse in an aged care home. He needed bigger frames as his peripheral vision was crap at the best of times and he was always walking into things. I was unable to source any until, one day checking out an op shop ( not sure what you call them- umm donation shops, Goodwill that sort of place), I found heaps. It would seem as fashions change people chuck their glasses out along with their old clothes and most end up in these second hand stores. I picked up a a couple of pairs,had some lenses reground at the correct prescription for them and , walla, new glasses for the old dude that he could actually see out of. Just a suggestion but worth checking out if you're really desperate to get the bigger frames.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | May 17, 2008 9:55 PM
thrift shops.
I'll be back for some Aussie-US translations soon, I'm sure...
Posted by: thalarctos | May 17, 2008 10:01 PM
since we're talking about glasses...
I bought my last 2 sets from these guys:
http://zennioptical.com/cart/home.php
If you're like me and lose your damn glasses all the time, or get them all rusty from exposure to salt water out on boats, or drop them in the water...
I found the quality of these guys to be pretty good for the price; and the price is sure as hell right.
there's a good selection of wrap-around styles (way better for sun), and the "big lens" classic styles.
It's slow to get them, but I think it's worth it.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 19, 2008 3:18 AM
for David, you might try an adjustable lens size frameless, like this:
http://zennioptical.com/cart/product.php?productid=296&cat=14&page=1
if you get it with the extra-large lens, that's a 54x45mm lens.
what's more, it's only 35.00 with full AR coating.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 19, 2008 3:26 AM
gees, it's late.
two corrections to the above:
framelessrimless54x
4541mm (extra large lens)still is pretty big.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 19, 2008 3:35 AM