The Fall semester officially starts tomorrow with the Fall Convocation - a meet and greet with the incoming class and their families. Next week will, like every first week, be chaos with teaching coupled with getting students back on track with their thesis research. As always, I can't decide whether I'm happy to be back teaching or not!
Teaching load this semester is as follows:
- HON 172: The Human Event (2 sections) - our freshman honors seminar. This semester I'm basically going with what I taught last semester though I've added a little more literature to keep the science-phobes happier. Students will read Galileo, Newton, Kant, Hume, Darwin, Huxley, Doestyevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Dawkins, among others. All good fun.
- BIO 494/HPS 494: Darwin & Design - a small discussion seminar on intelligent design. We're starting with a month spent on the design argument, reading Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Newton, before a month of group work by the students, followed by a month examining aspects of the intelligent design movement. This class basically developed out of my regulat "Origins, Evolution & Creation" course in that I wanted to have students work on some of the more advanced scientific, legal, and philosophical aspects of the ID "controversy."
- I also have four students doing thesis and research work with me.
So that's about it. Things will probably be quiet for a while. Just saying.
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SW Notes: This post was begun a few weeks ago...you know, in the break between semesters.
I just got this in the mail, and smug elitist that I am, I thought it was worth passing along.
I'm teaching two classes this semester: one introductory course which is a repeat from last semester and one upper-level course with laboratory, which is a new prep.
So, I hear you are starting your second semester of physics. One of the cool things about physics is that the second semester still uses stuff from the first semester.