This week was a very short week consisting of only two days. We met as usual on Monday, but Tuesday was a “flip day” and ran as a Friday. This class doesn’t meet on Fridays so we only had one day this week, and we devoted it to tying up loose ends from chapter 17.
Next week, barring losing days to winter weather as I sit here and watch the forecast deteriorate, we will hit circuits the M&I way!
In an interesting development, I was informed by my coworker (a PhD physicist) that our department chair had approached him Tuesday morning to ask if he would like to teach my calculus-based physics courses from me next year on the grounds that I’m not rigorous enough. Needless to say, I was shocked becuase the chair had not mentioned this to me and indeed has not spoken to me about it at all. Had my coworker not told me I would not have known.
My chair, a PhD chemist, seems to think that because M&I emphasizes computation over traditional labs, and that what labs we do are not as rigorous as chemistry labs, either M&I or I or perhaps both are not appropriate for our students and indeed may be causing them to be ill prepared for transfer to universities. Of course this is all nonsense, but my chair actually said to my face that she knows more about computation, theory, and experiment than I do and that labs must be done the “chemistry way” or they’re not valid. If this weren’t so disgustingly true, it would be mildly funny. It’s not funny. It’s true.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s clear both M&I and I are probably on our way out at my current instituion. My colleague (who by the way has no interest in teaching calculus-based physics) and I are both exploring numerous options, including leaving for another instiution.