It is really only the end of week four?

My return from sabbatical has been both refreshing and draining. I am enjoying being back in front of the classroom. There is really nothing better for one's ego than having a class of 30 students writing down every word that comes out of your mouth. At the same time, however, I don't have the stamina I had before sabbatical. By the time my last class of the day is finished I am ready to crawl back to my office and collapse.

Of course it doesn't help that I've taken over as department chair this year AND am on the executive committee of our faculty governing system. I thought I would be flush with power inherent in my new positions, instead I'm just overworked.

I would be looking forward to the weekend if it didn't contain the first REAL batch of grading for me to accomplish.

You Can't Cover Everything

There is a story in Education Week about the committee that is determining the history standards to be taught in Texas over the next 10 years. A couple of the committee members have recommended that less time be devoted to discussing historical figures like Chavez and Marshall. They suggest that historically these men aren't as important as founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin.

My initial response is to jump on a soap box and talk about the relevance of Marshall and Chavez to not only African American and Latino history, but to more general political history of the 1960s and 1970s. But if I take a step back and look at my own syllabus, well I need to be a bit more forgiving. Because let's face it, you can't cover everything. I think I mention Marshall during one paragraph of one lecture when I talk about the Civil Rights Movement and Chavez never comes up at all. Is this because I don't think they are important? Absolutely not. I do think they are important - but I'd rather talk more about the movements they led/worked in - then about the individuals. Indeed, I think Ben Franklin only gets a paragraph or two, as well, in spite of the fact that I spend several days talking about the American Revolution.

In part, I think my approach is inspired by what I expect teaching history to demonstrate. What I want to show is NOT hey look at these great men and what they were able to do, but rather hey look at these fundamental changes that occurred in our political and social system and the role that activists played in accomplishing them.

Another Famous History Major

Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was an undergraduate history major at Princeton.

A New York Times' story had this to say about Sotomayor's undergraduate education.

She was the history major and Puerto Rican student activist at Princeton who spent her first year at that bastion of the Ivy League “too intimidated to ask questions.”

…In 1976, she wrote her senior thesis at Princeton on Luis Muñoz Marín, the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico, and dedicated it in part “to the people of my island — for the rich history that is mine.”

Ugliest Presidents in History

5. William McKinnley - jowls like a bulldog, eyebrows like shag rug from the 1970s.

















4. John Tyler – anorexic before it was fashionable.


















3. James Madison – if he HAD hair on top, he’d have a mullet. At least he had his height to fall back on… oh wait, no he didn’t.
















2. Lyndon Johnson – big nose, big ears, and deep set eyes - a hulking figure with no respect for other people’s personal space.
















1. Martin Van Buren – picture speaks for itself. What scares me though is that if THIS is how he looked on ‘picture day’ imagine what he must have looked like every other day of his life.

Student Rights

"The only right a student has as a student is the right to receive the best possible education that the college can give." - Dean Virginia Gildersleeve

Governor Blagojevich - Joins the History Major Wall of Shame

I like to keep track of the famous history majors - I figure it can be a recruiting tool for undergrads. It is a way of demonstrating that history majors can do more than teach. Someone with a major in history can go on to be a diplomat, business person, lawyer, sports star, or politician.

Of course, some history majors I'd rather not claim. Like the coach in my last post, who really misunderstood his professors' lectures on historical significance.

Even more shameful, however, is the fact that current Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was a history major. I think trying to 'auction' off a U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder is enough to earn him a spot of the 'History Major Wall of Shame', especially because his actions don't indicate that he learned much from his historical studies.

Some of you may want to quibble with me on this point. After all, Illinois and Chicago (in particular) has a long history of corrupt politicians and aldermen being bought by men like Al Capone. Many of these politicians, moreover, escaped justice. So it wouldn't be unimaginable for a student of history to assume that he too could get away with accepting and even soliciting bribes. But to demonstrate the importance continual revision of our historical knowledge and how paradigms shift in historiography, one of the more recent Governors of Illinois, George Ryan (who was a pharmacist - not a history major), was brought down by a corruption scandal.

So maybe, Blagojevich's problem was not that he didn't learn anything as a history major at Northwestern University, but rather that he stopped reading 20th century history after he got his B.A.

Basketball Coach blames his history major for his team's loss!

Jimmy Patsos the coach of Loyola, MD's men's basketball team lost to Davidson College yesterday because he had his players double team the leading scorer in the nation, Stephen Curry. While the strategy prevented Curry from scoring a single point, Loyola lost because the rest of the team had to play 3 on 4.

When asked why he stuck to a strategy that was obviously not going to win his team the game, coach Patsos replied: “We had to play against an NBA player tonight,” Patsos explained. “Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I’m a history major. They’re going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?”

I think Coach Patsos maybe didn't quite understand what his history profs were trying to teach him. I suspect that people will remember BOTH that Patsos held Curry to 0, but that Loyola STILL lost. There is a lesson to be learned here, and I doubt it's the one Patsos hoped it would be.

Curry gets 0, Davidson routs Loyola (Md.) 78-48 - College Basketball - Rivals.com

Christmas Shopping for the Historian

Tired of buying the historian in your life some heavy book that no on else in the family would ever be tempted to read? Perhaps you'd be tempted to purchase a present that can be enjoyed by young and old, historian and people who like interesting things, alike. I am, of course, referring to the Forgotten Presidents Puppet Set.

The present that is not only educational, but also hours of fun for the entire family.

Professorial Influence

Damn. Academics already don't have any influence over public policy, popular culture, or even educational matters. Now you are telling me - we don't even impact our students' political choices?!?

Actually, I'm not that surprised. I try to keep my students guessing about my political leanings - so even if they wanted to vote like me they might not be able to figure out my choices. Besides by teaching American foreign policy, I'm always critizing Republicans and Democrats alike. If anything, my classes probably think I'm unAmerican, as opposed to an adherent of one political party over another. Still it is kind of depressing to see how little impact we have on impressional young minds. Perhaps the only thing we are good far is teaching critical thinking skills.

You can read the NYT story here: Professors’ Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not - NYTimes.com

The Last Barrier

I am excited to see the U.S. take a historic stance and break down the racial barrier to the presidency. It was in 1870 that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was passed - the amendment that made it illegal to bar someone from voting based on their race.

Now only one barrier is left - the gender barrier. It took fifty years after the passage of the 15th Amendment for the 19th Amendment to be passed. This was the amendment that allowed women to vote -- black and white women. I don't want to turn my eyes to the future too soon, but I sure hope it doesn't take another fifty years before the first woman attains the presidency.

Why we vote on Tuesday... and other election fun facts

Hint: It has to do with farmers

I voted last week... but I saved my sticker for today. Can't wait to watch the returns tonight.

How I Know This Isn't the Next Great Depression

If I read another news story referring to the current financial mess as the next Great Depression I am seriously going to throw something -- perhaps my copy of David Kennedy's Freedom from Fear. Just this morning I read "A Lesson Rooted in the Great Depression" in the International Herald Tribune, which starts out with the line - "Will future historians write about the Great Depression of the 2000s as they did about the one in the 1930s?" In the last hour 36 news stories referencing the Great Depression have been posted online.

If all these news analysts are suggesting that the current market crisis could lead us into another Great Depression it must be true, right?

Maybe... 1. if the Great Depression was only about the 1929 Stock Market Crash and 2. if a little something know as the 'New Deal' hadn't occurred.

However, the Great Depression was much more than the collapse of the stock market and the banking crisis that followed it. It also was a time of fundamental weakness in the agriculture sector and the loss of job and pay/hours cut-backs in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, since there was no 'safety net' provided for the American government to protect Americans who fell on hard economic times, people began to lose their homes and go hungry.

While the current financial situation might lead to a general meltdown of the economy, there won't be the same social disruption for families that Americans faced in the 1930s because the New Deal put some protections in place for U.S. citizens. Protections like government insurance of saving deposits, unemployment insurance, the welfare system, and farm subsidies all prevent the American people from fall as far as they did in the 1930s.

So no matter how bad the U.S. economy becomes, at least we can take comfort in the fact that it will not turn into another Great Depression.

10 Tips for Taking Excellent Lecture Notes

Great article in U.S. News about note taking. I really think this is a lost art. Even though I warn my students ever semester that they need to take notes and that I don't lecture straight from the textbook (so they shouldn't try to just read it before exams), I still have kids in class who don't take notes. They just sit there and listen. The listening is good, but it is not enough on its own. At some point people are going to need to review. Moreover, reviewing what I've lectured on in class is going to be helpful when students are trying to figure out what I expect to see come exam time.

10 Tips for Taking Excellent Lecture Notes - Professors' Guide (usnews.com)

The Evolution of the College Dorm

Time Magazine has an interesting photo essay on the history of dorm life. I remember in undergrad how great I thought my dorm room was because it had a bathroom that only 3 other girls had to share, especially because the other dorm on campus had a only one large bathroom on every floor of the building.

Things are even sweeter for students today. The most recent dorm built on my campus is like a mini apartments where the students get their own room and share a living room/kitchen/bath with 2 other people. Not surprisingly there is a waiting list to get into the new dorm.

I can't help but wonder, however, if giving students so much privacy is good for the college community. Part of being a college student is learning about to co-exist with others, even those with radically different viewpoints, lifestyles. Isn't making dorm life so non-interactive really doing a disserve to students? Will have to figure out on the job site how to get along with others? Could there be a surge in the divorce rate among college graduates if they don't share a room with another human being until marriage?

I do hope that college's are creating a generation of self-centered and ego-driven people by making dorm life so comfortable for them.

The Evolution of the College Dorm - Photo Essays - TIME

We have to catch up to history...

In John McCain's acceptance speech tonight, he was talking about the need for change throughout the country because so many of our economic, educational, and health care policies had been developed during the post-World War II era. Therefore, what we need to do according to McCain is to "catch up to history."

Huh?

How the heck is the present supposed to catch up to past?! Does he have an unregistered time-turner? I understand what he is trying to say, but isn't there a better way to state this?

Things did look up toward the end of the speech, when McCain stated: "I don't believe that history has anointed me to save our country in our hour of need..." I only wish, he'd ended that statement by saying: "because history isn't a person and therefore can't 'appoint' anybody."