The end of finals!

Well, here we are at the very end of finals week in the last testing period of the last day! I appreciate that my students are all tired, anxious to be done, and to be on their way to home, family, and Christmas vacation. Amen.





I commend those students who stuck it out with me over the week and are diligently finishing their exams on this last day. I thank them all for their efforts.







I hope they all have a great vacation and come back safely. I look forward to seeing them all here in the new 2012 spring semester!


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Location:Saint Edmunds Hall, Room 106

Tis the Season!: Senior Thesis Presentations (2)

As the day progressed, so too did the wonderful presentations! The students were professional, absorbed in their topics and the faculty inordinately proud of their accomplishments! Congratulations!!!!!!!!!





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Location:STE 102

Tis the Season!: Senior Thesis Presentations

The sure signs are out that it is the end of the fall semester here at Saint Mike's. The bells are pealing with Christmas hymns, the library is full of students working with a redecorated effort (perhaps they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?), and in the History Department the seniors are finishing up their capstone projects in Senior Seminar. Saturday, December 3rd, is the day they present their project presentations and we all celebrate their creativity, industriousness, and the fruit of their labors.


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Location:Saint Ed's Hall

Early Fall Semester Update

It is indeed hard to believe that we are at the beginning of the fourth week of our fall (2011) semester! I think we have started the semester well here in the History Department. Our six full time and two part-time members of our department are offering sixteen courses on the introductory and upper levels, covering American, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Asian history. (Our colleague, Dr. Douglas Slaybaugh, is on sabbatical this fall, as I think I have mentioned before.) We have a number of new seminars offered this fall. Each caps at fifteen students, and they include "Orwell in the 1930's" (Dr. Jennifer Purcell) and "Topics in Latin American History: Islands in the Caribbean" (Dr. Kathryn Dungy, pictured above). We also have one new introductory survey course, "Medieval Europe" (taught by yours truly), which is a one semester replacement for our medieval history survey that used to be two semesters. Other offerings on the upper level include "World War II in Asia," "The American Revolution," and "The Black Death."

What is also particularly exciting to me is the strong start of our senior seminar in History, required of all majors in their senior year. This is the capstone course for our majors, and each of them will be presenting his or her research results in early December. It is always a small seminar, and this semester we have fourteen students working on a variety of topics (ten History majors and four American Studies majors). The wide-ranging topics include the Armenian genocide, the history of policies in Major League Baseball on performance enhancing drugs, the Thomas Indian School in New York, and the legacy of racism in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the past few months we have been revising our History Department Web site, so if you have not yet checked it out, please do so. We also have a number of upcoming events, including our annual Kuntz Lecture early next semester and our bi-annual pre-registration pizza dinner for our majors in October (when we lay out the course selection for the following semester).

Today I am headed out to the Ethan Allen Homestead in the new North End of Burlington to hear a lecture by my colleague, Dr. Susan Ouellette. She is talking about what we can learn about women's work in early nineteenth century America from her study of the diary of Phebe Orvis Eastman (her current research). This comes just a few days after I heard my colleague in Religious Studies, Dr. John Kenney, speak at the College on Neo-Platonism and Saint Augustine. These are two reasons why being a faculty member at Saint Michael's College can always be so enlightening and also so much fun. The learning just never stops, even (or especially) for a middle-aged college professor.

Academic fair!

Here we are at Ross gym with professor Dameron and Tan Wai Hui. A freshman History student Mr. Tan stopped by our table to talk and get to know us. We are pleased to have a great new student join the ranks!



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Location:Ross gym

First day at Saint Mike's

Okay. Summer's officially over...... The first day of classes is Monday, the freshmen are on campus, and the rest of the students will move in this weekend just ahead of a hurricane. Hopefully everyone will be safe and the worst that happens is we get some much-needed rain here in the valley.

More importantly, the semester is about to launch and everyone is anticipating an exciting new experience. The faculty and administration are looking forward to the launch of the new curriculum model and the expansion of our scholarly and academic efforts. The students, while there maybe some apprehension among them, are looking forward to the changes that will hopefully smooth out some of the variable credit bumps they and others have experienced in the past.

In the History department we are excited about all of this, but we also have a few other developments that raise our spirits. We have a new faculty member to get to know, Kathryn Dungy, our newly appointed Latin Americanist. Kathryn's expertise will enhance the department's offerings and her presence will grace us. Another new faculty member will arrive in the fall of 2012, Katharina Ivanyi, who will teach courses on the Near East, Islam, and the Ottoman Empire. The history program will be enormously enhanced by these teachers and their scholarly interests.

So, here we go, but maybe we can still enjoy a few sunsets over the water.........



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Location:Somewhere on Lake Champlain

Our New Curriculum ..... and other stuff

Although I am still concentrating hard upon enjoying the remains of the summer, I have been thinking about the new curriculum and what it means for faculty as well as students. Most faculty are excited to have the opportunity to expand their courses within the new scheduling concepts and to think about creating greater academic rigor in those same courses. As they imagine it, students will have the ability to concentrate on four courses rather than a multitude of five, six or seven as often has been the case in the past.

On the other side of the desk, students have expressed various opinions to me as well; some fear the new curriculum could mean unreasonable expectations on the part of faculty in their course work while others see the revised schedules as a sort of "get out of jail free" card. I hope that as the new semester unfolds and we begin to explore the ways in which the new 4/4 scheduling works, we will find that there is time for more textured and nuanced learning both in the classroom as well as in outside preparation. At the same time, the new schedule will also mean less awkward maneuvering for athletic and other extra-curricular student pursuits. I hope the results will live up to our aspirations, but it will take a commitment from all of us to make it happen. I promise to do my part.

While the summer is still upon us, I contemplate this from a distance. I still have those summer commitments to finish. Maxx has learned to sit, stay, and lie down! He does not see the necessity of learning "Come!" I think he's just adopted the Champlain islands attitude: no worries, mate, the sun is shining!




Obedience school may be next, but in the meantime I am working on my tan......





Have a safe and happy rest of the summer!



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Location:Alburgh, Vermont, United States