MathJax

Thursday, May 16, 2013

School's Out: Summer Plans

It has been almost two months since I posted my controversial correlation between religion and ACT scores. It got quite a bit more attention than I had anticipated.  Although I was not intending to upset anyone, I knew that people would be upset.  When data and facts get in the way of what somebody believes, the emotions of those that are slaves to a sole way of thinking run rampant and their underpants get wadded up in a bunch.  Instead of thinking about what one can learn about the correlation posed, many people will immediately think that it cannot possibly be true and there is an explanation around it.  *Sigh*  Enough about that.

Like the title suggests, I'm done with classes for the summer.  But this will hardly be a summer like my others.  I will be officially taking over chair duties of the newly formed Statistics Department at Truman State University on July 1.  Meanwhile, I will be keeping busy with the transition process.  I will be attending a conference in Indianapolis July 11-13 hosted by the CCAS (Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences) which is specifically for department chairs.

Another huge thing on my plate this summer will be teaching JBA (Joseph Baldwin Academy) again.  This is a three week (June 8-29), highly intensive class with gifted 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students that come from all different parts of the country, mostly from Missouri.  I have been busy preparing for this since classes ended.  It will come close to sucking the life out of me.  These classes meet for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon 5 days a week, and 3 hours in the morning on Saturday.  The course I will be teaching is titled The Beauty of Mathematics: Elementary Problems in Quantity, Structure, and Space.

Summer also means softball.  Like last summer, our large group of interested players have split into two men's recreational teams that play on Thursday evenings and one co-rec team that will play on Sundays.  Although I will probably see playing time on all three, the team that I will manage and give the most energy to will be the One Hit Wonders this year.

Erin and I will be traveling to San Francisco from May 22-26. We are going primarily to see her good friend Cara and her husband Mike's new baby girl Harper.  I'm sure we'll find some time to sample a few great beers from around the area.

My fifth Ragbrai will take place June 21-27.  I plan to make a mini-documentary of this week long bike ride across Iowa.  This will be one of the easiest years to date.  It is both short and not that hilly.  This will give me plenty of time to get some fun shots of interesting people.  This year, I will know a few more people going from Kirksville, so I will have a few more familiar faces on the ride.






No comments:

Post a Comment