Intersession is almost over -- Classes start on Tuesday. I got a lot of stuff done, but it seems like it was a bunch of little stuff and nothing big. I wrote a paper at the STEMTEC retreat, I got the spring course resources set up (each course with its own wiki!), I got a projector spec'ed out to install in the OEB room, and I gave a talk at Johns Hopkins. I guess that's not too bad.
The situation at Johns Hopkins was interesting. They got a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant. We were brought in to consult on what was essentially the culture conflict between a top-down administrative approach and a de-centralized, grass-roots faculty. It was another piece of evidence that top-down approaches never work well (and rarely work at all). I spoke at Union College on exactly the same themes several years ago. You can't bolt-on educational reform -- you need to provide a system that allows people in it to approach education well. This seems to be happening more and more rarely.
I don't think I'll be doing many more talks like this -- mainly because I don't think I'm going to fly again anytime soon. Although partly it was just that this particular trip was pretty bad. Someone at Johns Hopkins bought the tickets and they routed us through the wrong airport -- I had told them which one to use, but they bought tickets out of Boston. Luckily that part of the Big Dig just opened last week, which cuts about an hour off of the drive to the airport. Just think! If they gave everyone on earth a car and had them drive through the tunnel to Logan, they could pay off the big dig! It sounds like something the Underwear Gnomes would try:
- Give everyone on earth a car
- ???
- Profit!
Boston. Ugh. Logan is a horrible airport -- we had to walk for what seemed like hours in the freezing cold (-32 wind chill) -- I thought my fingers were frostbitten it was so cold. Although our eTickets just said "American", after waiting in line, we were directed to the "American Eagle" counter, which was at the other end of the terminal. Then we had to walk all the way back again to get to the gate. When we finally got to our gate (B30), we were routed to some stairs where we had to get on a shuttle bus which drove way over to the outskirts of the airport and stopped at -- I'm not kidding here -- the Amelia Earhart Building. By that point, I'm sure we knew just how Amelia Earhart felt as her plane, lost somewhere over the ocean, ran out of fuel and plunged down. The back of the building enclosed a large area with a cement wall topped with barbed wire. "My God," I thought. "What is this place? Some kind of concentration camp? Is this where they conduct special anti-terrorism searches? Are we going to be classified as Enemy Combatants?" I fact, it was more like "Teeny Tiny Town". It was a miniature airport where everything was down-sized for those baby commuter planes. Eventually, they packed us into a tiny commuter plane and we flew uneventfully to BWI.
Don't even get me started on airport security, though. I think pretty soon someone needs to come out with a line of metal-free clothing for going through airports. Even after taking off my jacket and emptying my pockets, I still set off the metal detector. My belt-buckle set off the metal detector. The tiny metal eyelets in my shoes set off the metal detector. My zipper set off the metal detector -- "Roll down your pants, sir!" Then with my computer, my bags, my shoes and my jacket, I'm turned loose to try to reassemble myself. I think I'm done with air travel until the "War on Terror" is over.