The storm has mostly passed. We got something around 10 inches of snow, but during the night it turned to rain, so what was left this morning was 5-6 inches of dense, wet snow covered with a thick crust of ice. The schools were closed, but the University opened at 10:30. Whoever made that decision must not personally have to shovel their driveway. Now that I'm here, I'm fighting with a recalcitrant printer that wants to jam every two or three pages. Sigh. I really hate technology sometimes.
On the plus side, I got my first reflective essay from a student in my course. Wonderful stuff! So life isn't all bad.
I liked 
this flash movie about the creative commons. I've thought I should explicitly license my weblog (as if anybody cares), but I haven't had time to look at the creative commons license carefully enough to know if it really makes sense for me. I remember reading something that indicated that it implied that you knew that your work was not infringing and that you were certifying that others could use it as they pleased. And I don't think I'm infringing any copyrights, but I'm not sure I'm willing to warrant that. But I should look at the licenses more carefully and use one.
At the faculty meeting today we looked at teaching in the department. Currently the administration evaluates departmental teaching solely by headcount: the more students, the "better". This has the goal of undoing a lot of teaching reforms we've accomplished and undermining people doing what they thing is right. Why teach a lab? Why let students do independent studies with you? They take a huge amount of time and teach a small number of students -- never mind that these experiences are often the formative, or transformative, experiences that determine students' careers. According to the way the department is evaluated, the department should herd all of the students into large lectures. It's already nearly that bad: many of our majors can already go until their mid-junior or senior year without ever taking a "small class" (i.e. less than 100) in biology.