Yesterday, I had lunch with Ann Arbor SPARK at their mentor appreciation luncheon for their Entrepreneurial boot camp. What a great time! I meet several serial entrepreneurs including Mark Lundquist (Fulcrum Edge, Inc. and SellMyBusiness.com) and Dave Harriman, who now works in the Office of Technology Transfer at Univ. of Michigan. I love talking to productive businessmen creating value for themselves and others. It is inspirational.
I also meet several SPARK staff members who help make the boot camp run smoothly - Scott Olson, managing director of entrepreneurial business development and the person who recruited me as a mentor - Chuck Salley and Anik Ganguly, two of the boot camp's drill instructors. Anik is working with two companies that I may mentor. The first is a business designed to connect service provides (i.e. plumbers, carpenters, etc.) with end consumers by providing web advertising to this generally technology adverse group. The second business is an existing web development company looking to expand their business by selling a proprietary content management system.
The two other businesses I'm interested in mentoring are both web based. One is a web-based virtual trainer. The other is a web-based personal shopper. Both have good potential and I'm interested to see where they plan on taking these enterprises.
I'm loving it. So much so, that I'll probably return for the next boot camp, assuming SPARK wants me back.
10.23.2008
10.16.2008
Free speech at EMU
Yesterday I noticed a large crowd in front of the library at EMU. Several of the individuals in the crowd were carrying signs of which I could not read. If figured some sort of protest or campaign was taking place, but did not see a reason to investigate further. Today I received the following email from the President of the University.
This statement gives me hope that if an Objectivist speaker came to EMU to speak on topics such as the Danish cartoons, our president would continue the tradition of protecting free speech.
Our campus community has been challenged over the past few days as a result of the activities of several individuals who are not affiliated in any way with the University. As many of you are aware, while stationed outside of Halle Library, these individuals have proceeded to express their views on a variety of subjects. Some of these comments have been both hurtful and offensive to many members of the campus community. Students, faculty and staff have expressed concern that the activities of these individuals are not consistent with the values of the University that seek to promote an appreciation of human diversity and the maintenance of an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect. While I share the concerns that many of you have expressed, I must also note with great pride that the University, as a public institution of higher education, is strongly committed and legally obligated to promote and protect the rights of all individuals to engage in free and open debate on campus, however controversial the subject area. As many of you may be aware, individuals expressing similar views have for a number of years annually visited our campus as well as many other college campuses within Michigan and the region. When students, faculty and staff encounter these individuals this week or in the future, one option is to avoid any invitation to engage in dialogue or to stop and create an audience if you disagree with their views. Please note that the University’s Public Safety Department and other campus officials have been and will continue to monitor this situation on site to ensure that there are no violations of the law and to protect the safety of our students. Finally, I am asking Provost Loppnow to organize an educational campus forum about the issues that this event has raised so we can all learn from this moment on our campus. In the past, university communities came together to have “teach-ins” that educated and provided the opportunity to express different points of view. [bold added]
This statement gives me hope that if an Objectivist speaker came to EMU to speak on topics such as the Danish cartoons, our president would continue the tradition of protecting free speech.
10.11.2008
The 12 step program to financial disaster
I've never heard of Nouriel Roubini until today. But thanks to Wendy McElroy's website, I now have. Roubini, in early February made the following predictions about the state of our economy
The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: The Twelve Steps to
Financial Disaster
While I will be the first to admit I understand only a small part of his article, a few thing jumped out at me.
I'm be no means an expert on the economy and know little about state of some of the things he talks about, but after this past week, it appear Roubini's prediction has come to fruition. I would say we should be prepared for a long recession.
The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: The Twelve Steps to
Financial Disaster
While I will be the first to admit I understand only a small part of his article, a few thing jumped out at me.
First, this is the worst housing recession in US history...
Second, losses for the financial system from the subprime disaster...are now spreading to near prime and prime mortgages
Third, the recession will lead – as it is already doing – to a sharp increase in defaults on
other forms of unsecured consumer debt: credit cards, auto loans, student loans.
Sixth, it is possible that some large regional or even national bank...will go bankrupt.
Twelfth...A 1987 style stock market crash could occur leading to further panic and severe financial and economic distress.
I'm be no means an expert on the economy and know little about state of some of the things he talks about, but after this past week, it appear Roubini's prediction has come to fruition. I would say we should be prepared for a long recession.
10.08.2008
Dewey at his worst
I have found myself in the midst of possibly one of the worst incarnations of Dewey's pedagogy. It is a mix of some really great ideas and some really horrific ideas. Can it be salvaged? My short answer is "Yes". But should it be? Perhaps.
This creature I'm talking about is Academic Service-Learning (AS-L). AS-L has many different definitions and various proponents in the academic sphere. At my university, there is an AS-L office that offers fellowships for interested faculty members. I am one of the fellows thanks to an overly "helpful" department head who signed me up without asking me first.
As for the definition, AS-L is commonly defined as a teaching methodology that utilizes community service to help students gain a deeper understanding of course content, gain new knowledge and engage in civic activity. [Bold mine] At its best, AS-L provides students with a means of developing knowledge inductively through active engagement with course content in real world settings. Individual reflections on the engagement is a key component of AS-L and focuses the student on lessons learned, helping students to understand complex, theoretical subjects. An outside project I use for systems analysis and design could fall under this best view of AS-L. For this project students must contact outside organizations, discover an information system need they have, then analyze and design a system for them. Their outside project mirrors the lessons I present in class on the procedures for analyzing and designing information systems. While students may receive a highly theoretical understanding of analysis and design in the class, the real world case concertizes the issues for them. Reflection throughout the semester helps them to tie the concrete project experiences to the theory learned in class.
At its worst, AS-L focuses on the bold part of the definition above. Some argue that AS-L is only AS-L if civic responsibility is an integral part of the experience. They state that service to the community is an end in itself. They refer to helping the disadvantaged, whether poor, old, mentally impaired, or anyone else who is unable to help themselves. Its an attempt to instill specific philosophic beliefs on students by forcing them to view the world through the instructors point of view. Sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit is the stance that a community is only as good as the worst elements in it. Advocates appeal to socialism as a political ideal and selflessness as a moral truth. Worse still, it is done in the disguise of academic learning.
Are the best and worst elements unavoidably intertwined? No. While there are some in academic spheres who would argue yes, they are wishing that it is so that they can control the usage of the term AS-L. In their world, if you are doing academic learning through service to some organization or group of people that is not needy or non-for-profit or fits their narrow view, then you should call it something other than AS-L. But that is complete non-sense. There is no logical reason to have two terms for the same thing.
Can AS-L be rescued from those attempting to pervert its usefulness in academic learning? Maybe, but it'll take many advocates that I'm not sure exist at this point. Most academics in general, and nearly all familiar with AS-L tend to be highly socialistic. To fight for clear and unadulterated use of the term AS-L will take more advocates than exist at this point. Its a battle that probably won't be won in the near future and probably one that won't be won unless a new term is adopted. But when I say I use AS-L in my classroom, please understand what I mean by it is not the convoluted mess that others mean by it.
This creature I'm talking about is Academic Service-Learning (AS-L). AS-L has many different definitions and various proponents in the academic sphere. At my university, there is an AS-L office that offers fellowships for interested faculty members. I am one of the fellows thanks to an overly "helpful" department head who signed me up without asking me first.
As for the definition, AS-L is commonly defined as a teaching methodology that utilizes community service to help students gain a deeper understanding of course content, gain new knowledge and engage in civic activity. [Bold mine] At its best, AS-L provides students with a means of developing knowledge inductively through active engagement with course content in real world settings. Individual reflections on the engagement is a key component of AS-L and focuses the student on lessons learned, helping students to understand complex, theoretical subjects. An outside project I use for systems analysis and design could fall under this best view of AS-L. For this project students must contact outside organizations, discover an information system need they have, then analyze and design a system for them. Their outside project mirrors the lessons I present in class on the procedures for analyzing and designing information systems. While students may receive a highly theoretical understanding of analysis and design in the class, the real world case concertizes the issues for them. Reflection throughout the semester helps them to tie the concrete project experiences to the theory learned in class.
At its worst, AS-L focuses on the bold part of the definition above. Some argue that AS-L is only AS-L if civic responsibility is an integral part of the experience. They state that service to the community is an end in itself. They refer to helping the disadvantaged, whether poor, old, mentally impaired, or anyone else who is unable to help themselves. Its an attempt to instill specific philosophic beliefs on students by forcing them to view the world through the instructors point of view. Sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit is the stance that a community is only as good as the worst elements in it. Advocates appeal to socialism as a political ideal and selflessness as a moral truth. Worse still, it is done in the disguise of academic learning.
Are the best and worst elements unavoidably intertwined? No. While there are some in academic spheres who would argue yes, they are wishing that it is so that they can control the usage of the term AS-L. In their world, if you are doing academic learning through service to some organization or group of people that is not needy or non-for-profit or fits their narrow view, then you should call it something other than AS-L. But that is complete non-sense. There is no logical reason to have two terms for the same thing.
Can AS-L be rescued from those attempting to pervert its usefulness in academic learning? Maybe, but it'll take many advocates that I'm not sure exist at this point. Most academics in general, and nearly all familiar with AS-L tend to be highly socialistic. To fight for clear and unadulterated use of the term AS-L will take more advocates than exist at this point. Its a battle that probably won't be won in the near future and probably one that won't be won unless a new term is adopted. But when I say I use AS-L in my classroom, please understand what I mean by it is not the convoluted mess that others mean by it.
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