Thursday, August 27, 2009

Juggling Life

Ok, watch this video (below) of an amazing female gymnast doing a floor exercise and catching and throwing a ball with either her hands or feet or legs and doing gymnastic tumbling all at the same time. Pretty cool stuff, if not downright awesome.

That kinda depicts my life, not that I’m that co-ordinated and graceful when juggling things in life, but it gives you a good impression of what it’s like being a professor. I teach of course, trying to foster learning in and out of the classroom. I chat with students who drop in. I serve on committees, two to be exact: I chair the Information Technology Committee and I serve as Modal Rep on the Core Implementation Committee that decides which courses should be given Core status in the university. I’m also the mentor of the Theta Alpha Kappa Honor Society for Theology and Religious Studies. Besides that I keep up a scholarly career of publishing about one to two articles per year and giving workshop lectures. I’m involved in the everyday university life and lots of behind the scenes things.

But when it comes to juggling I’m also a husband and a father. Because my wife runs a British style preschool and is thus tied down, I take our daughter to doctor’s appointments and run her to ballet practice. Every late afternoon/evening I come home and cook dinner because the daycare runs til 5:30. And then of course we have family time and activities and I have to keep up the house and yard and run errands etc.

So, you get the picture. Life is juggling. Some do it better than others. At Rockhurst University we help in-coming freshmen adapt to college life and learn how to juggle classes and activities. Rockhurst it a great place to be. Check us out.http://www.rockhurst.edu/


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Rook & Rock: Don't Eat Crow

Perhaps growing up your heard Aesop's Fable about the crow that put rocks in a pitcher to get to inaccessible water that was in sight. The crow dropped in rocks to raise the water level so he could finally get a drink. (There are variations on the story.) Turns out that fable might have had more truth in it than originally thought. For the modern science experiment of a rook gaining access to floating food, and the video, click the links below.

So, are you smarter than a crow? Actually, the experiment was done with rooks, birds related to crows, and in ancient Greece they were all called by the same name. Here at Rockhurst University we'll teach you how to drop rocks into a seemingly bottomless pit so that your goals rise to the top within your reach. So what can we learn from the rook besides good moves for checkmate? The rook assessed the situation, looked at available resources, strategized and then executed a plan to achieve its desired goal. That's basically what life is all about. We have a goal and then need to figure out how to attain that goal, even when it seems to be out of our reach. A solid foundation in the Liberal Arts at Rockhurst University supplies people with the necessary rocks to fill in the void and raise the level, the playing field. We also equip you with the tools to utilize when you have strategized a plan. If the first hypothesis doesn't work, back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong and how to improve.

Of course, at Rockhurst, being a Catholic and Jesuit university we also factor in the spiritual dimension as important and vital to a well-rounded human existence.

So why not drop a rock in the bucket and check out Rockhurst? Our Rockview is coming up October 11-12. http://www.rockhurst.edu/admission/topnav/visit/index.asp


For info on the Rook experiment read this article and then see the videoclip.

http://www.rr.com/news/news/article/rr/1501/8558655/Bird_experiment_shows_Aesops_fable_may_be_true/1

http://www.youtube.com/cellpressvideo