Casting Out Nines

I’ve been doing this blog since December 2005 and have covered a lot of territory, both on-topic and off-topic. During the week of October 28-November 3, 2007, I ran a weeklong retrospective series highlighting what I considered to be the twelve posts that best represent who I am, what I am interested in thinking and writing about, and why this blog is in existence. Here they are; if you’re new to the blog, I invite you to browse these in addition to the recent posts on the main page. Enjoy!

• In “What it’s all about”, a chance encounter with students on a sunny spring day reminds me of why I’m in the professor business.
• “The lesson of the museum store” reminds us that learning and play are more closely connected than we think sometimes.
• My take on the subject of cheating and plagiarism is in “Four reasons why academic dishonesty is bad”.
• “On working and having a life” considers the balance between academic work and family life, and repudiates a few people who thing that academicians shouldn’t have lives. (”Put a sock in it” is how I think I actually phrase it.)
• “Characteristics of upper-level math success” examines the personal habits needed to do well in being a math major and contrasts these with the habits usually espoused by education programs.
• Most people are five-point Calvinists when it comes to mathematical ability, I argue in “The uncrossable line of math”.
• “The purging of a sorority” reports on an unfortunate incident at DePauw University and asks a simple question about the Greek system which nobody since then has been able to answer.
• “Escaping textbooks” is the culmination of a lot of prior posts about textbooks and the benefits from decoupling academic coursework from them, and sets out my plan for a textbook-free abstract algebra course.
• I call for data about Millenials and digital natives rather than anecdotes in “A proposal about digital natives”.
• “Truth and consequences for Ward Churchil” looks at academic dishonesty again, this time from the faculty research perspective, and explains why it was right for Colorado University to can Ward Churchill.
• The role of non-algebraic thinking in solving calculus problems is the subject of “Critical thinking, visualization, and physical intuition”.
• Finally, we come full circle to consider what being a professor is all about in “Humility and higher education”.

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