Note to students:  Please check for spelling and/or typographical errors, particularly when discussing the Large Hadron Collider.

I’ve been keeping pretty much mum on this issue since I first became aware of the prospect several months ago, but as of today it has been made official:  starting Fall Semester 2009, I will be the coordinator for director coordinator of the entire Scientific Thinking course here at AUC.  This is a course that is mandatory for all graduates of AUC, and one in which I have been an instructor for the past two semesters.  This means I will be charged with managing some 600 students, divided into 20 sections, taught by 15 different instructors of varied scientific backgrounds, and led weekly in a general lecture series involving at least 10 invited speakers.  In return I will only be required to teach 2 courses instead of 3.  That and the prestige.  ha.

I only pursued the appointment on the confidence that my predecessor has already done much of the hard work in the absolutely positive reshaping the course has undergone this past year.  Did I mention the course, required by all graduates of AUC, just underwent a complete curricular redesign?  It did.  Those of us who actually implemented the changes have found it quite successful.  Unfortunately, the changes have not been uniformly adopted by all instructors.  There is understandable resistance given the fact that Scientific Thinking instructors have historically been given near-absolute free reign to approach the course as they saw fit (which is somewhat correctly perceived as being stripped in the effort to provide all university students with a common experience).  Did I also mention that the median age of the instructors is at least ≥10 years above my own?  This should be interesting.  I have admittedly large shoes to fill.  An iron heel might serve my needs.

More on this undoubtedly to come.  Yay for challenges yet unfaced!