Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

I would really like to change our country so that police do not regularly kill people of color, let alone mistreat them on a regular basis.  It felt as if we were on the cusp of some systemic changes with high-profile cases of police casually killing POC in front of cameras. If the movement to change this had consulted with their opponents such as the police unions and politicians that have built their careers on the rhetoric of "law and order", they could not have come up with a worse slogan than "Defund the Police". This has given their opponents such a gift in terms of rhetoric, in terms of fundraising, in terms of turning undecided voters against them. It focuses the attention on a means instead of an end, allowing dishonest people to run wild with their claims of anarchy.  It has failed miserably.

Road trips for me fall into two categories:  solo and with family.  Solo allows me to give free rein to my organizational instincts. I plan things, execute the plans, remember details, the whole thing. Whether strength or weakness depends on context; I am organized. With family it's a losing battle. I noted early on that the time it takes to exit a building with my family is proportional to the number of people. Folk tend to decide unilaterally what they're going to do. We haven't lost any kids yet but it has been a concern.

I serve as Faculty Ombudsperson at my university. The last couple of Fall semesters I had four cases each. This term I had ten cases. That's an increase; for context this past Spring I had five cases.   Much of my business has to do with interpersonal conflicts, so it is not surprising that the stress of the pandemic would exacerbate such conflicts. It's possible that during the previous two semesters the use of video software for teaching and other forms of interaction may have dampened the conflicts and/or the likelihood of folk approaching me. I am in the third year of a three-year term; it is also possible that folk are becoming more aware of my existence in this role.

A number of states, Kentucky in particular, have been devastated the past few days with tornados and other kinds of wind storms. As someone who has been spared that kind of devastation it's always been hard to understand the damage that moving air can cause. I think it was about 1976 or so that James Hansen from NASA started testifying regularly before Congress about the change in our climate caused by air pollution, specifically the byproducts of burning fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry has been so entwined with our car culture in the US that many people, specifically politicians, were able to ignore the science and just maintain the status quo. Four decades later and we are reaping what we have sown, although that phrase isn't accurate. The world's population has reaped what the polluting nations have sown. The world I leave behind will be very different than the world I was born into.  One of the fundamental issues of climate change is that we are charging the atmo...

I upgrade software regularly. It has become easier to do so with each passing year. Early on I had to plan for it, reach out to repositories, etc. Nowadays the software will usually prompt me. Many folk don't like software updates, because the cost in convenience can be high. Even subtle changes in user interface can break many unarticulated means of working. The benefits are often hard to perceive:  new features that you didn't know that you wanted. The main reason that I regularly update is the benefit people don't like to think about:  increased security.  Everyday a large number of people spend their day trying to break into other people's computing technology. I saw this up and close when I hosted my own web server; I'd say the main reason I stopped at the end was the required vigilance as literally thousands of entities tried to break in each day. From my casual perusal of security blogs it seems as if the majority of break-ins occur because folk have not upda...

I assess others regularly. That is part of my job as a teacher.  It is an unambiguous form of communication (if done right) the summary of which (the term grade) students share on their transcript in search of further education and employment. That doesn't mean that I enjoy being assessed myself. I am fortunate that most of my supervisors in my life have been pleased with my work. Even when constructive it is hard for me to take criticism, written down in its finality. The hybrid is self-assessment. At my university I am asked to write an annual self-evaluation along with professional goals for the coming year.  Much of what I write about myself is good; I'm still going strong after decades at my job.  When things go poorly I feel more in control if I'm the one who is pointing them out.

This morning I finished grading the third and last of my final exams for the semester. This particular class was small and did well overall, so it was easy to take specific pleasure in their achievements. On some level submitting term grades brings closure to a class. An immediate exception is when a student challenges a grade; occasionally I enter a typographical error into the grade-book and have to correct it. I work hard to avoid it out of pride in my work so it doesn't happen too often. (Other challenges are unfounded and wither quickly; I offer many assessments during the term and do not suffer students to ask for changes to the grading schema after the fact.) Some classes naturally lead to other math classes. This doesn't happen much with the classes that mainly serve as general studies graduation requirements but past that I'll often have students take a second class with me. Sometimes that's a scheduling requirement (only one section, no way to avoid me) and so...

Long before he ran for president, Donald Trump was part of my media feed. He pays publicists to make this happen. I guess that's a business investment if it leads more people to give him money. I never really understood the urge to give your money to people that are wealthier than you are. One thing that was clear when we were younger is that he had ripped off a lot of folk in Atlantic City. He regularly refused to pay contractors for their casino work. With the casino bankruptcies he seems to have left his investors with all of the debts. My all public accounts (and there were many at the time) this was because he had a lot of lawyers who specialized in running out the clock. Anyone trying to sue Trump lost their shirt in legal fees without ever getting to a payoff. Now we are coming up on a year since Trump, having lost the presidential election, assembled a mob and directed it to attack Congress to stop the certification of Biden as his successor. So far, no consequences for any...

A student met with me today to go over his final exam. He had done well, one of the highest scores in the class, but wanted to see his mistakes and discuss them. At no point in the conversation did he try to get me to change his grade; rather he wished to know how his answer could have been correct if he had done it differently.  (A subtle thing---answers can be correct even if they don't follow the particular path in my solutions.)  It was a good conversation because he wanted to understand more, I guided him, and he did understand more. Sometimes I dwell on students when they are not at their best; I need to lift up those anecdotes when they are at their best.

I am so weary of our country's hypocrisy about loving its children. I am so weary of children having access to guns. I am so weary of lowering the flag to half-mast. I am so weary of active-shooter drills. The majority of Americans are weary of politicians caving to the NRA. Of putting reelection ahead of saving the lives of children. Of putting money ahead of saving the lives of children. I am so weary of citizens who think that freedom is about having a gun. And that not having a gun diminishes their freedom. I am so weary of shootings getting closer and closer to where I and my family live. I am so very very weary.

Bob Dole passed away today. During my lifetime he was Senate Majority Leader and Republican nominee for president. Before I was born he served in WW II and was permanently injured in one of his arms.  During the years he was politically active I disagreed with many of his viewpoints. Nowadays those disagreements seem mild; we have become much more accustomed to the rhetoric of violence and discrimination since his time. He was a voice of advocacy for those among us who are disabled, and I will praise him for that. He did a lot of good in many areas and we can all aspire to have that epitaph.

The math teachers that I have known over the decades have had varying models for their work. I've self-identified as a storyteller, trying to share interesting things that my listeners may not have heard about. Not surprisingly I am drawn to mathematical authors who are storytellers, in particular those who have a point of view. People outside the field tend to view mathematics as dry and inhuman, perhaps because of the commercial pressures on introductory textbooks to be as bland as possible. As a teacher I have rarely been enthralled with an introductory textbook while finding some gems among upper-level texts. My favorite mathematical authors identify an aesthetic about their niches, a way of identifying what is special and beautiful about varying constructs. The trigger for me to write this particular essay is the first sentence of Michael Spivak's A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry, Volume I, which begins "The nicest example of a metric space is Euc...

Gift giving is another one of those human activities that leaves me feeling less than human. I appreciate the thought that goes into most gifts but there's not much that I need and I feel overburdened but my possessions as it is. I put a lot of thought into gifts for others but my experiences are arcane; I tend to think of them first and give books to folk that they probably never read. Part of it is the expectation of it all. I like doing things for people spontaneously, treating them, picking up the check and I enjoy it when others do the same for me. The idea that because it is a person's birthday that we need to have a gift exchanged feels unnatural to me. Almost all of the cultural trappings of Christmas drive all thoughts of Christ out of my mind (it wasn't Christ as baby that redeemed us, so the fetishization of the Christ child at the expense of the Sermon on the Mount is a pet peeve of mine) and materialistic gifts to celebrate Christ's birth feel perverse. But...

We disengage gradually from our students. Eventually the last meeting of the class comes and goes. Some come to my office for help, then there is the final exam. Occasionally students come back to challenge their grade but fortunately that is rare. Break occurs. The next semester begins. Some students take me for more classes and we have a comfort level in the teacher/student relationship. Many others pass me in the hall, out walking on campus, etc. By and large the ones who really were students are friendly, say hi, smile. A few who were trying to calibrate how little effort to put into the course to get the minimal grade that they needed avert their eyes. There is a swath in between. Colleagues come and go, but that is a much slower process. Some move to other jobs; others retire. Sadly a few pass a way, a sudden shock to the entire community. In a decade or so I'll be the one fading away, retiring. I'll probably not get to campus much, just for opportunities to honor and res...

We have monthly department meetings during the terms.  I've led some of them over the years. We're pretty good at meeting. We have an agenda so that it is our responsibility to prepare for the items listed. People speak freely. When we start to repeat ourselves the person leading the meeting brings the topic to a close. We usually have a sense as to the resolution of each topic. This is reinforced with minutes. Department members offer corrections to the minutes regularly, so that we are accurate about what we have agreed to. I often hear folk complain about department meetings, and I often wish I had more time in my life for all I've agreed to do. I never link the two, department meetings and time to do other things. This is time well-spent.