Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

I've spent most of my life in academia; the change of the calendar year has less import for me than for folk outside our very strange community. It coincides with a break in the academic year, and there are the darkest-night-holidays that most cultures celebrate. Still it is not a new year (as I think of it) that begins for me tomorrow; I have classes, committee work, scholarship to do. It is ongoing from the past four months. My family time has concluded as of this morning when I dropped my son off at the airport. We had other guests in town, and before that we had visited others. That family time has concluded and our lives will be quieter, for good and for bad. I am in my office for the first full day in quite a while, and I am rotating between class preparation and my to-do list. I am gratified by each small accomplishment, as so much of my self-worth is tied in with what I accomplish, no matter how small. During our family times the accomplishments I took most pride in were th...

I have an hour-long commute door-to-door and have had it during my time teaching at my university. When our kids were toddlers I went for trunk size for their tandem stroller and gear, otherwise I prefer a small car with good mileage and I have historically maintained my cars pretty well. In response they last for a while. Aside from my car there are a few folk that could give me a ride to work but fewer than in past years. I depend heavily on my car. We had intended to take my car (new to me as of September, when I bought it with 35,000 miles on it) on our visit to see family this past week but three days before our scheduled departure my car battery was completely dead. My garage (which I have learned to trust over the decades) said the battery tested okay (charged up after I jump started it and drove it to them) and suggested more detailed diagnostics at a dealer. We took our trip using my wife's car and today I took it to a dealer, who after three hours of diagnostics could not...

I caught a student cheating on a final exam this morning. I had a line of sight on them and watched for ten minutes as they took their cellphone out of their pocket, kept it below their table, typed into it, read it, put it away, then wrote on the exam, repeating this cycle over and over again.  I was a bit surprised as the exam was open notes but this student had not attended many of our classes, just stopping by for exams, and I conjecture that they had no notes to open. I confronted the student who admitted that they had done wrong in an inarticulate non-confessional way. By the afternoon they had signed off on the honor code violation report to avoid further investigation and possible sanctions beyond failing the exam.  Is anger the right emotion to feel now? I had a working relationship with the student, although they had not contributed much to it. They had deceived me in order to gain unwarranted advantage over their peers in the class and that is not right. I don't wan...

This Fall marks 55 years of being in music ensembles for me. Last night I sang a holiday concert with 26 other singers, most of them students. Our concert included pieces celebrating  Hanukkah as well as Christmas (both sacred and secular). The songs covered a range of styles for chamber singers and I found the program quite enjoyable, ending with a piece by Randall Thompson that repeated the lyric "Alleluia" with lovely harmonies and contrasting rhythms, both emotional and contemplative at the same time. I've sung with many of the students for several years in our group, the Camerata. I've also worked with our conductor for over a decade so it is very comfortable for me seeking how to blend in with the ensemble. I've always valued singing in this group particularly as one of growth, of learning, hoping to model that behavior for the students in spite of our age gap.  The music often touches the sublime and for over half a century I have cherished that externality...