Skip to main content

Thank you to all Veterans, and their families

When I teach about public goods, the one clear example of a pure public good (perhaps the only one that no student has ever wanted to argue about) is national defense. Even the most hard-core of Libertarians will accept that there is at least one arena where government is needed, in the provision of a strong military. But what we don't usually talk about in economics classes is how lucky all of us civilians are that there are thousands of men and women who are willing to serve in our military. God knows, I would never want to do it, so I am exceedingly thankful for those that do.

On a personal note, my sister married a Navy man a couple years ago. For me, this has been great so far, since he was stationed in San Diego and I have had the opportunity to spend much more time with my sister and my nephew. But my brother-in-law's next assignment is overseas and they will be moving next year. Thankfully, it is not an active war zone but for the next few years, my sister will be raising a toddler in a foreign country, thousands of miles from friends and family, and by herself for months at a time while her husband is at sea. Thinking about it, and worrying about her, has driven home for me the immense sacrifices made not only by our solders but by their families. So to all who are serving, and who have served, in our armed forces, and to your families, my humble thanks...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

This is about getting through, not re-inventing your course

As someone who has worked hard to build a lot of interactivity into my courses, I have never been interested in teaching fully online courses, in part because I have felt that the level of engaged interaction could never match that of a face-to-face class (not that there aren't some exceptional online courses out there; I just have a strong preference for the in-person connection). But the current situation is not really about building online courses that are 'just as good' as our face-to-face courses; it is about getting through this particular moment without compromising our students' learning too much. So if you are used to a lot of interaction in your F2F class, here are some options for adapting that interaction for a virtual environment: [NOTE: SDSU is a Zoom/mostly Blackboard campus so that's how I've written this but I am pretty sure that other systems have similar functionality] If you use clickers in class to break up what is otherwise mostly lect...
2 comments
Read more

Designing effective courses means thinking through the WHAT and the HOW (in that order)

I think most folks have heard by now that the California State University system (in which I work) has announced the intention to prepare for fall classes to be primarily online. I have to say, I am sort of confused why everyone is making such a big deal about this - no matter what your own institution is saying, no instructor who cares about their own mental health (let alone their students) should be thinking we are going back to 'business as usual' in the fall. In my mind, the only sane thing to do is at least prepare  for the possibility of still teaching remotely. Fortunately, unlike this spring, we now have a lot more time for that preparation. Faculty developers across the country have been working overtime since March, and they aren't slowing down now; we are all trying to make sure we can offer our faculty the training and resources they will need to redesign fall courses for online or hybrid modalities. But one big difference between the training faculty needed ...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE podcast on Implicit Bias

I keep telling myself I need to get back to blogging but, well, it's been a long pandemic... But I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post something: I am Bonni Stachowiak's guest on the latest episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, talking about implicit bias and how it can impact our teaching.  Doing the interview with Bonni (which was actually recorded a couple months ago) was a lot of fun. Listening to it now, I also realize how far I have come from the instructor I was when I started this blog over a decade ago. I've been away from the blog so long that I should probably spell this out: my current title is Associate Vice President for Faculty and Staff Diversity and I have responsibility for all professional learning and development related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as inclusive faculty and staff recruitment, and unit-level diversity planning. But I often say that in a lot of ways, I have no business being in this position - I've ne...
Post a Comment
Read more