Spring 2014

The spring 2014 semester is almost over. My students are taking their last exam today. Only one project and the final to go. That said they still have 35% of the the total grade yet to come. Some of us have had a rough semester, with surgeries, death of family and friends and auto accidents causing many missed days of class, exams, and projects. Yet this semester, the average grade in my classes is a high "B", well above the university target for my classes. I would like to think that I get the best students and am becoming a better teacher each semester. It will be very interesting to see my class evaluations.

In many ways this has been an especially difficult semester for me with many rejections, several papers, job applicationswith no response, and campus visits with no response. On the upside, my current department chair wants me to return in the fall, and my dental implant and nasal lift went very well. In a month I will be headed back to Texas to spend the summer with my beautiful wife of 44 years. All in all, life is good. It is important to live in the present, we cannot live in the past or in the future. Many people ruin their lives by brooding on past offenses and problems or anticipating what is to come that they have no control over. Peace to all.

Immigration Reform

Evidently not many in Congress have read Emma Lazarus' poem.


“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

There are very few of us in the USA that are not descendants of immigrants. Yet now ,we as a nation, if the majority of the congress really speaks for us, are against sharing the dream of America with the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.