Student blog posts coming up soon...

mushrooms photographed at Lost Lake park.

As long-time readers may know (if anyone has really stayed with me for long through the ebbs and flows of postings here), I started this blog to augment the teaching of a graduate class, and have continued to use it for that purpose (expanding to grad and undergrad classes) from time to time. The blog thus serves as a sometime venue for students to share some of their writing in the context of the class as well. If you search for posts tagged with "student" or "student posting" in the archives, you will find examples of such student writing from earlier classes. I had intended to continue this with classes I've been teaching this semester (Fall 09), and students have indeed submitted some interesting writings for the blog. Unfortunately, I've dropped the ball on actually posting them, because I got distracted by things like writing grant proposals (two big ones, and several minor ones submitted in the past 5 months; I'll share more about these projects soon, especially if we actually get funded!), compiling and submitting my tenure file to my department (yes, I'm now being evaluated for tenure - can't believe I've already been here for over 5 years!), and finding speakers for and coordinating the departmental colloquium as well as the Darwin's Bulldogs' Evolutionary Biology lecture series - all on top of juggling a full load of classes during this year when we are all supposed to furlough and work 10% less than usual! Ha - so much for that idea!!

Anyway, enough with the excuses - I came here to tell you that I will soon start posting a boat-load of student essays from several classes this fall. So prepare for an uptick in the rate of postings here - I think you'll enjoy some of what the students have cooked up too!