savageinfidel

If you have read this blog for very long, you know that I often argue that college teachers have become obsessed with teaching stuff and less interested in developing the student as a whole person. Should we care if a student becomes a brilliant scholar but then leads a miserable life because he or she simply doesn’t know how to live? Well, I think so. I could give several examples of what I do in my classes beyond teaching stuff but here is one of my favorites. My primary course is Intermediate Accounting II which covers some of the most complex material at any university. For nearly 20 years, about half way through the semester, I give my students a required assignment. I ask them to consider all the books they have ever read in their entire lives and pick the “best book you’ve ever read.” Then, they have to write a paragraph or two to describe why they picked that book. Over the years, I have had some of the most fascinating essays submitted. Obviously, I want the students to think ...

Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking to 70 teachers or so at the Kentucky Accounting Educators’ Forum. At one point in that presentation, I made a comment that working with students who can often be incredibly lazy is a real challenge for every teacher. My guess is that every teacher has mumbled similar words over the years. Later that day, Randy Hahm who is on the faculty at Kentucky State drove me to the airport. On the way, Randy told me about one of his favorite quotes from Zig Ziglar, the world famous motivational speaker: “There’s no such thing as a lazy person; he’s either sick or uninspired.” I don’t remember much else about that day but those few words have stuck with me since that car trip. My students rarely appear sick. So, whenever I’m dissatisfied with their efforts, is it laziness or is lack of inspiration? Lazy or uninspired? On the surface, you might ask what difference does that distinction make? I think it makes an important difference as you think abou...

I am always a bit amazed by how many readers we have on this blog. I never expected to get to 1,000 and we have now had (as of 8 minutes ago) 54,309 page views. Many readers are accounting profs but a lot teach all kinds of other things. I am busy so I rarely pay attention to which blog entries get a lot of readership and which get less. However, because of an unrelated project, I had to go back a few days ago and look at all the entries to date and noted the number of hits for each. Most got hundreds, some got thousands. However, the following entry (from May 30, 2010) only had 14 hits. 14??? Heck, some of these entries get 14 hits in the first two minutes. I’m not sure why no one read this entry because (even rereading it today) I think it raises a valid question as to what you actually want to be as a college prof. I especially liked the comment about the baseball team needing different types of players. Are you in an environment where different talents and roles are recognized? So,...

A Dutch artist named Bart Hansen recently decided to memorialize his dead cat (Orville) in an unusual way - by turning it into a remote-controlled helicopter . Jansen said that Oville always loved birds, and now he can fly with them. Unfortunately, he forgot the laser beams.  Amateur!

Occasionally, someone will ask me to give them my number one piece of advice for becoming a better teacher. Teaching is such a complex art that I really think that is close to impossible. However, I do think there is one thing that every teacher (and I do mean every teacher) should do that will help them immediately to become a better teacher. Can you believe it? I’m almost guaranteeing you success with just one piece of advice. Every teacher should get a reality check by enrolling as a student each year in a class in something about which they have no real knowledge. In other words, they should walk around to the other side of the desk and put themselves into the student role just as a reminder of how it feels to be the struggling one. I don’t mean for a history teacher to take another history class. There’s no benefit. I don’t mean for an English teacher to take a class in poetry. I mean for a history teacher or an English teacher to take a class in quantum mechanics. Two weeks ago, ...

I'm back. Unknown University has a new initiative.  They want to encourage more "interdisciplinary" research.  So, they're trying to hire in groups centered around "big" topics.   So what do they call this approach? " Cluster Hires" It's too easy.   I'm not going there.  

It was supposed to be the golden moment of the new Internet Age. No tech bubble--we were going to get it right this time. Investors were more sensible now, and knew how to value web-based companies which had finally figured out how to monetize. The stage was set, and we would come out of the gates all guns blazing. Pffft . Seriously?  There are a few times that Wall St. drinks its own Kool-Aid on a macro level (re: housing crisis, tech bubble, S&L crisis, etc.), but by and large, it is good at weeding out singularly irrational events. Not this time. Even the lead up to IPO was suspect. After months of speculation that Facebook would have to settle below the psychological $100B mark, underwriters unexpectedly boosted the issuance by 85M shares to 420M, and raised the expected range to $34-$38, tipping the valuation into nine-figure land; it raised a few eyebrows that the decision was made in the middle of a roadshow, but the changes were pegged to increased interest by PMMs....