Blog Workshop
Today I attended a CAT workshop about blogging headed by Bart Everson. A few faculty shared what they are doing with blogs with other faculty. It was interesting. The main thing I got out of it was the potential to create a tailor made blog site for my students. I've been thinking about breaking the class up into groups so that students respond to other blogs from the class. I think we could come up with fun blogs, such as Bible jokes that students can post to. I also wonder what we could do with What would Jesus do? type things. THere could also be more useful blogs where they give definitions to terms in the reading. Bart seemed to think if he were a teacher he would work on having the students make blogs that people would want to read. Anyway, I need to think about this and sometime this summer set up a tailor made blog site for my 1120 class.

Blog about Blogging Workshop
This Thursday the Center for the Advancement of Teaching is putting on a workshop called "Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them." Great title, Bart came up with that one. Anyway, it is going to be about how we can use blogs in the classroom. I've used them this semester. In retrospect they didn't work as well as quizzes to get the students to do the reading. Some students sort of quit blogging as time went on. I should have checked them more regularly. What I did originally was have them print out the blogs and bring them to class each day. That would work better, but I was concerned about wasting paper. I think I might try that next semester, trees be damned. Anyway, I'm anxious to see how others have used blogs in the classroom.

In my Theology 2002: Prophets and Prophecy course, we made three movies. They all turned out very good. The first was a version of Jeopardy with the contestants Isaiah (all three in one), Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The second was a soap opera based on the Minor Prophets. The best one was by my favorite section, and they did a version of Jermiyahu Springer where Hosea and Gomer were guests. It was very funny. In the process I learned quite a bit about editing digital video. When I figure out a good way to compress them into a reasonable size, I'll put them on the web.

Teaching and Politics and Step Shows
Often times when I'm teaching I'm not sure how appropriate it is to incorporate my own political views. I think the answer is "Not appropriate at all." Most people in academia lean to the left, but I remember hearing students once in Texas complaining about a teacher who said something bad about George Bush. I would have a hard time these days sitting through a lecture that was 180 degrees opposite of my views. In my lectures at times I bring up both Democratic and Republican presidents as analogies. In my field of expertise it is at times very difficult to remain neutral when talking about the modern day Israel/Palestinian conflict, especially because so many of the arguments on both sides are biblically based. My students curious to know what it was like to live there. Actually, most of my students have no idea about current politics. Most probably couldn't describe Sharron or Arafat. This idea of Americans ignorant about world politics is sad but true. I guess in the end my students are pretty clear about my political views by the end of the semester. I should put more effort into being neutral. I tried to learn about African American culture last weekend by attending my first step show. I didn't enjoy too much about it. First, I waited in line for nearly two hours. Xavier students don't wait in line, they show up at the end, find someone they know at the front of the line, and move in. Then inside, I really didn't get the whole concept. Seemed the goal was to stomp and clap as fast as possible. It reminded me of River Dance, which I find embarassing for white people. Anyway, I tried to find out on the web about step dancing, and many said it went back to African roots. But nobody in Africa dances like that. At one point the step dancers took wooden candy canes and banged them around on the stage. Big deal . . . ANyway, I've been to the step show and made the effort to understand Xavier culture. I just need someone to explain why step dancing is so intersting. If you know the answer to the riddle that has proven so illusive to me, please email me at mhoman@xula.edu. Thanks

Plumbing and Teaching Jeremiah
This morning, as I was getting ready to come to school to teach Jeremiah for my 8:00 AM section, Therese noticed that the sink in the bathroom downstairs was leaking water all over the floor and cabinet. Anyway, I took off the drainage unit and it was full of holes and needs to be replaced. So, today after my office hours are over at 12 I will be going to the hardware store to replace the pipes. I should be writing sections of BibleDudes but will be doing this instead. This all somehow relates to Jeremiah in a very profound way, it's just that I can't think of it right now. Probably something to do with wearing an ox yoke.

Allergies, Drugs, and Teaching
The last two days I’ve been warn out. This started a few days ago when my allergies kicked into high gear. New Orleans is amazingly bad for allergies. This time of year all the oak trees shed this yellow pollen, and it covers everything. We have to sweep our porch everyday, as it is covered in yellow pollen, and it gets all over the cars, everywhere. Anyway, this means I often have a hard time sleeping, and sneeze quite a bit in the day. Most of my students also suffer in similar ways. So yesterday morning I took an allergy pill and while it stifled the allergies, the medicine made me feel terrible. I was groggy, and lost my mental edge. While I still feel my classes went well, I think the medicine made me less effective as a teacher. So today I didn’t take a pill, but because of the allergies I feel bad, and still have not been sleeping so well. My classes today went well, but this has made me think about all the factors that go into teaching and scholarship, many of which we have little or no control. Like now for example, I should be writing another section of BibleDudes but feel too wiped out to be inspired. And in class, with most of my students sneezing and suffering from allergies, this has to reduce the level of learning to a degree. I would like very much to just go home and sleep (it’s 1:30 in the afternoon) but because I teach a graduate level course tonight at Loyola, I have to prepare my lecture instead. On a more positive note, I’ve contacted via email the professor at Tulane who does work similar to mine, and we should have lunch soon. Thus far I’ve met the Bible scholars at Loyola, and UNO, so it will be nice to meet with him. I wonder if he can recommend any good allergy medicine.

Places I've Lived and/or visited


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3rd Year Review Over, Blog Discretion
The third year review went well. It lasted about half an hour. The members all were nice, though it was sort of weird in that they knew a great deal about me. One of the quesions was about discipline in the classroom. It came from a computer savey person, and it got me to thinking about whether the question came from student reviews (which the committee looks at) or if he saw some previous blogs. The link to this blog is on my home page and several of my other pages, so if he were inclined to do a bit of surfing he could have come across this site easily. So it got me to thinking about how being honest with this journal could have professional drawbacks. So blogging about my thoughts teaching I believe is mostly positive, there are some potential drawbacks. In any case, I'm glad the third year review is over. I'm sure I will do fine in regards to my progress towards tenure. What I will be curious about is if the committee will recommend that I be promoted to Associate Professor rank, as I requested. To accomplish this task, you need 6 years of ranked teaching experience. I have three after this year, but I asked that other things be substituted for the other three years, such as anthropological, research, archaeological, and other teaching experiences. I should find out at the end of the semester.

St. Patrick's Day and 3rd Year Review
Today at 3:30 I will meet with the Rank and Tenure Committee here at Xavier for what is called "Third Year Review." This means that I have been in a tenure track position for three years, and at this point they want to examine my scholarship, teaching, service, and collegiality to make sure I am on the right track. If there are things that they think I need to improve on before my tenure review after 6th year, it's nice to find out about it at this stage. I'm not sure what sort of questions they will ask. I've heard the committee reads everything in my folder, such as faculty update sheets, looks at letters of evaluation from my colleagues in the theology department, and looks at student evaluations. Members of my department have been very helpful in preparing me for this over the years. I'm pretty confident it will go well. I also applied for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor. This usually happens later, but I felt I was so strong in the scholarship portion that I might go ahead and ask. Actually, this had more to do with listening to the recommendations of other tenured members in my department, especially after my scholarship was recognized with the Frank Cross Award about which I've previously spoken. Anyway, big day for me, and I'll blog about what happens at the meeting later. It's March 17th, and I'm feelin' lucky. Erin Go Braugh!

Ostriches, Theology, and the Passion
I spoke with a student from Prophets and Propecy at length today about something that really bothers me. First let me say a few words about this student. She is intelligent, carries herself well, and I think pretty highly of her. She is doing great in my class, and is obviously motivated. So anyway she is in my office today, we were talking about her grade, but we got to talking. It turns out she is quite angry about the course and the way I teach it as of late. She claimed I was disrespectful, which shocked me as respecting other people's beliefs and backgrounds is something I take very seriously, especially given the nature of my discipline. To make a long story short, much of this stems from my critiquing Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of Christ. I posted on Blackboard a link by a Boston College Theologian that is a great article/critique/analysis of the film, and it can be read here:
http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/reviews/gibson_cunningham.htm
Do yourself a favor and read this article. It does a great job analyzing the film in my opinion.

This upset student is a religious Christian, as most of my students are, but she claimed that the movie was great and meant so much to her as a CHristian, that when I said bad things about the movie, I was saying bad things about Christianity. For example, in the movie as in the Gospels, Jesus forgives the guy being crucified next to him, but I said Mel Gibson didn't forgive, because he had a crow fly down and peck out the poor guy's eye. We talked about how Mel Gibson's theology was close to the Deuteronomistic Historian's, so the film was a great discussion tool. But suddenly this film is much more than a film to her, and not only are we as Christians not allowed to critically examine the Bible in her opinion, but we should not be allowed to critically examine this film. I was shocked. I felt like we were back in the Middle Ages. I spent the entire first week talking about how this class was not pastoral, how it wasn't Sunday school, how it was an academic study of prophets (in the Bible and out), and how we would apply critical methods to the text.

I asked her about Biology (her major I think), and if because there were students that did not believe in evolution, should a Biology teacher not talk about evolution because it was disrespectful to Creationist Christians? She seemed to imply that was accurate, and as evidence said most of her biology teachers when they get to that section skip over it quickly because they know it is offensive to most students. I find this hard to believe, and if it is true it is very disturbing to me. It's a good example about how this film is so divisive.