I've managed to maintain a pretty fast pace to kick off the summer project period. It's not quite hectic, but it's close.
The math lecturer search is mostly finished now. There really shouldn't be anything left to do at the committee level, but we're really not done until offers have been made and accepted/rejected that the committee is completely done with their processes. But barring anything unusual, this has been the fastest search process that I think I've been through. Getting from the posting to completion in about two months is almost absurdly quick. It certainly helped that there weren't that many other searches going on, as this meant we weren't fighting for resources (classrooms, other faculty members) to move things forward. Also, the committee itself was available and willing to throw themselves into the various steps to move quickly. So I feel very good about all of those parts.
I think I've found a pretty good cycle for making videos. Since I've got the scripts written out, I can more quickly move through the other steps and just crank things out. My process is to start by making all the diagrams (which sometimes leads me to change the wording of he script), record the script, produce the video, and then at some point finish up with the accessibility (closed-captions). I'm actually done with all 11 pre-class videos for MATH 120 at this point, and they're slowly being released to the internet on my "Math Repository" YouTube channel. (It's not the most exciting name, but I like it.)
And so I'm moving on to making the MATH 127 videos. Every three or four videos, I also need to stop and make some worksheets and other things for the class. It's much easier to build those as I go rather than to wait until the end to put that part together. I'm still doubtful that I'll be ready for the Fall semester by the end of June, but we'll see how strong my stride is for the next couple weeks.
The math conference planning is moving forward at a reasonable pace. I had my meeting with the special events coordinator on campus, and she doesn't see any problems with our current plan. I've got someone up in the Provost's office helping me out to make sure that pathway remains clear. I'm in communication with the Dean of the School of Education to help provide some support funding. One of the other faculty is working on getting the conference to count as professional development for the teachers... so we're in good shape. I still need to meet with director of recruiting to see how we can leverage their systems to get the word out.
The math degree stuff is starting to come together. I've got a meeting with the Dean of the School of Education to talk about the double major possibilities tomorrow, and that should kick start a little bit of activity and discussion. I'm optimistic that we can make things work. We're also making some connections for the data science minor that's going to be launching this Fall. We had a meeting with the data scientists at the Southern Nevada Health District earlier this year, and we now have the ball rolling with some folks at the MGM. I also spent a lot of this weekend blitzing through an online course in data science. At this point, that means that I've watched about 7-8 hours of video lectures, so that my brain is full of ideas, but I have not actually tried out anything from the programming side. I still want to use horse racing as the framework for practicing the ideas, and I've discovered that I now have free access to a sample of the data from the Daily Racing Form that I can use to just import and run small experiments. Once I feel comfortable with that data set (and once I have the time), I'll put up the money for a subscription and see what I'm able to do with lots of data.
I keep dreaming up new ideas for the move to the new building. I think a math comic/math meme bulletin board somewhere would be fun. I'm thinking of having open lab hours in our 3D printing nook (assuming that we get it). I'm not-so-quietly gathering up the robotics pieces to expand that into more of a semi-maker space. I'd love to have students in there playing with robots for a couple hours a week. I've also got some ideas of doing some other electronics (Raspberry Pi/Arduino) work in there.
This Saturday is the first meeting of the discussion group I'm doing with my church. I'm feeling pretty excited about it. I really want to see how this impacts some of the thinking at the church, and in particular whether it helps us chart some new directions for ministry opportunities.
And those are pretty much the big things. But as always, there's a smattering of little things. I got my piano tuned, and so I'd like to put some time in on that. I need to start thinking about science stuff to do in Oaxaca. I did a week of lentil-cooking (well, more like three nights cooking plus other nights of eating leftovers). We're in a 3-way tie for 2nd in curling, but we hold all the tie-breakers if we win the next one. Video of the volcanic activity in Hawaii is absolutely stunning. Maryland is under water. Politics is a crazy mess, and it will be interesting to look back at this time period ten years from now.
