Wow, do we have work to do. Updates below:

1. Thank you to all of the positive comments we have received about our summer blogging. We love the discussion and answering your questions in person. However, this only helps you; posting your question on the blog and someone else responding helps everyone. If you are a subscriber, a simple reply to the email adds a comment.

2. A few quick resources – one on how college admissions are adapting to creative thinkers and another on starting from scratch. I also wrote a piece this week on how math will look different and that that’s okay.

3. We met Wednesday and Thursday for a bit this week and discussed our needs for the office, a list of books we want to start reading/sharing in addition to those read over the summer, and large, broad questions we could design units around. (You might have spotted us brainstorming in the Student Center.) These questions should be intriguing and we will need to pitch them to students and see what grabs them. Things like “What does it mean to think rationally?” or “How do we know?” or “How much is enough?” are just a couple of examples. “How much is enough?” could have various sub-questions or go off in a variety of directions. Our mindset is that all of us should be able to think of ways our subjects could intertwine to answer or analyze these questions (or more specific subsets) that would be genuinely interesting. What if all students worked under this large question on their own STEM or humanities-specific research/project/assignment and then brought it back to the whole group later? These are the type of things we’ve been talking about. Our discussions are raw – understand that when reading this. We would love your comments!

4. We have an office to meet in! We are sharing it with some speech classes in the mornings, but we are beyond thankful that a space opened up this summer around the time we asked if any offices were available. We are in 601, down by the cooking classes. Apparently the back used to be the radio station. We hope you’ll come by and visit when we are up and running. It was completely empty, so we are working on getting a phone, chairs, a table, computers, a white board, etc. (some of which arrived today!). We are also bringing some comfy furniture as well. Pictures below!