The Percles File
Warts and all.
Category: Practice
Holiday in paradise and conference in Ottawa
The Arizona Memorial. I have been on it before. While the memorial is moving, the crowd of cybermen I found on it put me off ever wanting to go on it again. Any sense of spirituality that the memorial imparts is blunted by the cybermen, tourists with video cameras stuck to their faces wandering to and fro. Rather than experience the memorial they want to capture it on film, and they do blunder about because they cannot see where they are going. So they do run into each other and me.
In October and November, when my duties as Acting Director for the Institute for Teaching and Learning at an end, I took two weeks of annual leave, and another week to conference leave. For the first two weeks it was family affair in Waikiki. Ahh…
Then I went on to – wait for it – Ottawa for a conference. Quite a change in climate. Along the way I stopped to visit still other family in Hastings.
I am still learning about picture sizes, links, and the like. So this entry is pretty uneven.
Continue reading “Holiday in paradise and conference in Ottawa”
Japan travelogue
We found the Tardis and it is Shibuya Station in Tokyo. You never know where you are and how you got there and you can never go the same way twice. No wonder the Doctor has forgotten his name.
A record of my visit to Nagoya University and Tokyo in September 2006. Some business and some sight seeing. All in all we found Tokyo and Nagoya very accessible. Arigato!
Benchmarking with Nagoya University
They particularly focus on the survey research we do to get feedback from students, and I want to put that in a wide context so that it is not treated as if it were an end in itself.
How can a university that thinks of itself primarily as a research university (in say selecting, tenuring, and promoting academic staff) ensure good quality teaching? Students and taxpayers think a university exists mainly to teach students, but few members of a research university think that. Indeed some think that teaching is at the expense of research. What can be done to keep a balance between the two?
Translations
Socrates refers at one point in the Penguin edition of the Republic to “call girls” long before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone to call anyone
What’s the story on literal translations?
Replies to questions and suggestions
If the response is to revise and resubmit the whole process can start over. It is often difficult to please the reviewers in a revise and resubmit if they have been, as is usually the case, inconsistent.
Edwina asked about refereeing, Tash about popular press, and Lilian about links to classics.
Travels in June and July 2006
I travelled for three weeks, mainly to attend two conferences (in Utrecht and in Coventry) to represent the University. While travelling I alsol did some library research.
What has Jackson published?
Below is a link to my publication list. Gradually I am adding links to electronic sources.