What do you teach?--An itinerary of years and courses-II

In 1986 when I arrived on the OSU campus three weeks after the fall semester began--a favorite professor had quit just weeks before--I was assigned editing. 

OSU Journalism Professor Clark, and high tech

There was no Internet, no computers, and lots of students.
 You'd lecture to 60 students on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then  hold afternoon labs of 15 students each for the rest of the week. 
I relied on a textbook for structure, and then scrounged for editing exercises in the labs--pen and paper work. My grading was tough--it made some sutdents cry who'd never had a "C" before. Visuals were overhead transparencies. Lessons included headline writing and counting, and more. Print journalism had only recently changed to offset printing. Not much else.
When I  began critiquing the sloppy editing in student newspaper, "The O'Colly, by golly," to teach editing, it was much to the chagrin of the staff, who didn't know me and was replacing their fav prof. Today, some of those students are great friends.
Next I taught basic photography--no digital cameras, advanced editing (students redesigned state newspapers--cut and paste, etc. No computers.). I taught reporting, and also a class in journalism management. On the side, after the O'Colly business manager died, I was interim O'Colly manager for a semester. 
What helped me most was my very recent newspaper experience--organizing the courses was most difficult.
Oh, and those were tie and coat era days too. 
During this time I was working on my doctorate on campus. It wasn't complete when the job came open at UCO as chair of the small journalism department, because the former chair, Dr. Ray Tassin, had retired (Tassin had ironically been my reporting teacher even more years ago when  was an English major at then Central State College).  
Then began a long new adventure, including many more favorite students, but I'll not go into detail on those more than 40 courses, next.

A quarter century at UCO

Twenty-five years ago, I began my first semester at UCO, recently hired as chair of the Journalism Department.

Twenty-five years ago, the Journalism faculty

Tomorrow I will begin teaching students who, even though now juniors and seniors,  weren't even born then.
One of the classes I teach, "Blogging for Journalists," wasn't even possible then. There was one computer in the entire department and I had to wait a year to get a used one. There were no cell phones, no "Macs," no digital or social media, no real Internet. I taught editing, using pen and paper, and feature writing, among other things. 
Internationally, the Soviet Union was nearing collapse. That spurred all kinds of instability, especially in the Mideast, helping cause the First Iraq war when Iraq invaded Kuwait, which President  Bush, the smart diplomat, left  Saddam in power for stability. Germany was reunified.  Mandela was released from a 27-year prison term.  All of those events continue to affect us today. Look at the news.
Today's freshmen, who I don't teach, were born in 1996, when Bill Clinton was president. They were five years old on 9-11, 2001. That is ancient history.
 As with everybody, I've been through good times and not so good times, successes and failures, more and more wrinkles, changes in beliefs and attitudes and in teaching, toward people, religion, politics, culture, and teaching. If I hadn't changed, grown, I would be dead. And the challenge to me today, as a teacher, is to make sure our students learn how to think for themselves, how to challenge everything, how to adapt to rapid change--and to instill a passion for learning and their work. 
Walk across campus today, and every student has a smart phone in hand, a table or laptop computer, or both. Facebook,  twitter, texting, Instagram, Vine and more dominate. 
Here's a video that I'll show tomorrow, about how the world has changed: "Did you know?" Prepare to be stunned.
When I started, I was about the age of my students' parents. Now, I'm like a grandparent. One student wrote "I wish he were my grandfather." The pressure to be relevant--other than in the music they listen to which is impossible--is continuous, because technology and journalism is changing so fast.
But after a slump in blogging the past couple of weeks, I have to be back at it. Because, back then and now, I believe firmly, "If you're not doing it, how can you teach it?'
If you want to see how I try to keep up, check the first day assignments on the two blogs for my classes, BlogblogUCO, and Clarkinternational.
Twenty-five years...amazing.

Disruptive technology, twitter & an ex-rock star

@okieprof #clarkclass 

Speaker in the twitter for Journalists class today was friend and multi-talented journalist Dave Rhea, @jdaverhea, now general manager of the Oklahoma Gazette.

Dave Rhea and @okieprof

He spoke about still having to write, even though he's now in management--formerly with the Oklahoma City Journal Record business newspaper. 
"If I didn't write, I wouldn't be a journalist," he said. (He writes for Blade Magazine, about knives.)
A former rock band star and musician with a record contract, he related the changes journalism is going through to the changes in the music industry where making money off records collapsed, talking about the Internet as "disruptive technology." He urged students to always adapt to the new technology, or to better yet, invent the "disruptive technology."
I, and my students, were really impressed with how many people he knows in many different fields , and his wide range of reading. He's always learning. My students are amazed at how many really cool people this old prof knows.
So after he left, here's what the students commented on in our debriefing. Thanks again to student Lacey Rhodes @laceymrhodes for the note-taking. More student comments by searching #clarkclass on @okieprof.

• Twitter is just a tool in the toolbox.
• Don’t worry about the outcome, focus on the work to be happy.
• Do something for a half hour a day that you thoroughly enjoy.
• Don’t do your writing for the outcome but remember what pays the bills.
• Disruptive innovators create new ways to do old things.
• At the end of the day publication credibility is the most important thing.
• The bat belt of many different skills is to create story-telling abilities.
• Twitter distributes power.
• Be here now, live in the moment.
• Story telling is always going to be there.
• Be a Renaissance man, have a big skill set.
• Classic forms of networking aren’t always as important anymore.
• How he uses his personality type to do his job to the best ability.
• Pay attention to the creative flow.
• Journalism isn’t stiff and old school anymore.
• The more ways you can tell a story the more ways you can sell that story.
• Be authentic in your work.
• Use writing to give yourself a creative drive.
• He says his personal tweets are personal and do not represent the company.
• When you get calls it’s not usually someone praising you, unless it’s your mom. 
• Everybody is a critic.

Metaphor and more--blogs to think by

An infinity of shapes and lives and meanings

Metaphor. Yesterday's post about clouds continues today, in the skies and in the blogs I read.
Today's heat made clouds unlikely , other than a general high haze, but a few have drifted across the skies. It's good that clouds are like people and snowflakes...infinitely different, never the same. That's part of the fascination of living. An infinity of shapes and lives and meanings.
And metaphor helps tell the stories, helps make them clear and relevant...one reason among many that Christ's parables were so powerful.
A metaphor master in my mind is friend and colleague Sherri Ward, and her blog, Blonde Moments illustrates that every time she writes. There's usually humor, pathos, and concluding thoughts that almost take the wind out of you. The most recent post linked zip lining and life and God. I'm Tethered. 
Another blog that always causes me to stop and think, almost as a daily devotional, is Turtle Rock Farm, published by Henry Bellmon's daughters at their Billings retreat. The most recent post  will wake you up to the sounds of summer. Read Morning symphony.
And for an upbeat, avant-garde blog full of energy and offbeat content that'll make you enjoy thinking, you should look at Really Most Sincerely, the blog of my former student Sheri Guyse, a modern media maven. Read the most recent, The Internets.

Lessons from out the "cat box," and a rap

Sophie and Snoops

Cats teach you a lot of things "unfeline," and as we've adopted two in the past couple of months, I'm discovering new metaphors for life, thanks to Snoops and Sophie. They're really my first cats, others having belonged to my children when they were growing up or Susan. The kids' cats seemed to meet untimely deaths, and Susan's died over the past two years, and while I was sort of tangential, they were never mine. I have been a dog person up until just a few years ago.
This new intimacy of having cats rather than dogs has introduced me to their habits, and while they're fun and cute and interesting and adoptive in their own ways, some of the main lessons have come from
... cleaning out the "cat box."
So far, these are indoor cats, not that I'm opposed to bi-habitual cats--in fact, I prefer that, as I do with dogs, but I've been outvoted. (If you're married, you understand)
Which makes the "cat box" a matter of daily worship, of bowing down to it with the appropriate genuflections of holding your nose, or your squeamishness.
These young cats are very active, bowel-wise, which surprises me because I'm very familiar with being more bowel-active as I age.

The cat box

Which means the "cat box" has to be emptied twice a day. Susan and I are supposed to split it, and we usually do. Hold your temptation to write a headline. I can outdo you since there are so many key words you can play off of, starting with poop, litter, sift, shit, couples, dump...the list goes on.
But that is not the purpose of this erudite exercise in evacuation. 
We use a box with a cover, in  the laundry room, which adds new meaning to the need for fabric softener, and the aroma of clean clothes. Susan insists in kitty litter that is fragrance free...yeah right.

We use a small sized spade-shovel with slots in it to drag through the kitty litter and scoop up the clotted colon processed remains, while the rest of the "kitty litter" sifts back into the "cat box." The awful offal--I love that play on words--goes into a plastic sack for disposal. It is literally, full of ... .
My thoughts while bowing over the "cat box," sifting through the poop....
I think first of all of my work and experiences that has qualified me to clean out the "cat box."

•  I continually sift through statements from politicians, national, state and local, separating their poop from where it is amply deposited, noting that it's always presented positively, but still smells;
• I am continually showered by TV weather people with their bloated language, seeking to find just the pertinent news:
• I'm continually dumped on by TV cable channels with their self promotion and egos and protestations of being "fair and balanced." Poop is not fair and balanced, and it comes in all sizes, regardless of source, though some are more excremental than others;
• I'm continually sniffing at TV and Internet advertising with their intrusive special effects odor --having sold advertising, I know how to shovel such stuff.
• I'm continually barraged with PR poop in higher education, with its slogans and acronyms and flavors of the month, knowing that the messages are runny, without much substance;
• I was continually soaked as department chair for years with edicts from on high for forms, new reports, some administrator's latest brainchild project, more cookie-cutter paperwork. None of it ever sifted through to help students and better teaching.
• I 'm also continually having to sift through Politically Correct language from my government, interest groups, and more. Don't believe me? Why do we call it "kitty litter"?

Susan calls cleaning out the "cat box" as "farm chores." But at least when you're doing that, you know what you're doing, and it'll prevent a mess in the near future.
So do the cats. Go to the "cat box," and they sit nearby, waiting for you to finish so they can enjoy the freshness.
The cats and Susan are calling. My only rule is that I don't do it just before eating. I'm headed back to the "cat box."


Cat box blues rap
I don't know about youse
I got the cat box blues
Plenty of poop
to fit in the scoop
Sounds like life
I ain't being trite
I ain't bitter
I hate kitty litter
Sophie and Snoops
Lots of poops
It's just the pits
with lots of shits
I know what I knows
Hold your nose.

(Note--if you have other lessons from the cat box, comment below, I'll be glad to add them)