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Sriram Khé |
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My Courses at WOU
Work Reports
WOU Links |
Report of Service in 2007-2008 The 2007-2008 academic year is significant for one important reason, among many: it is my final year as the Director of the Honors Program. With Commencement on June 14, 2008, my responsibilities as the director will come to an end. I have summarized here my professional activities over the year—actually, since summer 2007—and will be delighted to provide additional information if needed. Teaching The following table provides details on the courses in 2007-2008:
In summer 2007, I taught a summer class, which technically is outside the contractual obligations; it had a decent enrolment of 16, out of which one was a graduate student in the section. This entire year I have been teaching the introductory class—GEOG106—without a formal textbook, and with a collection of essays that are all accessible online through the library. Further, I use videos—news, documentaries, and “mockumentaries”—also as online resources. From my own experience with this completely new approach to teaching, and from students’ feedback, I am convinced that this is a far better way to help students attain the learning objectives for the course, and for the LACC functions the course serves. In addition, consistent with my responsibilities in the Honors Program, I offered H303, which is the thesis proposal development class, in Fall 2007, and coordinated the thesis credit work of students through H403. Public Scholarship · My essay, “The irrelevance of SAT in Honors” was published in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. · My articles on “The United States of Gordon Gekkos?” and “When a McMansion isn’t large enough” were published at Planetizen.com, which is a professional forum for urban planning. · My review of The Box: How the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger, was published in the Professional Geographer, which is one of the two premier journals for geographers, and is published by the Association of American Geographers (AAG). · My commentary, “A Note on Immigration from a "Naturalized" Geographer” was published in the AAG Newsletter. · Presented “The paradoxical growth of new homes and self-storage” at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, in April 2008. · Presented “Money, too, is green in Oregon” in March 2008, at the Oregon Geographic Alliance conference, as a special lecture to commemorate Oregon’s 150th anniversary. · Co-presented “Practical solutions for bridging the gap between Arts and Sciences, and Education” with Mark Girod at the 60th annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, in February 2008. · Presented “Mock to teach” at the 70th annual meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG). · Presented "Economic geography of Oregon," at the Oregon Geographic Alliance's Summer Institute on July 10, 2007. · Authored 28 op-ed pieces in the Register Guard, and three in the Statesman Journal. Service—to the institution and to academe · Served the institution through my work in the Honors Program. · Served on the university’s Writing-Intensive Committee, and the Dewey-Smith Committee. · Continued to serve as the Editor of Pacifica, which is published biannually by the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG). APCG is the regional division of the Association of American Geographers and has about 750 members. · Am completing the first year of the three-year term on the AAG’s Committee for College Geography and Careers. Academic Advising I continue to advice students who have been assigned to me. A majority of my student advising activities happened through my Honors responsibilities. Finally, I have copied/pasted here a letter that was in the May 7th issue of the Register Guard in response to my opinion columns in the paper: Khé’s columns are thoughtful I appreciate The Register-Guard’s inclusion of Professor Sriram Khé’s thoughtful and thought-provoking columns. His perspective as a highly intelligent, well-educated immigrant to our country is one we can all benefit from. The subjects he has chosen are invariably timely and significant. I envy the students in the honors program at Western Oregon University who have access to his thinking and wisdom even more frequently than we readers do. They are fortunate indeed to pursue their education under his direction.
Prudy Zorotovich Click here to email me. |