Long Time No Blog

In the days since I last posted I’ve rushed to end my time in India at NLU and with friends, traveled to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and endured waiting 4+ hours on the tarmac only to have our flight back to the States canceled. But back to the last week of April to recap.

Our last 10 days in India found me wrapping up classes and being honored by the administration and faculty of NLU at a luncheon. I also attended a faculty activity that was new to me: syllabus review. Each faculty reviews his/her syllabus for the upcoming fall classes for the rest of the faculty for comment. The syllabus includes the “modules” of course material, assigned readings (texts and cases), grading breakdown, and dates and types of assessment exercises. The syllabi are presented by PowerPoint slides and orally. It also appeared that mid-level faculty took this opportunity to haze their most junior colleagues. Whether the comments were in good humor I’ll leave to the judgment of the juniors. Such a review should be useful to guarantee sufficient coverage without undue overlap and to ensure that the most up-to-date materials are used.

We were also the guests or hosts for many teas and dinners with the friends we had made in India. The sadness we felt as we prepared to leave was only partially offset by the anticipation of going home. LaDonna made lists of the top ten things she was looking forward to and the ten things she most dreaded about returning to America. Several items, such as our house, appeared on both.

Finally, a special shout out to Garima Dadhich, my Commercial Transactions colleague who joined the faculty only in January. Garima volunteered to drive us and our extensive luggage to the airport (along with the tiny university-hired car). She got a flat for her trouble but it came to our attention before we left the grounds and thankfully NLU’s bus driver was available to install the spare (changing tyres in 43 Celsius weather is not my idea of going-away fun).

Then it off to the Jodhpur airport to Delhi (where the new terminal under construction for the upcoming Commonwealth Games is GREATLY needed) and then a short overnighter to Hong Kong.