"Never Really Alone" with Jack Gilbert!

The new semester approaches!  

Gulp.

I will be teaching my beloved microbiology at the University of Puget Sound in the Fall with sixteen eager micronauts to whom I can proselytize the One True Faith of Microbial Supremacy...but I will be teaching another course as well.  This latter course, which I call "Never Really Alone:  Symbioses and Parasitism Around and Within Us" is a freshman writing course.  It is intended to introduce new students to critical reading, discussion, writing, and presentations.  Here is the course description.

Last Fall, I had quite a nice time with this course, and my 18 students.  Students seemed to like the course, and I know I did.  We were EXTREMELY fortunate to have some pretty remarkable people visit our class via "telepresence" (Google Hangout, Skype, etc) to explore student questions.

I am going to post those presentations in the next few posts, as I consider who might be willing to "visit" my classroom in the Fall!

The first "telespeaker" we had last Fall was the inimitable Jack Gilbert of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.  I gave the students some readings relating to the work of Dr. Gilbert, and the students came up with questions for him. I sent Dr. Gilbert the questions, and he held forth!  

During his "virtual visit" to our classroom, Jack was his usual energetic and engaging self for the students.  Here is that presentation, which I highly recommend.

In fact, an artistic friend of a student in that class created 
"cartoons" of each speaker.  Here is the one of Jack Gilbert!

Finally, here is the "thank you" poster that the students created for him.  

Enjoy Jack Gilbert and his engaging style.

More to come!