Like Avis®, Huh?

If I could find a way to look sheepish across the tubes of the world wide intranetweb, I would certainly be doing it right now. Since "I'm" and "sorry" are the only words I can use here, why do anything other than use them and move forward, eh?

I am currently locked in that frenzied time of every academician's life right now -- exam week. Yes, you read that correctly; King College's semester is already at an end. Our commencement will be held a week from tomorrow, which is at least two weeks earlier than any school with which I have been affiliated through the years. No one on campus seems to know exactly how this happened, but with the calendar in place, we have no real choice but to press forward. I gave my first exam this afternoon, with two more to follow on Monday. After that, I have my statistics final on Thursday to wrap up the semester.

How I wish that were the only thing occupying my time at school right now! I have spent the last couple of days dealing with a violation of the college's honor code; for those of you well separated from campus life, that means I have a cheating incident. From my discussions with colleagues, I have discerned that mathematics is in a somewhat unique position when it comes to cheating and the catching thereof. In most disciplines, a professor notices a student suddenly writing well or otherwise producing work of an unusually high level, which leads to a discovery of cheating or plagiarism. On a typical mathematics test, however, cheating is typically comes to the fore when a collection of students all do the same thing wrong. For instance, I received three calculus tests which all featured the same typographical mistakes and bizarre algebra errors from one line to the next. Per college policy, I have acted on the infraction and executed appropriate discipline, and the accused have been notified of the proceedings. Did I get any graceful mea culpas or, as a music colleague received, apologies for poor decisions? Would I have written that last sentence if I had? One student seems genuinely shocked by the circumstances, whereas the other defenses ranged from "I did badly, how could I have cheated?" to the ever-popular "our grades were different." We will see how the tunes change when folks see the evidence before their eyes.

On a cheerier front, Sandi went to Johnson City for a waiting families meeting last Thursday night. I, sadly, could not make it due to my teaching responsibilities, so Sandi invited her co-worker (and King College mathematics graduate) Kelly to the meeting. They both enjoyed the experience, and Kelly said she would probably have lots of questions for Sandi in the future. I hate that I missed the meeting, though, as Jerry and Belton (from the now legendary Surreal Life post) were this meeting's special guests. Does anyone else think of old Scooby-Doo cartoons when you hear that?

The pets have been pretty happy with the onset of spring -- well, once the blasted thing finally decided to hang around. Ranger has actually been able to stay out in the back yard as late as eleven o'clock for the past couple of weeks, and the cats get excited whenever he leaves the house. The Big Bazooka is, in fact, one of the main reasons I sat at the computer to write this evening. As Sandi got ready for bed tonight, we left him alone in the living room while I hung her clothes in the closet. I got one pair of pants in place before we heard him doing something; my investigations revealed that he had pulled a blanket off our chair Smiley. I took that away from him and returned to my work. One blouse later, I check on him and find a towel pulled off the top of his kennel. I toss that into the kitchen and try to finish up the hanging. After I get the last piece put in its place, I again inspect the living room, only to find the loveseat cushion in the floor. I replace it and rub Sandi's aching leg for a couple of minutes, when we hear yet another noise outside the hall. This time, he had sent Smiley's cushion into the floor. When I returned to the bedroom, Ranger was in his kennel.

I hope to update you further soon; in particular, I get to go to another waiting families meeting in Knoxville next week. Take care, everyone!