Continuing Education: Senior Lecturer at the University of Washington, Bothell

I recently embarked on the next stage of my re-engagement with academia, as a Senior Lecturer in the Computer & Software Systems program at the University of Washington, Bothell. Like the Tacoma campus, where I taught last winter and spring, the Bothell campus cultivates a small college culture within a large university system: classes are relatively small (with a maximum of 30-45 students in each) and there is a strong student-centered orientation among all the faculty and staff. The faculty - tenure track and non-tenure track - are actively engaged in research and other scholarly activities, but excellence in teaching is an essential attribute among all faculty.

During my first quarter, I am teaching courses on the Fundamentals of Computing (the introductory course for the CSS major) and Operating Systems (a senior-level core course in the major). I'm excited about teaching these courses for a number of reasons, not least of which is that these are the same courses I taught my first full-time semester teaching at the University of Hartford in 1985. Some content has changed, but many of the basic concepts have persisted over the intervening years. I'll be teaching courses on human-computer interaction, network design and web programming in the spring and winter quarters.

I don't anticipate much time for research during the next few quarters, as all of these courses will require new preparations on one or more dimensions. However, I do anticipate engaging some of my entrepreneurial energy. Although the Bothell campus is 20 years old, in the academic world this still qualifies as a "startup". The campus has ambitious growth plans to double in size over the next 5 years, and I'm looking forward to new opportunities for instigating, connecting and evangelizing in this new educational setting.

I also don't anticipate much time for blogging during this period; this post is already late (classes started last week), and I won't add much more to it. I do want to express my sincere gratitude for all the support I enjoyed from the faculty, staff and students at UW Tacoma throughout my initial re-engagement with academia last year. I am similarly grateful for the warm welcome I have received from the faculty, staff and students at UWB and CSS, and I look forward to my continuing education - as both a producer and a consumer - at the University of Washington.