I am an adjunct instructor of Political Science at Rochester Community and Technical College. I teach primarily online, which is a challenge, but one I find very rewarding. I am a co-founder and co-facilitator of RCTC's award-winning international service-learning program to Cambodia. We travel to Cambodia every winter break (December 26th to approximately January 13th)in an Inter-cultural Communication course. We partner with a Cambodian founded NGO as well as a Cambodian University. While working on my PhD, one of my fields was Comparative Politics with an emphasis in Southeast Asian Politics, thus, I am able to add a bit to the course's curriculum (the program's curriculum was given an award last year).
Though I teach American Government exclusively, my love is Political Philosophy. Now, in my American Government courses, I make it clear that our regime is unique in that ours is a polity founded on philosophical principles--those found in the Declaration of Independence. I argue that our nation was founded in 1776, not 1789, when the Constitution was ratified. We discuss this controversy and its implications. A theme that runs throughout my course is the tension between liberty and equality--a tension that is evident in our founding document itself and continues to this day.
I love to teach Plato--my favorite philosopher. Nietzsche, his great adversary, is my second favorite. The notion of Truth is my passion.
I live in a small town in Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above-average. I have two children--one, my daughter, a sophomore in college at the University of Minnesota-Morris (my alma mater), and my son, a senior in high school who is taking all college courses, and will graduate with both a high school degree and an AA degree from Rochester Community and Technical College. At 15, he spent a year with a host family in Argentina through AFS. It was a life-changing experience for him--and he is amazingly fluent in Spanish. In fact, he is a Spanish tutor at RCTC. My daughter, who is a Political Science and Environmental Studies major, won a Clinton Initiative grant for Morris--solar panels to heat the pool. She is active in the Student DFL, and as a first year student she won a Woman's Service grant of 5.000 dollars to follow-up and assess her ongoing "One Toilet at a Time" project in Cambodia, which she started at age 14. In Cambodia, students do not have toilets and must go in the rice fields or trees. When girls start to menstruate, they become very embarrassed, and if they soil their uniform (which is expensive) they will not come back to school. So, embarrassment and the possibility of soiling their uniform forces schoolgirls to quit school about the time of menstruation. Naomi learned of this and started her project.
Well, enough rambling of a proud parent.
I am a Christian, and I hold that Christianity is reasonable and may be defended philosophically. I hold that there is a discernible reality, and that truth exists, both in human matters and otherwise. I am a skeptic, that is, I take a middle ground between dogmatism and cynicism.
I love music. It moves my soul. My favorite classical music is Mozart and Bach. As for popular music, I love Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Radiohead, Flogging Molly, and other Celtic Rock bands such as the Pogues.
Well, for a Norwegian Minnesotan, who is one of the frozen-chosen, I have revealed much. It must be the strong coffee. Bye.
