This week brought the very pleasant task of attending a luncheon celebration for long serving OSU Faculty and Staff. In addition to my own 35 years here (wow, that seems like a long time!) there are many other folks well known to this department listed on the program. Here are two names that stood out:

Linda Lobao (Rural Sociology), 30 years

Jim DeGrand, 25 years

It was a nice event.

The department takes great care with assignment of TAs to courses and Diane Carducci and I work through many contingencies and changes. This coming semester is especially complex due to some potential GRA assignments for our senior students (pending external funding decisions) as well as a noted shortage of students with first hand experience in GIS. We balanced these issues and made a new round of assignments just this past Tuesday and we are hopeful that we have achieved a very good matching of student interest to the expertise needed to provide assistance in any particular course. Our primary goal here is the welfare of our Undergraduate Students who deserve the very best teaching team we can put in place. On top of that we try to accommodate graduate student preferences and constraints. We are always ready and willing to entertain suggestions, but know that this is like a game of Jenga and pulling out even one block can bring the whole tower down.

Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill created by Leslie Scott, and currently marketed by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. During the game, players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks.  

Be sure to join us today for our annual holiday celebration. Caitlin Naber and Emelie Bailey have given a lot of thought to making this fun. There will be food and movies and some games.