Work, work, work

I promised another post before the semester begins, and this is that post. Classes start tomorrow, and my quiet little town nearly doubled in size this weekend. Ah, undergrads. So before the craziness ensues, I wanted to fill you in on what I've been up to so far at my new job.

First things first, check out my office!! Having never had more than a lab bench to myself, I am really loving it. True, it has beige cinderblock walls and no window, but it is big and quiet and all mine. Since I inherited some seriously retro furniture, I'm trying to just go with it. For example, check out my funky light teal candy dish I scored from a flea market, which match perfectly the color of my 60's classroom chairs. Oh yeah. And just last week I snatched up an old Carolina Biological poster from the 70s (not pictured) of an animal cell. It's actually quite beautiful- it looks like a watercolor. And I have my eye on a 54" Jackson Pollock print, which someone really must buy me for my birthday, to go on the wall over my meeting table. So, you can see, I've really been focusing on the important things during my first month on the job.

My 60's hand-me-down office furniture, which is well built if not particularly
attractive. That desk weighs at least 100 pounds, I kid you not.

I spent an inordinate amount of time organizing and
accessorizing my bookshelves, but don't they look lovely.

Wall of diplomas, with my Jamie Caulkin print of the Arch.

Meeting table, decorated with fake foliage in long necked flasks.
(I've been moving those things with us since Virginia, just waiting for an
appropriate spot for them. Jason is SO glad to have them out of the house.)

My new baby and all her accessories. I love my Mac.

Ok, so maybe I spent a week organizing and decorating, but after that I really have been working hard to get my class in order for the fall. I get the semester off of lecturing, but I am coordinating the lab portion of the general biology course. This fall we will have 600 students, mostly freshman, in 24 lab sections throughout the week, taught by 13 TAs. Not UGA numbers, I know, but still kinda overwhelming. My job is to rewrite the lab manual towards a more inquiry-based format, where students are not given explicit instructions and instead are challenged to come up with their own research questions and design experiments to address them. I changed about half of the manual, and hopefully will finish the other half by spring. It will definitely be a work in progress for the next year or so, but the good news is I'll have help. I am thankful to have 2 head TAs this semester- one to conduct classroom observations at midterm (I'll do them at the end of the semester), and the other to work on lab development with me. I'm sure we'll come up with something awesome to add to the lab.

This past week was super exciting, as I sat through 20 hours of orientation sessions, both for new faculty and for TAs. And, Oh my god, it was freezing cold in the rooms, which made the long boring days even more unbearable. However, I did meet several very cool people- and, out of like 100 new faculty, there are 5 from UGA! We're totally starting a "Bulldogs in Laramie" group for football season. I also learned a lot about UWyo, and was really quite impressed and excited to be a part of this community. For example, the ratio of our budget to both the number of students and to the state population is number 1 in the nation. And we currently have over 200 million dollars in active construction projects on campus, including a new science teaching lab building that I am on the planning committee for. We're rich!! We also have a 13:1 faculty:student ratio, which is pretty awesome for a land grant state university. Oh, and perhaps most impressive, we boast the tallest building in the state:

Wyoming's tallest building- McIntyre Hall dorms- a whopping 12 stories!!

Well, I'm tired and tomorrow will be another busy day. So, goodnight, my friends!

Love, Carly