Last night was my first Presidency & Public Policy class, which — in a break from tradition — is a class I’m taking at TWU face to face, not online. As it turns out, though, the professor has decided we’ll only meet F2F on alternating weeks; the rest of the time, our class discussions and work will happen on Blackboard. Yay!
My professor is a woman named Barbara Presnall, and most of the people in my 20-person graduate seminar seem to have had her classes many times before. She went to school at my alma mater, George Washington University, for her undergrad and master’s degrees, then got her Ph.D. at American, which is also in DC. She grew up near DC, so she’s had politics in her blood practically since birth. I love that about her.
My assignments are pretty straightforward: weekly discussion participation, a “book review” on a biography of a president (I’ll let you know once she approves my choice; I’ve got two in mind), and a final research paper (8-10ish pages?) that takes a bigger look at the institution of the presidency. In addition, each week one student gets to sit in the “hot seat” and be discussion leader for that week; I carefully maneuvered it so my week falls in mid-October (during one of the online weeks, yesss!) and so my topic is “evaluating presidents.” 🙂 You all *know* I’m gonna eat that up!!
At any rate, the coursework feels appropriate and not too difficult or time-consuming, especially since this is my “just for fun” activity for the semester.