Something I'm Really Looking Forward To

When I find time to think about it, of course...
Indiana University is a big place...with lots of students attending it. Like more than 36,000.
IU also does a very nice job of designing programs to help make this place much smaller.

The Intensive Freshmen Seminar program is that type of program.
I first heard about the IFS from Mike McGregor during a faculty meeting several years ago. It sounded like someting I would like to do eventually...it was one of the things that I said I would wait for until after tenure. I figured that it was close enough to that time. So, I applied to teach a course that I'm calling "This is your brain on Media: How TV, Computer Games, and Radio Capture Your Attention and Play with your Emotions." And, it was accepted!

So, I won't be teaching my normal summer school stint of T340--Advertising...instead I'll have most of May, all of June and July to work on my research (which is a benefit, of course). Then the last 3 weeks of the summer break, August 4-22, I'll be spending 3 hours a day with 25 Freshmen teaching them about something I love to talk about: cognitive processing of media.

I'll post the syllabus for the course on my website as time grows closer (and as I find the time to finalize my ideas). But, for now I'm pretty excited to think about that opportunity in my future.

And, I'm also pretty proud to be one of THREE faculty in the Department who were chosen to be a part of the IFS in 2008. Here's a press release about that.