This ends the third of four weeks of the Kellogg Institute, and the time is truly passing quickly. It was an interesting week. The seminar started with a Monday morning with Dr. Sanford Danziger. While most of the Kelloggers found Dr. Danziger to be pleasant and to have a good message, nothing he said or did was particularly new or innovative to any of us. We had just had a gloriously creative and information-intensive week on instructional design with Dr. Bonham, so Monday morning felt slow to most of us. It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t fabulous. We are used to fabulous. Then, Dr. Boylan’s seminar on program assessment commenced on Monday afternoon and went until the close of the class on Thursday. That was fabulous, informative, and heavily thought-provoking.
Then came today. Today was not good. The presenter of today’s seminar, on multiculturalism, seemed to speak down to people, had a clear disconnect between his instructional objectives and what he actually did, employed overly-dramatic techniques that ranged from childish to just plain weird, and spent most of the day – an almost full day on a Friday, to accommodate his schedule – talking about himself and telling us that we don’t get anything about racism and it's not likely we ever will. Many Kellogg colleagues found him to be insulting, and most in attendance got the impression that the presenter had a sort of attitude of entitlement to be disrespectful. I had been so looking forward to this seminar, as I heard that last year’s on this topic was great. But last year’s was an entirely different speaker. This was disappointing, to say the least.
Well, you win a few and you lose a few, and most -- as in most everything -- of Kellogg has been completely outstanding. We are just spoiled with having had the very best of the best for most of the seminars.
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| Proper Southern Cooking - Outstanding Place to Eat |
After class, Calisa and Pam, both from West Virginia, and I walked downtown to King Street. They are both about my age, and both are bright and fun. We had previously found a store with gorgeous earrings, and something had to make up for the painful day in class. We shopped and explored, and we eventually ended up in an antique store where Pam was delighted to find antique fabric feed bags. Feed bags. Apparently, feed companies used to package animal feed in bags made of pretty fabric. This was done as a way to sell more feed. Farmers would often be told by their wives to buy feed in certain bags because women, back then, used the feed bags to make things. One common use, I was told, was for quilting. Pam’s explanation of all of this was fascinating. It was cool that she found, and purchased several real (she showed me how to tell) feed bags. It's interesting the things we learn!
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| Pam and Calisa at Proper - Note bags of stuff! |
We then decided we needed wine. It was late, so we figured dinner would be a good idea, as well, and what better excuse to not eat in the App State Dining Hall than that we were in town. We had a most wonderful meal at Proper, a quaint little place on a side street between King and River Streets. We were told by one shopkeeper that is housed in what used to be an old jail, but it certainly did not look or feel anything like that, so I wonder if that is true.
Proper is known for Southern cooking, but not the Southern from which I usually run. (not usually a fan of fried anything) This was gourmet Southern food, like squash soufflé, perfectly seasoned in a cream sauce; and black-eyed pea (brown-spotted bean) cakes that were delicious. There were some traditional Southern dishes that were excellent and were lightly prepared; even the fried foods, like fried green tomatoes, were light and wonderful. It was a glorious and very inexpensive meal. Proper's house wine was even good -- and very reasonable. Here is Proper's site: http://www.propermeal.com/Propermeal/WELCOME.html
I have a lot to finish during this last weekend at Kellogg. For now, though, it is 54 degrees outside, my windows are open, and it's quite a good night to sleep!
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