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September 27, 2005
An NFL pool of galactic proportions
Recently, Case astronomy professor Chris Mihos has been making the news for some observations he and his team have made of the roughly 2,000 galaxies in the Virgo cluster. Pretty cool to have one of your campus professors making such big-name mainstream news outlets like USA Today and the New York Times. Even cooler that Prof. Mihos is a laid back, down-to-earth, extremely approachable guy.
For example, starting last year I have been participating in Chris's weekly NFL pool. (Don't worry feds and vegas thugs--this is strictly for entertainment purposes--no money changes hands.) Chris, who did his graduate work in Ann Arbor, is a dyed-in-the-wool Michigan Wolverines fan, and much to the delight of this Michigan native, he is relentless in his hounding of my co-worker Lisa, who did her graduate work at Ohio State. (Once he infiltrated her office with dozens of paper cutout block M's.)
It's like Henry Louis Gates, Jr, said when he visited Case this fall--when he related a story about a student who came up to him after a lecture, and asked, in a highly reverent manner, "Mr. Gates, what do you and Cornel West talk about when you're alone?" Gates speculated the student thought he and West spend all their time arguing about Kant and Hegel and such. "What do we talk about," he laughed. "We talk about basketball, and movies, just like every other human being."
One of the most enriching aspects of your college experience is getting to know your professors on a personal level. Some of the best food I ever had was at the home of poet Claudia Rankine, who was a visiting professor in Case's English department. Want to discuss the Indians chances of making the playoffs? Ask Martin Helzle, who also happens to be an expert on Ovid. Think a physics professor is only concerned with numbers and Newton? Think again--check out Mano Singham's blog, or keep an eye on the news for stories involving Lawrence Krauss's impassioned defense of science education. Last week I saw Cynthia Beall, expert on Tibet and high-altitude populations, at the bagel shop. These are the people in your neighborhood. It's pretty good company.
Posted by rrm3 at September 27, 2005 10:39 AM
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