Cory's blog

Your first teaching job starts you off on top of a decommissioned British double decker bus in Hong Kong.  Your instructed to teach the English language to some Vietnamese boat people at a refugee camp.  You also have no background in teaching but somehow you end up with the job.  Most people would simply laugh this one off and walk away thinking that they could be doing better things.  Not Dr. Greg Guelcher though, he took it upon himself as a sort of challenge he had never encountered before.

“I’d never taught before, but I really enjoyed it and it kind of solidified my interest in pursuing teaching as a career,” Dr. Guelcher admits.

Who would have guessed that teaching English to Vietnamese refugees  on top of a double decker bus in Hong Kong would lead to a teaching career at Morningside College?  Then again, it seemed like the job was written just for him Dr. Guelcher says,

“They [Morningside] had a job description online that really sounded as if it had been written just for me.  They wanted an Asianist who was interested in the Middle East, and willing to teach World History courses.”

The rest, as they say, is history.  Not many professors have a story quite like that, and none that still puts people in complete shock.  Taylor Rasmussen, a sophomore at Morningside, isn’t surprised by the discovery however,

“That’s just Dr. Guelcher’s go get em’ personality.  If he had the same passion for teaching English to those Vietnamese refugees as he does for his current history courses, then those people got a good education, I can guarantee that.”

Dr. Guelcher has earned high praise for his history courses and for his teaching ability throughout his career.  Johan Frafjord, a sophomore at Morningside, says that he has never had a teacher quite like Dr. Guelcher,

“He makes the Ming Dynasty sound like it was Apollo 11 landing on the moon; he’s so excited and enthralled every single day, I don’t know how he does it.”

Dr. Guelcher isn’t just a history fanatic, he’s also heavily involved in the Morningside student organizations and many Sioux City organizations,

“I’ve been a faculty/academic adviser for the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity at Morningside since 1998. I have been a faculty adviser for the college Republicans and Democrats.  I’ve worked with ODK and several other student groups.  I’m a member and chair of the Historic Preservation Commission of Sioux City and a current member of the Public Museum board. ”

He does this on top of teaching at a college?  Dr. Guelcher says by doing all these extra curricular activities, it helps him with his teaching.

“I love teaching and I like working with young adults, its a great thing.  I love my job, love my colleagues and love being in the classroom so often.”

In many ways you can almost consider Dr. Guelcher as one of us, just like a college kid.  He’s involved in so many things around campus and in the community.  He shares the same kind of energy and passion that we share in our studies or what interests us.  Above all though, he shares the same passion and love for learning and that’s something that people can learn by taking a history course with Dr. Greg Guelcher.

Dr. Greg Guelcher Profile

Dr. Greg Guelcher is a history and political science professor at Morningside College.  Dr. Guelcher has been teaching at Morningside since 1996 and has loved every minute of it.  “There are so many great people here, and the students are the best of the best” says Dr. Guelcher.  Dr. Guelcher’s classes are almost always rated at the top of list.  Many students all agree that Dr. Guelcher brings the most exciting and provocative details out in every history lesson.  “He makes the Ming Dynasty sound like it was Apollo 11 landing on the moon; he’s so excited and enthralled every single day, I don’t know how he does it.” says Johan Frafjord, a Sophomore at Morningside.  Dr. Guelcher isn’t just measured in high regard with his students, but also with his fellow professors.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_spoint/20101201/ts_yblog_spoint/wikileaks-founder-added-to-interpols-most-wanted-list

Interpol is doing something right here in my mind.  Putting the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, on their most wanted list earns high marks in my books for several reasons.  One, Interpol knows that what Assange did was wrong, regardless of the whole “Freedom of the press” B.S. that I’m sure Assange will pull at one point or another.  You don’t just blow the whistle on the U.S. government and release over 300,000 pages of confidential information and expect to be perfectly safe and secure from world wide governments.  Second, this is a good sign for the U.S.  Think about it for a second, everything that Assange leaked to the world had the U.S. bad mouthing many world leaders and ambassadors, with Interpol (the European’s version of the CIA) putting Assange on their most wanted list, this goes to show that the U.S. isn’t the only country that’s royally ticked off about the matter.  Also, if Assange is to be tried in Europe, he will have a better chance of being prosecuted fully without any sort of leniency, which he would likely get in the U.S.  What are your thoughts on this matter?