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Profile on Bass (Final Paper)

December 10th, 2010 by Gustav

A Loyal Soul on a Winding Path

Patrick Bass was born in East L.A. – the slums. Somehow, he ended up in the open spaces of Sioux City, Iowa. In fact, he currently lives in Dakota Dunes. He said he went the usual way that a young teacher in the United States would have to go for a career. But his story has many stairways and corridors; similar to a road that takes you over mountains and through valleys, without a clear destination in mind.

Incredibly infamous. Quiet but impulsive. Charmingly sophisticated. Highly involved. Always responsible. And tremendously trustworthy. Those attributes are part of the package that Professor Patrick Bass provides to this institution and student body. In fact, those characteristics are the reason why “Bass” fits well into the familiar spheres of Morningside College.

When he started his early college career, he pursued a bachelor in applied mathematics. Just as most students who go to college without a childhood dream career in mind, he changed his major quite often. He declared a physics major, then moved to engineering, and ended up at graduating from Harvee Mudd College, California, bundling a bachelor of science in mathematics with a concentration in the applied category. “Harvee Mudd is a small College. I doubt anyone here knows about it. But at the time, it was just about right for me to get started.” Now, Bass is a professor for history and the chair of the art and dance department.

Bass pursued the career in math and started a graduate program for a master in applied mathematics at Clemson University, South Carolina. While at Clemson, he was also an assistant teacher for math. That only lasted for one semester though, because he decided the program wasn’t for him. “I decided mathematics is kind of the young person’s game. Didn’t see myself doing anything brilliant there.” He said the stuff he liked to do he didn’t get to do in the graduate program. So he concluded that, “in the end it was just not the road for me.

There he was, with a liberal arts degree from Harvee Mudd College. The education he received there would prove very helpful in the upcoming years, as the liberal emphasis greatly accounted for both breadth and depth. He said at Harvee Mudd, one had to have a minor in the humanities and social sciences. A vast amount of 30 credit hours were dedicated to those studies. “I took my studies at a very dense and vibrant place and a lot of the classes were held off campus.”

Always enjoying history as an aspect of leisure life, he decided to acquire a minor in history, and one in government. “I always just liked reading history for fun, so I chose this direction.” Besides, he explained he had a good number of credits from High School that transferred into the math major, so he had the chance to take more electives. But let me steer back to his graduate pursuit…

“It’s kind of expensive to live in California,” he said in a sarcastic fashion. He later would receive a job offer as an engineer at the Jet Propulsions Laboratory (JPL), which is attached to California Tech and is highly involved in space-oriented research. The job was lucrative and provided security. Nonetheless, Bass never finished, or let’s say got his masters because he didn’t have 50 bucks to pay for the certificate.

“You will run across this issue soon enough Gustav,” is what he said when I looked at him with wide eyes and a startled face, due to my disbelief that it took $50 that he didn’t have or did not want to spend, to get the certificate. However, he would eventually get his Ph.D. in history.

Bass remembered, “As I was finishing my doctorate I got a job offer. And I took it. I resigned from JPL.” He was offered a two-year contract to teach history at KU, having been hired to teach specific classes as a replacement for someone who went into research. He would only stay for the time of the contract, said he had some “good” classes and students at KU. “Some of the students didn’t necessarily like me to much. Thought I demanded too much,” he elaborated.

His next step on the road would be Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he instructed international officers at the Command and General Staff College. He then went to teach at another small college in Kansas and in Ohio. Finally, he ended up at Morningside College in ’92. The road narrowed and he finally arrived at his unforeseeable destination.

At Morningside, he would be a tenure-track associated professor (going to be probationary as professor to later possibly be maintained as a permanent professor for life time). Bass gained tenure at Morningside in 1995, and has been loyal ever since, very loyal indeed.

I asked him whether he liked all the more responsibility he had off and on, and he simply said, “Being a chair is just extra work that needs done. People are not yearning to do that at a school like this. At other places it might carry some prestige.” Greg Guelcher, one of his fellow professors in the history department agrees, “Being a chair is a very thankless job, and a lot of work, which is paid with little recognition or pittance.”

He added, “A good department chair must be organized. And that’s Pat. He’s extremely organized, and holds a pan-institutional view. He has all the qualities that make for a good chair. Perhaps, he is too good for that.“

Nevertheless, and not at all surprising it seems, a year after his final give-up of chair in the history department he became chair of the mass communications department, appointed by Dean William Deeds. To round up this bizarre circulation, he ended up taking over the chair of the theatre and dance last summer, June 1, 2010 to be exact.

“It’s one of those things where, firstly, they don’t come to somebody like me unless that department didn’t have any internal options to be chair. Not wanting to be chair are usually health-related,” was his answer to my question of whether he felt compelled to take all these roles. He also said, “Because of extenuating circumstances there weren’t any good candidates. I can at least do paper work. It’s to help out, because somebody has to do it.”

Jeremiah Curry, who is a sophomore, said, “He challenges his students to think more, which is not typical thinking, but to expand their horizon’s and think out of the Box. Some people say his class is too hard but it’s not. The reason for that is that they have been spoon-fed all their life and then at college they’re not.”

When our interview cam to a close, Bass was anxious to recite a line from the movie “Harvey” (with James Stewart), which he indicated to be his to-live-by-philosophy: “There are two ways to go through life. You can be either oh so smart, or oh so nice. I tried the former, I recommend the latter.”

“I think it’s a compliment to Professor Bass that he can give out about twice as much homework as any other teacher, as well as ask impossible questions throughout a class period, and still be a student favorite,” Justin Tjaden explained. He is also a sophomore at Morningside and has taken more than just one of Bass’ classes. Tjaden described Bass as “nice, but persistent”.

“You come out of a Bass class with an appreciation for what you learned, because you were the one learning it,” said Tjaden. “It wasn’t a teacher giving you answers; it was a teacher asking questions and you discovering your own answers. He teaches you to be fearless in a group of people and to never be afraid to be wrong.”

Bass’ career path, indeed, seems fearless. No fear of commitment, but also no fear of change. I asked him what his to-live-by-philosophy meant to him. Bass followed up on his philosophical input and said, “One can try to outwit people and compete, as it was the case with mathematics for me, or you can focus on people and other persons.” I interrupted him and said “like trying to have time between 5-6 in the evening to tell me a life story, after going through student and faculty meetings from 11:45 A.M. till 5 P.M.” He laughed.

His door is constantly open to students, unless he is teaching. He told me that he works a total of over 70 hours per week, gets up at five every morning. When he comes home he eats and reads documents for the next day. I guess he did mention he liked watching old movies, and tries to occasionally support campus sports or theatre performances. Tough to believe this man has all this energy in storage. He did come a long way, after all.

Posted in News Production - Comm 208 | | | Comments Off on Profile on Bass (Final Paper)

WNC #14

December 10th, 2010 by Gustav

Some of you who are reading this might recall that I posted a “news comment” on three funny stories a few weeks ago. I thought to round up the semester, Why not do it again? So, here you go…

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40578652/ns/today-books/

A 96-year-old woman returned a book that her late husband checked out about 74 years ago. The woman found the book while cleaning up the garage for a sale. The late fees amounted to about $2,700, but the library did not charge. However, they accepted a small donation of the lady who returned the book. This is absolutely out of this world. First of all, a 95-year-old having a garage sale?? That woman must barely be able to walk, let alone dig through garage crap, and then make a trip to the library to return a book after more than seven decades. Wow!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40566754/ns/today-holiday_guide/

A hired Santa Claus who worked at Macy’s was dismissed after telling an “adult joke”. I found this particularly amusing because firstly I recognized the joke from one of my papers I had to write for a class about investigating humor. George Carlin used to tell this joke. And secondly, the naughty Santa now has a job where he can tell jokes, eat and drink all he wants. Awesome!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40358616/ns/us_news-wonderful_world/

A shop owner sold himself winning lottery ticket that was worth about $1.8 Million, plus an extra ten grant for selling it to himself (for some odd reason I don’t understand). I think this is just super-ironic. Someone sells himself a winning ticket. Stories like these are just unbelievable unjust! But another funny thing… He wants to use the money to further retirement plans with his wife, who is about 30 years younger than he. Hallelujah – or shall we say.. Jackpot!?

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 1 Comments

Profile Draft

December 3rd, 2010 by Gustav

When he started his early college career, he pursued a bachelor in applied mathematics. Just as most students who go to college without a childhood dream career in mind, he changed his major quite often. He declared a physics major, then moved to engineering, and ended up at graduating from Harvee Mudd College, California, bundling a bachelor of science in mathematics with a concentration in the applied category. Now, Bass is a professor for history and the chair of the art and dance department. How could this possibly have happened?

There he was, with a liberal arts degree from Harvee Mudd College. The education he received there should prove very helpful in the upcoming years, as the liberal emphasis greatly accounted for both breadth and depth. He said at Harvee Mudd, one had to have a minor in the humanities and social sciences. A vast amount of 30 credit hours were dedicated to those studies. “I took my studies at a very dense and vibrant place and a lot of the classes were held off campus.” Always enjoying history as an aspect of leisure life, he decided to acquire a minor in history, and one in government. “I always just liked reading history for fun, so I chose this direction.” Besides, he explained he had a good number of credits from High School that transferred into the math major, so he had the chance to take more electives. But back to his graduate pursuit…

Before Bass left for South Carolina, he applied for a competitive fellow scholarship. When Clemson failed, he realized he could make use of this scholarship. He tried to get back in and ended up at Claremont Graduate School, which is in Claremont, California, at the feet of a 10-k-footer. Bass was back on track. During his stay in Claremont, he did some jobs, which he specified as “odd”, but he had to come up with some living money somehow. “It’s kind of expensive to live in California,” he said in a sarcastic fashion. He later would receive a job offer as an engineer at the Jet Propulsions Laboratory (JPL), which is attached to California Tech and is highly involved in space-oriented research. The job was lucrative and provided security. Nonetheless, Bass never finished, or let’s say got his masters because he didn’t have 50 bucks to pay for the certificate. “You will run across this issue soon enough Gustav,” is what he said when I looked at him with wide eyes and a startled face, due to the little relevance I granted the $50. However, he would eventually get his Ph.D. in history. Bass remembered, “As I was finishing my doctorate I got a job offer. And I took it. I resigned from JPL.” He was offered a two-year contract to teach history at KU, having been hired to teach specific classes as a replacement for someone who went into research. He would only stay for the time of the contract, said he had some “good” classes and students at KU. “Some of the students didn’t necessarily like me too much. Thought I demanded too much,” he elaborated. His next step would be Fort Leven Worth, Kansas, where he instructed international officers at the Command and General Staff College. He then went to teach at another small college in Kansas and in Ohio. Finally, he ended up at Morningside College in ’92.

At Morningside he would be a tenure-track associated professor (going to be probationary as professor to later possibly be maintained as a permanent professor for life time). Bass gained tenure at Morningside in 1995, and has been loyal ever since, very loyal indeed.

Bass was chair of the history-political science department for years and also served for several committees: Faculty senate, promotions and tenure, academic policies committee, admissions, faculty athletic representative to the GPAC, to name but a few of his endeavors. He would eventually pass the chair to Lillian Lopez, who was happy to do it. Then Bass Jumped back in for a year or two until Patrick McKinlay took over in the early 90’s. I asked him whether he liked all the more responsibility he had off and on, and he simply said, “being a chair is just extra work that needs done. People are not yearning to do that at a school like this. At other places it might carry some prestige.” Nevertheless, and not at all surprising it seems, a year after his final give-up of chair in the history department he became chair of the mass communications department, appointed by Dean William Deeds. To round up this bizarre circulation, he ended up taking over the chair of the theatre and dance last summer, June 1, 2010 to be exact.

I also asked him what he sees in his future. “Retirement age to get social security in these days is 66 and a half,” he explained. He added that he would just basically keep “torturing” students at Morningside. “Seeing other people is important and it’s good to help. Sometimes my helping them is not what they want. But I do what I think is best for the students.” I can only speak for myself, but I can testify for this choice of words because I enrolled in one of his history classes my first semester at Morningside. There was a huge workload, but Bass would never hesitate to sit down and chat either about lectures or even personal circumstances. Close to the end of his story, Bass was anxious to recite a line from the movie “Harvee” (with Jon Stewart), which he indicated to be his to-live-by-philosophy: “There are two ways to go through life. You can be either oh so smart, or oh so nice. I tried the former, I recommend the latter.”

He followed up on his philosophical input: “One can try to outwit people and compete, as it was the case with mathematics for me, or you can focus on people and other persons.” I interrupted him and said like trying to have time between 5-6 in the evening to tell me a life story, after going through student and faculty meetings from 11:45 A.M. till 5 P.M.

We laughed. We always do. That’s why I like walking all the stairs in Charles City Hall. When he has time, Bass is always up for a chat. His door is constantly open to students, unless he is teaching. He told me works a total of over 70 hours per week, gets up at five every morning. When he comes home he eats and reads stuff for the next day. I guess he did mention he liked watching old movies, and tries to occasionally support campus sports or theatre performances. Tough to believe this man has all this energy in storage. I thought he had two children, because when I walk into his office I always see this picture of his wife and two children, but in fact, he has four of them: Charlie, Katie, Meg and Joe. I certainly hope they are proud of their “Bass”, for I am proud to have his respect as a friend and student.

Posted in News Production - Comm 208 | | | 5 Comments

WNC #13

December 2nd, 2010 by Gustav

The article is about student protesting at Louisiana State University a few weeks ago. There were about 300 students who protested against the intended state budget cuts on higher education, when the last cuts already led to reduction of staffs and faculty, cuts of programs, bigger class rooms, and raised tuition. Governor Jindal and his staff are condemned to execute the cuts due to designated revenue spending. Jindal supposedly is going on out-of-state trips to raise more money for Louisiana. So the students chanted, “Where is Jindal?” during their protest.

This seems to come from sort of an informal website where people can write their own news stories based on other posts or sources. To me, it is the right mixture between trivia and “professionalism”. I liked the bulletins halfway into the stories. I think it is very important for students to engage actively when their rights and privileges are under debate. Writing about it also helps to raise some broader awareness. Public opinion needs to be expressed and heard. The issue of federal and state budgets will be interesting to follow when congress comes up with the final budget proposal for next year.

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 3 Comments

WNC #12

November 19th, 2010 by Gustav

As you might have noticed, i like to write about opinion pieces. This week i chose another story from the N.Y. Times. I want to keep it short. This article is about the pertaining situation of the economy. The author says it may be over, but it’s not going away. There are references made to children living with their grandparents thus causing a rather imbalanced social network system. Built on that, a lot of people take their benefits early, which hurts the economy in the long run.

This article sums it up for me. Anyone who claims we’re out of recession doesn’t fully understand the situation. You can only get out of a recession if you’re in a recovery. Right now, the nation is even struggling to maintain everyone’s benefits, and the upcoming decision about tax cuts (of the Bush admin) will stir the pot even further. I chose to look for something on the recession because i knew i would find some article like this one. That just goes to show you that we can euphemize all we want, but on paper, there no lies!

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 1 Comments

My Audio Story

November 12th, 2010 by Gustav

FINAL Obama facing Republican House

check out Prof’s opinions and backgrounds…

SCRIPT

Last week, the Republican Party regained some major legislative clout in this year’s off-year election. President Obama now has to work on policy differences to get the progress people just not yet saw happening.

For the first time since the 107^th congress and the first Bush administration, the President has to face an opposition controlled House of Representatives.

This year’s elections might be a great indicator of what might or what might not be accomplished in the next two years.

Before the elections, former president Bill Clinton said he thinks, if Republicans take over the House, Obama’s chances for reelection might improve.

Political Science student Seth McCauley agrees:

I think the Republican’s new responsibility is going to create a new nationwide perspective. I think once the public sees both parties fail they’ll realize they may have been a little harsh on Obama in the first place, and may be willing to grant him a second term.

The US Senate remains Democratic, but only has a slight majority over the republicans.

The big debate was whether Obama would lose his grip over the House, and in fact he did. The Republicans took control over the House of Representatives and now have about 50 more seats than the democrats.

Patrick McKinlay is a professor for political science. He commented on the reasons for this situation:

I think that the Republicans were able to tap into some major discontent with the economy.

It is traditional that the president’s party will lose seats in an off-year election.

Parties usually lose votes and seats because of a low overall approval rate of the current administration. The debate about health care, troops, and the economy helped Republicans stir the pot.

History and Politics professor Kathleen Green confirms:

Clearly for the first couple years the strategy was to oppose anything that Obama was behind for political reasons because it’s paid off.

Probably the worst-case scenario would be that nothing gets done in a very serious economic times.

However, Green holds some hope:

Some dove of peace could descend from above and the democrats and republicans could work together.

That might be very difficult to attain, as newly proposed bills usually end up in a gridlock.

McKinlay elaborates:

We may see some very sharp contrast. But of course that’s gonna make it hard because you need 60 votes to get anything done in the senate.

Everybody says they want compromise, but there haven’t been any tangible rewards for compromise, whereas the voter seem to be rewarding people who take extreme views.

In 2006, Bush faced an almost equivalent situation when the Democrats won the majority of the house by about 7 million votes. Consequently, Nancy Pelosi emerged as the speaker of the house.

John Boehner is currently leader of the minority house. He is poised to take over Pelosi’s role after the Congress convenes on January third.

On the chances of the new government, McKinlay said:

We might see a lot of contentious politics, but not a lot of policy.

Posted in General, News Production - Comm 208 | | | Comments Off on My Audio Story

WNC #11

November 11th, 2010 by Gustav

So this time, again to mix it up a little bit, i thought i share some hilarious but also kind of sensitive stories to “entertain”.

The first story is about a 56-year-old woman who didn’t pay her bar tab and then was found down the street lieing drunk in the grass. The funny part of this story?! The women led the policemen to her home, ostensibly to “pay” her tab, but then attacked the officers with a “rigid feminine pleasure device”.

The second story i found presents a guy who bought a sandwich and later ate it quietly at home. Why funny? Because as he was buying his sandwich he was shot two times. He decided to dig into his food before seeking medical care.

And last but not least, something out of the biology department: A cricket with an incredible body weight – testical – ratio. The Bushcricket testicals make up 14 percent of its bodyweight. That is a world record (in this particular relation). Funny comparison: A 200 lbs man would carry around 28 lbs of testicals if that ratio applied to male humans. Check out the story…

These stories relate to our discussion about newsworthiness and readers’ attraction. The examples above definitely rely on bizarre concepts. To speak for myself, but probably for many others, this post was the funnest one because i enjoyed reading those stories more than the other ones you can find in my blog. Absolutely hilarious. Wouldn’t we all want more of this…?!

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 1 Comments

WNC #10

November 4th, 2010 by Gustav

This is a very insightful article about the newly popularized alcoholic energy drinks, particularly the brand 4 Loko’s. i found the article through an editorial letter. In the main story, the drink is criticized for its severe combination of caffeine and alcohol. The author tried to prove that this might be something lawmakers have to look into. The drink supposedly has been causing many emergencies (among adolescents as well as adults) and is aimed mainly at under-age drinkers. The editorial letter adds how the drink may cause severe brain damage, even on a long-term foundation.

I chose this pairing because it fits into my own life. Just recently, when i was eating lunch with my roommates, a journal reporter came up to us and asked us about the 4 Loko drink. Who hasn’t tried it was our response to him. And indeed, it is a very popular but dangerous drink. I am glad that the nation is raising awareness of such things. The drink itself might be legit, but the question is whether inexperienced aka under-aged drinkers can handle it. Surely they aren’t supposed to, but they definitely like the idea of a cheap “boomer” as i heard it be called since it can get you intoxicated for long times. I believe this drink is not a good idea. The suggestion for half the alc. percentage seems very reasonable to me. I like the way the author of the story tried to stay neutral but lead towards the issue. The editorial definitely sums up the concerns. Alcohol education is indeed something spelled in CAPS in the US of A… what a pity!

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 1 Comments

WNC #9

October 28th, 2010 by Gustav

This story is on the glorious loss of the Miami Heat to the boston Celtics in the NBA season opener on Tuesday. The website I found this on looks like a blog. Consequently, this is a piece of opinion. Tha author states that LeBron & entourage had the worst game they will have altogether this year. So this loss is in no respect a negative one. Rather, he suggests now the league fears the Heat will be even better, as they still didn’t lose the game by a large margin, considering their more than poor performance. The author also references the strength of the Boston Celtics, and how they are a team of veterans.

i think this is interesting, as it cuts to the heart of blogging. I am a Celtics fan, and that’s not just since they’ve become a major power in the Eastern Conference. Still, i appreciate what this blogger thinks he needs to say. And i mostly agree with his points. The Heat will bounce back, and certainly won’t have many of these “mediocre” games. What I specifically liked about this post was the way the author set it up. He tried to lead into his short story. A joke served for the introduction, then he quickly maneuvered to get his point across. I also enjoyed reading some quotes, which gave the post the feel of a news story. Yes, a feel… but nothing more. The quotes could be from anywhere, or how would anyone know where this blogger got his information from. But that’s not a problem. I believe this blog was written adequately to its context. That means, it doesn’t try to arue a particular hostile point either against Celtic or Heat fans.

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 1 Comments

WNC #8

October 20th, 2010 by Gustav

C.I.A. Was Warned About Man Who Bombed Afghan Base, Inquiry Finds, by Mark Mazetti

This article from the N.Y. Times talks about a possible source for intelligence services to get a foreign spy on their side. Sadly, as it turned out, the spy was a double agent and detonated a vest bomb while speaking to the C.I.A. officials. Seven people were killed. A crucial loss for the C.I.A.

I don’t have much to say about this. The article itself is logically structured. The most important facts or implications are suggested in the lead, respectively the following grafs. I love how the NY-Times just basically “mocks” the C.I.A. for being so careless. Some people might not be able to read between the lines, but this is one example or how the media can and will expose federal agencies. “Resisting punishing people for mistakes?” WHAT THE HELL!!! SEVEN people died!! Get the loser who caused this trouble out of there. Clearly, in a world of emerging technological experts, it shouldn’t be tough to replace a guy or find the mistake and take care of it.

I have my own agenda on secret agencies. I can’t stand the idea of them not being punished because all their crap is “underground”. Screw that!!

Posted in Weekly News Comment | | | 2 Comments

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