Back to school

further milestones in teachertech

Last week marked the return to campus for Berkeley (Haas-specific back-to-school article here). Big news - the undergrad business program will be extended to four years, from its current two, starting in August 2024. Thank you to Ned and Carol Spieker for their generous gift to help make this possible. This has a variety of implications, such as on recruiting and retention, as we discussed when talking about complementors to universities in undergrad competitive strategy!

There are a variety of tasks involved in the pre-semester countdown:

• getting the coursepage up (and giving a robust scrubbing for internal consistency etc);

• making sure the reader (cases, articles, etc) is ready;

• synching up with graduate student instructors;

• synching up with peers to find synergy and mitigate redundancy;

• confirming guest speakers;

• testing the classroom IT as appropriate (particularly in fall 2021, when we returned to campus from our carefully crafted home studios);

• potentially meeting students with accommodations of some kind;

• and broadly, thinking about how to improve on the previous semester.

This year marks the second installment of Clusters class, and the fifth time I’ve taught undergrad competitive strategy. Generally, second installments are smoother operationally and make pedagogical improvements on the launch version. 🤞

And at the end of that buildup, being back on campus always brings a burst of energy. Eight years into returning to Haas to teach, I still get pleasant jitters before every class, particularly on the first day. For quantified self advocates, here’s how Oura saw it. Class was from 2-4pm.

With the return to campus came some quiet milestones, one being a return to teaching without a mask.

As someone who lived in a country where masks are worn as a preemptive courtesy, such as during hay fever season; who was doing a lot of transpacific travel during SARS; and who is well aware of the effectiveness of Japan’s 3C campaign during covid, I didn’t particularly mind wearing a mask during instruction. (Here I will note that just weeks ago, I did wear a mask while teaching at Waseda. When in Rome…)

Masking did provide some opportunity for expression, so here I will salute the many local Bay Area merchants on Etsy who enabled a little flair. It’s not just ties and handkerchiefs anymore! A particular hat tip to CaliMasks.

While the masks might be staying in my pocket while teaching, home antigen testing has very much continued (with all the more reason!). With the return to campus in fall 2021, and being in regular contact with students, family and other loved ones at various ages and stages, I started 2 to 3x/weekly covid antigen testing regimen then and have continued since. Simple math would indicate I have passed my 100th home test in early August. As the saying goes, knowing is half the battle.

I’ve tried a variety of brands, from Ellume, to iHealth to FlowFlex to BinaxNow and Quidel QuickVue. Some felt like hurried engineering intern projects (and may well have been). Ellume was just too much tech. Binax still reminds me of the longbox era of the CD, sans album art. When supply was catch-as-catch-can, I would take what I could get. I do remember the strange camaraderie and bemusement of milling around outside gatherings in fall 2021, waiting for Binax tests to do their thing. Fortunately, supply has improved. (A special hat-tip to the post office for the receipt that reminded me I was eligible for 16 free iHealth tests from Uncle Sam.)

There are similar strange tableaus now - visiting companies, for example, and taking antigen tests as a group before entering an office. Punchline opportunities abound.

For those days when you absolutely positively need a quick turnaround PCR test, of higher fidelity than the antigen tests? That has happened. A difficult-to-schedule guest speaker was in from out of town. A loved one had covid and I’d been in proximity. The speaker was still game to come to class. I used a Lucira PCR test, tested negative, taught in person with a robust mask on, and, in the spirit of transparent network operation, gave students the choice of joining on Zoom. About half took the Zoom option. (Those that came were 100% there because of the guest speaker.)

The other post-covid or with-covid wrinkle in teachertech has been changes in what I carry in my laptop bag. Now, I carry a Logitech C922 and stand with me at all times… since video office hours or calls can happen, well, anywhere.

What’s new in your bag?

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Fun reads and listens of the past week-plus:

• The remote work revolution is already reshaping America; WaPo, August 19, based on data from José María Barrero (Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico), Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University) and Steven Davis (University of Chicago)

• Professor Nicholas Bloom on WFH days; Twitter, August 29

• Haas’ own Severin Borenstein talks energy on the California Sun podcast, August 24