Shuttle Diplomacy

Someday, I suppose, Champlain and the Global Modules network will be famous and we'll just be able to alert people when we're rolling into town and they will arrange their schedule to fit ours. Let me wildly paraphrase Uncle Tupelo and say that if there will be a time, that time's not now. Everyone is very nice and, once they've had a chance to really think about the GM approach, they usually become very big supporters. Still, we're a small school pitching a new educational paradigm so we have to work around everybody else's schedule at this point. Since I've landed in Amman I've had multiple meetings at the University of Jordan on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today (Sunday) and will again on Tuesday. The only days that there were no meetings scheduled were on Friday and Saturday (weekend days) and Monday (I'll be down at the Dead Sea presenting at the LINC Conference, which will probably mean meetings, although of the more unofficial kind - as Michelle Miller always says, "heaven forbid you end up next to Scudder in a buffet line at a conference because you will hear about the Global Modules"). The meetings might be Powerpoint presentations to entire divisions or discussions with university presidents or planning meetings with professors where we actually sit down and discuss possible themes and readings or question/answer sessions with students. On Thursday I had a 9:00 a.m. meeting with a dean at Princess Sumaya University, an 10:00 planning meeting with an English professor at UJ, a meeting with a different dean back at Princess Sumaya at 12:00, and then another planning meeting with a different English professor back at UJ at 1:00. Luckily it is only around a twenty minute walk between the two schools.