Like any piece of published scholarship, this teaching and learning portfolio and the course it represents are the work of many hands.  Workshops, conferences, talks, and written articles that shaped my thinking about this course are documented in the footnotes.  The greatest influences on me as inventor, developer, and teacher of L216, however, have been the many people who patiently listened to me wonder, speculate, and struggle over course goals and how to meet them.

I am particularly thankful to my colleague, Jennifer Robinson, who listened attentively as I articulated different aspects of the course from its inception through its execution and later to my post-semester reflective assessment.  Her well-placed questions and subtle expressions often steered me away from less well-thought-out ideas and guided me toward more pedagogically-sound assignments.

I relied on the help of many especially for the development of the content of L216.  Diana Gant and Marc Dollinger at the Kelley School of Business helped me greatly, though unwittingly, to design the final collaborative project.  During observations in their classes, I learned how to structure an assignment that was general enough to allow for student creativity but specific enough to produce a new business that would work.   Many lunches with Al Wertheim (English) led to the incorporation of Miller’s Death of a Saleman, John Cawelti’s Apostles of the Self-Made Man, and Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds,” all texts that proved popular among the students and essential to defining American definitions of success.  Another lunch with  Tim Tilton (Political Science and LAMP director) yielded the inclusion of Barber’s Jihad vs. McWorld, a text essential to the discussion of globalization and vaules, and still another lunch with Liz McMahon (colleague, instructor of L216) led me to arrange the successful tours to the I.U. Art Museum.  Finally, Laura Matthias (Graduate Assistant, I.U. Art Museum) spent tremendous amounts of time preparing the curriculum for the art tours; Laura also suggested the student docent assignment, which was a great success.

In addition to these friends and colleagues, who helped me greatly in developing the course for its debut, I am deeply grateful to my students, who patiently endured the inevitable moments of confusion and uncertainty that accompany courses being taught for the first time.  This portfolio is only possible because I had the opportunity to teach them.  Their candid comments, especially in the extra course evaluation, have helped me immensely to improve the course for its second season..

Finally, I would like to thank Meei-Yun Tyan of the Teaching and Learning Technology Laboratory, who generously helped me publish this portfolio on the web.  Without her help and advice, this work would have doubtless remained in paper form and perhaps never ventured beyond my office.