@Jim – Great point re: diversity and Ph.D’s, and certainly this is something we need to get our head around. Ivory Tower culture is alive and well, but we need to do our best to change this practice and perception. Cases like this can go a long way to expose the needed changes, and highlight alternatives to the status quo.

@Pavel – Isn’t that something? I read it that way as well. There is so much that I take for granted in my own practice that I forget that cases like this remain outside of the norm.

This is amazing stuff, particularly because it highlights one of the crucial failings of the typical classroom, a wide range of expertise, experience, and investment in the course. I was speaking recently with a professor here at UMW, and she noted that all the talk about diversity amongst academics could be seen as hypocritical –why? Because how diverse is an institution run and delivered almost entirely by Ph.D.s? :)She is EDUPUNK! And, she has an excellent point, the framework Dr. Rancourt sets up frames his classroom as a truly exemplary model for the diversity of experience, academic expertise, and local investment that breaks down the paradigm of expert vs. novice, while at th same time preserving those roles within a broader spectrum of discourse. Very cool.