My Most Admired Professor at ISU

Getting up-to-date on current events is giving me a sense of nostalgia.  That of being back in Dr. Pirro's international relations and foreign policy classes.  Dr. Pirro was always a professor that I had profound respect for, though many students feared her.  In fact, on the first day of her international relations class in which I had never heard anything about her prior to that, she successfully intimidated me. 

Dr. Pirro is a stickler for punctuality and attendance.  One must be early every day, and under no circumstances leave her class early.  She will in fact follow a person out and make them come back inside.  Her classes were said to be difficult because she expects top performance from her students.  Which, to me, is no surprise since she is a graduate of an Ivy League school and also taught a few Ivy League schools and now is deeply involved with the United nations. 

She expects a lot but she also gives her students adequate time to put into exams and projects by giving take home tests that typically consist of 4 short 1-2 page essays as well as a long essay.  This happens to be my favorite type of exam simply because I find it much more enjoyable and easy compared to simply memorizing facts and regurgitating them onto a short answer or multiple choice exam.  Maybe that is why I did so well in her classes. 

Though I said she gives ample time for projects I was a victim of hers during class at one time. The assignment was a group project in which each group was assigned a region in the world, my group's was Africa.  Each person in the group was then to choose an important policy area and do a comprehensive policy analysis and then prepare a 10 minute maximum presentation that was to include recommendations for future policy.  I chose HIV/AIDS policy, believing that there would be a plethora of information making it easy to prepare a presentation.  Well I was right about there being an extensive amount of information, but this doesn't always make it easy to prepare a presentation in which one has limited time!  I got really into the project but my presentation ended up being approximately 30 minutes -- thankfully she didn't cut me off, which was a good sign that I had done well.

In conjunction with this project we had also been assigned a book about the Iraq "war" to read which would prepare us for one of her exams.  Coincidentally, the week of my groups presentation was also the week of the exam -- and I was taking 5 other courses at the time --  FML!!!  I'm pretty sure I didn't get much sleep that week but I ended up with an A on the exam and and A on the project which made it worth it.


Another thing that I respected about Pirro was that during her group projects she put slackers in their place.  It was rather important that everyone do their share of the project and be prepared to present on time.  Since we were scheduled to present before the drop deadline and the project came up at the same time of the exam, one can imagine what happened.  I think there were 4 people that dropped out of our group -- and she told us that if someone dropped we would have to cover their topics.  However, these people decided to drop the night before -- there was no way that the few of us remaining were going to be able to cover that much information with such short notice!  So what did this great woman do?  When these students arrived with their drop slips she refused to sign them without taking our whole group for a meeting in which we were given the privilege of telling the person what we thought of their actions.  It wasn't pretty -- and she said that if we decided as a group that that person didn't deserve a signed drop slip, she wouldn't sign it!  Ultimately, because there were those of us who understood the consequences of an "F" on a transcript we allowed her to sign everyone's drop slip.  But she did cover the information those people should have covered herself.  I can't imagine what it must have been like to be those people getting the 3rd degree from their peers for what pieces of crap they were!

Anyways, Dr. Pirro was always a woman and professor I had a lot of respect for in college.  She was in fact my favorite professor.  Bobby Hollinger was a great one as well -- what professor has class at a bar n grill?!  Bobby did!

What inspired this again was getting caught up on current events.  While reading them I started doing a mental policy analysis and preparing a presentation that would include what I would recommend to B.O.  Yes I will refer to him as B.O. as I am definitely not a fan.  I can't help but disagree with his recent agreement with Russia, as I wrote yesterday.  I think its a joke...I mean really Medvedev's name is on it, but Putin is in control!  Also, having a large nuclear arsenal that is up-to-date is essential for deterrance.  I really don't understand how decreasing the size of it is going to deter Iran and North Korea.  They are going to continue to pursue nuclear weapons regardless of the size.  Decreasing the size and quality of it is going to show the world the weaknesses of the United States....not to mention he is changing the policy as to when such weapons will be used! What a joke B.O.  I want a t-shirt with Bush's face on it that says "miss me yet?" and on the back says "change it back!"