Introduction

David Newman is a physics professor here at UAF (but we already knew that). As as professor his time is distributed between teaching and helping/advising students; service, which includes committee positions; and research. Professor Newman has worked full-time in research positions but likes to teach and as such combines both teaching and research into his career.

Prof. Newman has been married for 26 years and has one son, Tilahun, who is almost 6. Professor Newman and his wife worked in the Peace Corp in Africa for some time. Newman also spent 2 years teaching in Kenya. His main focus was physics, although he has covered other topics in the classroom as well.

Many of Newman's in-class demonstrations come from examples he developed while teaching in Kenya. When our book gives physics examples of elevators and escalators, his students would not have been able to comprehend those things very well, so instead he came up with lots a general examples that would be more accessible to all his students.

A big thing Prof. Newman took from teaching in Kenya was the difference in the way education is treated there. Education is seen as a privilege there, whereas here, it is sometimes seen moreso as a rite of passage or something that everyone does. Prof. Newman is also more aware of cheating because of the cultural differences he has found on the subject area. His students in Kenya viewed looking at each other's papers as not cheating but just "seeing how the other person was doing it". Hence the reason we are supposed to "look at the ceiling".


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