Other than accepting a proposal with a course outline, Tom had essentially no input regarding the content of either of two courses in the creation of which I was involved. “America to 1877” was his idea, and “American Constitutional History” was mine, unless my aging mind betrays me. I’m currently creating a course called “The American Revolution,” which I conceived in response to his asking me what course I’d like to do next; his input into that one has been the same: signing a contract including an outline written by me (this time solo instead of jointly with Brion McClanahan).
I think that I proposed a course outline to Brion McClanahan for “American Constitutional History” and he made two or three changes to it. We didn’t communicate much beyond that, except perhaps for an e-mail or two to the effect of “Are you going to cover this topic in Lecture X?” I ended up re-recording a couple of “America to 1877” lectures because, whether through technological problems or because of my incompetence, they cut off early. “American Constitutional History” was more of a pain in the, uh, neck because Camtasia gave me fits; only at the end of the process did the people who make the software tell me that version 7 was incompatible with the latest version of Windows. Argh.
How’s that for inside baseball?
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