10 CommentsCongratulations to history professor Kenneth Jackson, who added a new grandson to the family. Jackson, respected within the Columbia family as the Jacques Barzun professor of history and social sciences, is also respected in his own family: one (the first one!) of the baby’s two middle names is “Kenneth.”
One of Jackson’s classes received the following e-mail:
Dear members of the History of NYC course,
Yesterday afternoon, soon after lecture ended, Professor Jackson was blessed with a healthy grandson, Luke Kenneth Karl Jackson. (He weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces, measured 20 1/2 inches, and received a perfect APGAR score, in case you were wondering.)
With all the pop culture, futuristic, and historical references in the boy’s name (“Luke,” as in “Cool Hand” or Skywalker; “Kenneth,” as in Jackson; and “Karl,” not really as in Marx), one can only imagine what this child will amount to!
Congratulations to Professor Jackson and his family.
Basketball fans will notice the newborn has the same name as Toronto Raptors small forward Luke Jackson, who has spent most of his three seasons in the NBA recovering from injuries. Bwog wishes young Luke Kenneth Karl better health.
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10 Comments
@Kenny …is the man. He knows his stuff, but he also makes every single person in class (all 370-ish of us) feel like he’s having a heartfelt conversation with him. Big ups and congrats!
@his middle "kenneth" Professor Jackson’s first son, Kenneth Gordon Jackson II was killed in a car accident when he was only 16 years old. Prof. Jackson discusses this incident in the preface to “Crabgrass Frontier.” It’s very moving and touching.
So why shouldn’t his grandson have the middle name Kenneth……….BWOG!
@looking for a Jacques Strap? Rhymes with cacques, of course. Ça veut dire que le prénom de Monsieur Barzun a besoin d’un c. Je vous remercie, Bwog.
Oh French orthography, is there anything you can’t doux?
@we would always take bets on how many minutes into the movie it would be before kj would appear in it.
also, any time i am home visiting the parents, my father (who i once talked to about this class and always watches pbs) shouts out, ‘come quick’ as if it is an emergency, when really it is ken jackson in some video about baseball or a topic on which he hass no expertise.
@#4 again oh, also: congratulations professor jackson!
@And... …coming from someone who interned at the New York Historical Society way back when, also a great boss!
May his grandson grow up to bike the five boroughs at midnight (or…whatever)!
@Fonzie Jumps the shark
@KJ fan Kenneth is a great professor. He was so cute yesterday in class when he said “I’ll try to be coherent but my heart is somewhere else.”
@Discerning Fan I can only imagine how disjointed his lecture mustve been. Consdering that when I took Hist NYC, I had the distinct impression the KTJ never bothered to prepare for class. He’d just come in, try to remember what topic he’d planned for that day on the syllabus, hem and haw for about 5 minutes before landing on a subject he could wax on for the next hour, randomly inserting tangential tidbits and “editorials.”
The man knows his shit, and he writes very well (I loved Crabgrass Frontier). If only he bothered to put a little effort into class he could be one of the best lecturers at this school.
But the class is still worth it for the easy A and the Bike Ride. Definitely a college memory for keeps.
@orr for the meta experience of watching a documentary featuring him in lieu of an in-person lecture.