Overview

John Rubadeau's long, white beard; homeless-guy wardrobe; and penchant for dirty jokes belied his lofty status as one of the most popular professors ever at the University of Michigan. He taught writing in Ann Arbor for more than 30 years. The cover of his course pack read: ""Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit."" In ""A Beard Cut Short: The life and lessons of a legendary professor clipped by a slip of #MeToo,"" a former student tells the crazy, touching, inspiring, and often funny life story of an eccentric, influential professor. John caught dogs in Wisconsin, sold insurance in Indiana, raised pigs in Tennessee, counseled soldiers in Germany, and had his apartment bugged by the Romanian secret police. He lost a young wife and two baby boys. He was born poor and stayed that way most of his life. But, on his own terms, he met with extraordinary success. ""A Beard Cut Short"" also shares John's key lessons on writing, teaching, and life - lessons that have inspired generations of students to watch out for comma splices and follow their dreams. The story is capped by an investigation of an unjust firing that's a case study in how the misappropriation of #MeToo, a vital social movement, can hurt both the unfairly accused and the movement itself. John Rubadeau's (in)famous Grammar Review is included as a special bonus.

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9780982958377

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Reviews

Rubadeau was an outspoken man of a previous era who taught so long the culture changed around him. As a result, the book is a captivating document on how the language of teaching (and language itself) has changed over the decades, and the ways in which a certain type of larger-than-life educator, once common, has mostly ceased to exist. -- Kirkus Reviews

Rubadeau was an outspoken man of a previous era who taught so long the culture changed around him. As a result, the book is a captivating document on how the language of teaching (and language itself) has changed over the decades, and the ways in which a certain type of larger-than-life educator, once common, has mostly ceased to exist. -- Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Todd Neff is a writer based in Denver, Colorado. His latest book, ""A Beard Cut Short,"" is a biography with a good deal of investigative reporting about John Rubadeau, hisformer University of Michigan writing professor. His prior book, ""The Laser That's Changing the World,"" tells the story of the inventors and innovators who saw, and ultimately realized, the potential of lidar to help solve a dizzying array of problems -- perhaps most prominently, vehicle autonomy. His first book, ""From Jars to the Stars,"" shows how Ball Aerospace came to be and then managed to blast a sizable crater in the comet 9P/Tempel 1. It won the Colorado Book Award for History. He covered science and the environment for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, and taught narrative nonfiction at the University of Colorado, where he was a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at CU. He graduated from the University of Michigan and with a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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