45 Comments

1. Pat Curley:

I have often thought that the value of a college degree to employers was that it signified that you were willing to put up with a lot of BS, so that you were obviously ready for the corporate world. This young man clearly is not willing to put up with the BS.

Jan 6, 2005 - 9:13 am 2. Macker:

Lord how I loathed most of my college profs. But I got through it. But would I want to go back? The question’s still out on that one.

Jan 6, 2005 - 9:28 am 3. ambisinistral:

I teach part-time as an adjunct professor at a small college. As soon as they refused to show him the grievance he should have immediately demanded to be put on the agenda of the next Board of Trustees meeting. Nothing resolves grievances faster, and fairer for the student, than that.

Also, while the professor may wear her politics on her sleeve and her behavior after receiving the paper certainly sounds unreasonable, it strikes me there may be more to the story than meets they eye.

I read the kid’s paper and it seemed like a poorly written essay to me. The assignment asked for an analysis of Dye and Zeigler’s (whoever they are) argument that the Constitution was written by elites for elites. I assume their argument revolves around who was enfranchised to vote. No where in his paper does the student address any of the points of Dye and Zeigler’s, much less refute them.

I’ve seen many a student try to change the question to an easier one to answer. That is rarely acceptable. Frankly, considering the original assignment, it could easily be argued his essay deserved an F.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:02 am 4. Robert Crawford:

I’m not too sure about that article. I have no doubt such professors exist, but the writer cites the experience of an infant cousin dying after Iraqi invaders stole the incubators from Kuwait. For the last ten years we’ve been told that never happened.

Now, either it did, and we’ve been subjected to yet another Big Lie from the left, or this guy was fed a story by his family, or he’s making it up.

Honestly, I’m not sure which is more likely.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:02 am 5. Bostonian:

Ambi,

I didn’t read the kid’s essay, but I could believe it’s badly done.

For my part, I am wondering why a professor thinks that teaching people how to reach a foregone conclusion is a good thing, or why anyone would want to pay for such an “education.”

I’m glad he’s raising a fuss. Americans should know what our schools are teaching.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:16 am 6. Old Dad:

Ambisinistral,

There may, indeed, be more here than meets the eye, but the assignment is certainly questionable. It asks the student to defend a foregone conclusion. Such assignments are certainly defensible in rhetoric or composition courses, but how can one defend it in a poli sci/ history course? The position is controversial. Students should be allowed to debate the point, and then be graded on their use of facts, logic, concepts, etc.

Moreover, the alleged comments by the prof are, indeed, nutty. I’m inclined to give the student the benefit of the doubt here. I taught at a major university for seven years. In my experience, students don’t risk a major fiasco over a simple grade dispute. No doubt times have changed since I taught fifteen years ago, but this one seems like a case of the prof bullying a student. Hope not.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:20 am 7. ambisinistral:

Bostonian,

You’re assuming the teacher wouldn’t accept a different perspective in a paper. The fact that she didn’t simply hand him the paper with a giant red F written on it struck me. Rather, she asked him to see him in her office — perhaps she intended to explain the assignment again and give a freshman the chance to rework an assignment he may have misunderstood?

I would be curious to hear her side before I jumped to any conclusions.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:24 am 8. ms anne:

these professors are bullies, oppressive cowards who refuse to compete in the marketplace of ideas, who insist with religious fanaticism on their one true side with no dissent. they’re the modern incarnation of puritans and jesuits who burned the opposition. they are petty tyrants who need to experience firsthand the meaning of the declaration of independence. students have the right to speak up against their hierarchies, as blogs do against the msm. freedom of speech should not be used to suppress the opposition but to encourage many voices–not just the sound of one professor flapping.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:26 am 9. ambisinistral:

Old Dad,

And where are you getting your information as to what the assignment was? From the kid.

After reading his paper I had no idea what Dye and Zeigler’s propositions were. That’s how much effort he put into refuting anything they said. He clearly ignored the question, whatever it actually was, and just rambled off on his own tangent. That is not an acceptable term paper and is not deserving of a good grade.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:29 am 10. Joe Schmoe:

I don’t know. While I wanted to believe this, some of the comments here made me suspect that there might be more to the controversy than meets the eye. So I read the essay — but now I beleive the kid.

First, we have to remember that the kid was correct when he saw though the assignment and realized that it was leftist propaganda, not a call for sober and fair-minded analysis. His response — basically “screw you” — was therefore in keeping with the spririt of the assignment.

Second, while I haven’t read Dye & Ziegler either and have no idea who they are, you can sort of infer that he was trying to address their points. He mentioned direct democracy, conceded that “the Constitution may have excluded the majority of the people at the time,” etc., and was careful to note that the Constitution was a progresive document FOR ITS TIME.

Finally, lest we hesitate to believe that the professor would really behave so irrationally — surely there must be more to the story? — I have never heard of Foothill College, but suspect that it isn’t exactly an Ivy League school. This is just a theory, and I have no proof for it, but I suspect that leftist poltical indoctrination is actually WORSE at such third-rate schools. At such places, you have a bunch of blue collar kids, immigrants, and slackers who are loathe to question authority. The professor is also infinitely more knowledgable than they about the subject matter. If the professor starts spewing radical propaganda, the students will not be very likely to say anything about it. Conversely, if some Ivy League prof starts doing this, he or she might be confronted — and possibly humiliated — by a student who knows almost as much about the subject, or whose Dad served in the Cambodian Embassy in 1972, etc., etc. Again, this is just a theory.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:29 am 11. Morgan:

I have nothing substantive to add to the discussion (I know, I know as usual), but thought I should point out that Ahmed is under the impression that professor Woolcock is male.

“Professor Woolcock didnít grade my essay.† Instead he told me to come to see him…”

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:32 am 12. Old Dad:

Ambisinistral:

Point taken, but I stand by my hunch. No doubt, this has beem politicized, but that doesn’t mean the kid’s point is without merit.

Of course, you know that Horowitz has a pro bono legal outfit investigating claims like this. My sense is that they think they have a case. Just guessing.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:35 am 13. Pat Curley:

Okay, I didn’t see the link to the essay in my first reading. That’s a pretty poor essay; not sure whether it’s an “F” by college standards these days, but it’s certainly not an example of sterling writing. He would have been better off rebutting the points made by the textbook’s authors.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:38 am 14. Yehudit:

You want to see something else that will leave you speechless?

What. An. Asshole. Just when you think Kerry has hit bottom, he gets out the shovel.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:39 am 15. Oyster:

I have to agree with “ambisinistral” that the essay was poorly written and does not properly adress the issues that he was requested to address. (And the punctuation and spelling? ouch)I may have given him a poor grade myself, and I’m no professor. (I profess a lot, yet that’s another issue.)

BUT ….

If any of the abysmal actions or behavior by the professor are true, it’s an outrage. There are too many of these stories popping up all over the country for it not to have some truth. The kid clearly stated that the grade was not the issue. The professor’s intimidation and irrational behavior ARE.

Jan 6, 2005 - 10:41 am 16. Percy Dovetonsils:

I’m guessing that the spelling and gramatical errors would have been overlooked if the essay’s arguments were the “correct” ones.

Nevertheless… assuming the story is true, I was particularly touched by the prof’s insistence that the young man needs psychiatric care.

Wasn’t confining dissidents to mental hospitals a favored trick of the Soviet Union?

I believe the kids today would call the prof “old school” in his affections for the traditions of his role models.

Jan 6, 2005 - 11:06 am 17. Joe Schmoe:

Well, I hate to say it, but there are a lot of poor writers out there these days. English is a second language for this kid, and he writes much better than many Ameican-born engineers I know. I bet his professor has seen much worse in the spelling and grammar departments.

Jan 6, 2005 - 11:11 am 18. Henway:

Okay- I agree the student’s paper is more flag-waving than substantive historical analysis, but, perhaps because of my own experiences and because I follow this cultural/educational topic informally, I can still believe that he’s reporting his professor’s response accurately.

The exam question prejudges the information, as others have noted, but I’ve heard and experienced many worse examples than this. Unfortunately, some teachers’ extreme biases permeate every part of the class experience, but worse, they insist on group conformance and breaking down students’ individually held viewpoints. If you can’t imagine this scenario occurring, I think you may be unaware of how nutty things have gotten in higher education.

I myself took a history class (more than a decade ago) in which we were surprised not to employ any actual reference texts, only photocopied tracts from various anti-capitalist organizations to prove how America was founded upon and continues to require mass serfdom. In another instance, I was badgered by a professor to admit my creative work was not plagiarized but derivative of someone I’d never been exposed to. When I explained that I’d never seen this obscure artist, she informed me that the mass culture had absorbed his views thus their osmotic transferrence to me. (You vill admit your unconscious influences, mein kinder!) You don’t even want to know the way I was taught about the Vietnam war…

I tried to follow the lead of my intellectual arbiters, so it was only in retrospect, as an aging autodidact, that I realized how anti-educational and common my experiences were. Until we can get rid of unidirectional editorializing in the classroom and replace it with balanced content, context, and reasoned discourse, many students who care about their grades must be careful about voicing their opinions.

Jan 6, 2005 - 11:22 am 19. Jim:

Roger,

At RateMyProfessor.com, quite a few other students have similar complaints about Professor Woolcock. Follow:

http://www.ratemyprofessor.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=173363

Jan 6, 2005 - 11:30 am 20. Elaine_T:

Just a note or two, Foothill College is certainly not Ivy League, it’s a junior college. Other than that, although I live in the area, I know little about it. I had the vague impression it had a good reputation, but that’s it.

Stories of biased professors are all too common, but I was struck by the professor’s insistance that Ahmed get psychological help. That’s way out of line for a professor to student in such a case. (Now if the student had assaulted the guy….) I’m pleased the school’s psychologist disagreed with the professor.

Foothill is just up the freeway from the elementary school in Cupertino that was recently in the news for maybe forbidding the teaching of the Declaration of Independence because it mentioned God.* FWIW. I don’t see such moonbattery among my aquaintances, but I don’t move in ed circles, either. There does seem to be a lot of it about in this state.**

*From all I can gather, the teacher in the case may indeed have been pushing his personal beliefs a bit too hard. But it’s really had to tell from what makes it into the media.

**I didn’t vote for her, but I do apologize for us foisting Barbara Boxer on the nation.

Jan 6, 2005 - 12:00 pm 21. Rick Ballard:

I’m currently evaluating nine essays (from nine different high schools) on “Our American Heritage” by 3.9-4.0 high school seniors entered in a contest for a $5K scholarship. This is the fourth year I’ve done this so I’ve seen more than just these nine. The kid in question can’t be more than a freshman at Foothill and although I agree with Ambisinistral that he does not adequately address the question, I can affirm to all readers that his writing skills are as good as or better than those exhibeted on seven out of the nine essays currently under my review.

Don’t get hung up on the quality of the kids writing. The sheeplike attitude of the other kids unergoing indoctrination is of much greater concern. Where do you think DU idiots are made?

Jan 6, 2005 - 12:17 pm 22. ambisinistral:

Egads, no wonder we have rampant grade inflation (sometimes its great to be able to be a critchety old geezer). Look, anybody who has read my posts full of typos, mangled spelling, and iffy grammer has probably figured out I’m not teaching in the English Department. I’m not talking about his writing skills — I’m talking about him flat out not answering the question posed in his final — let me repeat FINAL — exam. He did not do his assignment. That is unacceptable. Seesh, you guys would fall for the ol’ “my hard drive crashed” excuse.

I don’t want to sound like I’m this teacher’s defense attorney (and yes it is a guy, Femnazi propoganda has worked well on me apparently). I just don’t like trial by accusation. I’ve seen a lot of these “hard to believe” stories, that conveniently support the listening audiances prejudices, that turn into an entirely different beast when both sides of the story are told.

Yes, there are bad teachers on all campuses. A few because they are opinionated twits who don’t accept any view from their own. Many more are bad because they are lazy, unprepared, dedicated coed chasers, or just flat out incompetent to teach their subject. There are also lazy, manipulative, stupid and/or crazy students as well.

BTW, a lot of people have jumped on the “see a psychiatrist” line and automatically assumed he was compelling the student to attend coucelling. If he said it, I think it was an inappropriate remark made in the heat of the moment. If a teacher actually thinks a student needs intervention there are institutional steps one has to go through (largely to protect yourself from these kind of charges).

Jan 6, 2005 - 12:51 pm 23. Rhod:

It would of course elude on the professor that his condemnation of the student is an incipient form of rehabilitationism or re-education, of the kind seen in authoritarian regimes. Free thinking is heresy, a psychological problem or existential defect that needs attention.

He’s probably too obscenely stupid to be a real Marxist/Leninist (which actually requires some intelligence), and certainly also too poorly educated to see any connections between his own views and totalitarianism. Or, more to the point, his character flaws interfere with his sense of Reason, which seems to be a requirement for tenure nowadays.

Leftism (whatever it is), is a menace wherever it is found. Gangsterism.

Jan 6, 2005 - 12:57 pm 24. Catherine:

My two cents . . . I taught Freshman Rhetoric for a number of years at the University of Iowa, and this student’s essay would have been considered pretty darn good back then. (I don’t know how it would rank today; my husband says student writing has improved.)

I read the essay quickly, so I may be way off base, but I’m less persuaded than others that it’s off-topic, although the student certainly does refuse to endorse the proposition he was asked to support.

As far as I can tell, Zeigler & Dye are the authors of a major text on American political history–so major that it is now in its ’silver Anniversary 1996 edition’ and there are 37 used and new copies of it for sale on Amazon. Assuming the reader reviewers know what they’re talking about, Zeigler & Dye are exponents of something called the ‘elitist theory’ of American politics, which apparently applies to our present day as well as to the writing of the Constitution.

That would mean that this student is arguing against a sweeping theory of American politics, not just a historical account of our founding. It’s kosher for him to use contemporary events as evidence against Zeigler & Dye.

It’s also kosher to focus strictly on the book’s (supposed) thesis. If the student were writing an essay about an essay, he could devote paragraphs to the essay’s supporting points. But given that he is writing a short essay about an entire book, he’s probably well-advised to stick to the book’s central idea, and bring all his evidence to bear on that alone, which is what he’s done.

The professor’s assignment is out of bounds. I wouldn’t have given such an assignment back when I was an ‘extreme liberal’ (my son’s phrase) myself, and nor would anyone else I taught with–and they were all extreme liberals, too. Calling a student into your office to question his rationality, telling him America is not God’s gift to the world, sending him to see a therapist—-all of these actions are way out of bounds.

Colleges and universities have rules, everyone knows what they are, and the person who broke the rules here is the professor.

OK, I’m gonna run this essay question by my husband and get his take.

One last thing: my sense is that both the teacher and the student may have misunderstood Zeigler & Dye. The book is called THE IRONY OF DEMOCRACY, and Z&D’s point seems to be that the reason America works so well is that most people don’t vote, but leave things up to political elites.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0155061127/qid=1105046238/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-6202570-6122539?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Jan 6, 2005 - 1:45 pm 25. Terrye:

ambi:

I think his assignment is the issue.

I remember years ago I had such an assignment and I worked really hard on it. I disagreed with the Prof and as a result I got a C-. He said that he would have given me an A if I had jsut repeated what he said in class. Regurgitation, he said “I want regurgitation”.

After that I puked back up what he wanted and got A’s.

Jan 6, 2005 - 1:48 pm 26. erp:

Faculty teaching in obscure junior colleges likes this one are the dregs of their profession and they know it. Their bitterness knows no bounds and they take it out on their students, most of whom don’t know how to evaluate their instructors. Sending dissenters to mental hospitals was the rule in the Soviet Union and brain washing the rule in Red China. This kid knew that. He was smarter and more sophisticated that his classmates and refused to be bullied.

Good for him.

I hope he starts a movemen, and BTW congratulations to the school psychologist for sending the student on his way saying he doesn’t need counseling. I hope she also filed a report on the instructor.

Jan 6, 2005 - 1:54 pm 27. Foobarista:

A bit of background: Foothill College is a junior college in Los Altos Hills, which is essentially the Beverly Hills of Silicon Valley. It’s “sister” college in the community college district is Mission College in Santa Clara, where I went for two years.

Both colleges serve an odd mix of students: numerous immigrants from everywhere, vocational students, and “transfer” students who are doing their two years before transferring to 4-year schools. (I did this too – you save big bux and often get better teaching as a freshman in junior college than in the cavernous lecture halls at Enormous State University. After getting my AA from Mission, I went on to UC Berkeley, and counted myself lucky to have 15 students in my freshman English Lit classes as opposed to 1500.)

I was also in student government at Mission, and we were enormously results-oriented: we blew off silly lefties trolling for cash, and put student fee funds into useful stuff like better student lounges and improvements to parking lot security. Foothill was “richer” than we were, but most students there were not from LAH – which has a very small population.

Jan 6, 2005 - 2:16 pm 28. Catherine:

OK, I asked my husband.

He says you never ask a student to endorse a particular argument. Period.

The correct assignment–and this is a rule, not an opinion–is to give an assignment worded something along these lines:

“Zeigler and Dye’s analysis of American political history has stirred controversy. Summarize their argument, and provide a critical analysis.”

The question would be worded this way, he said, because it’s important to find out whether the student has understood the text.

He also said that you wouldn’t expect a freshman or a sophomore to be able to perform a critical analysis; what you’re looking for at that point is comprehension. You’re looking to see whether the student can accurately summarize what the authors have said.

So with that age group he wouldn’t even ask for a ‘critical analysis.’ The question would be: “Zeigler & Dye’s theory of American political history has stirred controversy. Summarize their argument, and tell whether you agree or disagree.” The student would be expected simply to make his own argument, supported by some evidence, which this student did.

He hadn’t heard of Zeigler & Dye, either, but he said that nothing is more commonplace than the argument that the United States, at its founding, was a Republic run by elites, which later became much more democratic under Andrew Jackson. (I’d say the student makes that argument, too, though I read fast.) The founding fathers were worried about the judgment of the uneducated masses. That’s why only men (and property owners?) could vote; that’s why they set up the electoral college; etc.

It is also a commonplace that the founding fathers were way ahead of anyone else in their thinking at the time, so that to characterize them as elitist is not remotely to condemn them, but simply to describe them. He said that if the Foothills prof thinks that argument is a critique of America he has his head you-know-where.

Last but not least, he said that you never tell a student he needs counseling. Again, this is a formal rule. He has been in situations where a student obviously needed psychological intervention, and in those cases he has called the campus psychologist. “You are always told,” he said, “not to make any comments about a student needing psychological help.”

Jan 6, 2005 - 2:17 pm 29. charlotte:

I sent Ahmad Al-Qloushi’s article to my 17 year-old, hoping she’d give it a glance and see that some Middle Easterners her age “get it” regarding America’s exceptionalism and how there are those in US academia who don’t. Apparently, she was impressed enough to send him a quick email. I purloined a copy:

“I, too, am a 17 year old living in America- a normal teenage girl in every way, except that I’m Republican, which, as you know, is worse than being a member of any other frowned upon group. It’s ironic because, being Republican, I’m made to feel crazy and alone in my views, but our party is not a minority in any way! Someone voted Bush in. Anyway, I read your column, “Dissident Arab Gets the Treatment”, and was blown away with your well- written tale of woe. I live in NYC, and I don’t think anywhere is more self deprecating/ America hating than here, except, maybe pre-war Iraq. It’s sad to hear grown (groan?) adults overlooking history, calling Bush a Hitler and saying that the terrorists, aka ‘freedom fighters’, are heroes. If anyone is a freedom fighter, it’s America- now leading the effort to help Indonesia. When did everyone forget the blood that was spilt to give us the right to call soldiers ‘baby killers’? When did whining, lying and vying-for-attention clowns (hint, Michael Moore) actually miss the boat and become national icons? When was common sense traded in for chic reactionary unchecked facts, lack of context and brainwashing? Maybe I am crazy for wanting the Iraqi people to have the freedom that we so often abuse. At least now, if they don’t like democracy, they are free to say so. Thank you, American blood.

Congratulations for being the only one to stand up in a room of mindless zombies.”

Jan 6, 2005 - 2:54 pm 30. Catherine:

Wow, Charlotte, great essay from your daughter!

Jan 6, 2005 - 3:11 pm 31. Sarge6:

I’m inclined to agree with Robert Crawford above. I have a hard time taking the story at face value. I also keyed on the statement that he remembers his “one-week-old baby cousin who died while the Iraqi invaders were stealing

incubators from hospitals to sell them for profit.” esp. if he was three years old at the time. Yet it appears that this “atrocity” was invented as a Kuwaiti-in-exile PR claim to encourage US intervention. As near as I can tell, it has been thoroughly discredited. See, e.g.,

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.htm

So because the story is used to establish the student’s personal bona fides and lead into his extraordinary claim of thought-crime re-education, I have to be very skeptical.

Jan 6, 2005 - 4:30 pm 32. jj:

Although I recognize that such professors exist with some frequency, I am actually suspicious of this young man. In my experience, his writing is way too sophisticated for a freshman at a minor school, especially one from an ESL country. You people may have forgotten what freshmen are like. His bio is also too good — almost locked in.

In particular, I am suspicious of the story about the incubators stolen by the Iraqis. As I remember it, this story was originally told to Congress by a young Kuwaiti woman. before we committed to Gulf I. The woman turned out to be politically connected and motivated to invent, and I believe the story was later refuted.

I am always happy to hear people tell me what I want to believe anyway, but it annoys me later when I find out I was duped by a Jason Blair type. I suspect this student is either politically gung ho, self-deluded or wildly mistaken about the professor’s motives. I am, however, happy to be convinced I’m wrong.

Jan 6, 2005 - 4:35 pm 33. legion:

Oh yes, my precious! I know several professors that are at least as biased and asinine as this professor Woolcock. In fact I was once one of “them”, before I wised up and trashed academia to go to medical school.

Gratefully, I was never as bad as this fascist creep, using intimidation to force psychoanalysis! This Woolcock should never have been granted authority over students. What a disgrace to the profession.

Sadly, america’s universities are overstocked with exactly this sort of human detritus. Shed a tear for your youth, america.

Jan 6, 2005 - 5:29 pm 34. Kyda Sylvester:

I’m reminded of when Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker stupidly mouthed off to a Sports Illustrated reporter about the assortment of humanity one might find on the No. 7 train to Shea Stadium (hey, you can find everything he listed and more–it’s New York City for god’s sake, but I digress). Commissioner Bud Selig, as part of his fines and penalties package, ordered Rocker to see a psychiatrist. I thought at the time, great, and when he’s done with the shrink they can ship him out to the gulag.

No doubt if I were to express my views about the Founding Fathers to this Woolcock character, he would advise psychiatric counsel for me as well. After all, I’m a woman and, as they did not see fit to grant women voting rights, I’d have to be out of my mind to cast them or the document they created in a favorable light.

All repressive regimes have used psychiatry and the rubric of “mental illness” as tools for control. Bigotry isn’t mental illness and neither certainly is political point of view. I didn’t read the essay so for all I know it may have deserved a failing grade. But if the good Professor forced this kid to see a shrink because he didn’t like the opinions expressed, he should be disciplined or censured or whatever it is they do to these birds. Crap like this disturbs me.

Jan 6, 2005 - 7:17 pm 35. Kyda Sylvester:

And another thing….

Those on the left are forever telling us that we must find out “why they hate us”. Maybe one of the reasons “they” hate us is because “they” come to America’s colleges and universities for an education and get exposed to jerks like Woolcock. I’m sure all the Professor Woolcocks out there are able, ready and willing to provide whole laundry lists of reasons why “they” should hate us. Feh.

Ok, that’s all.

Jan 6, 2005 - 7:49 pm 36. BeckyJ:

Catherine and her husband have it right. The essay question was worded to elicit a “correct” response – agreeing with the professor’s view point. If accurate, Woolcock’s actions and the recommendation to see a psychologist are so far out of line…

Once again, as I see my chosen second career (yep, walked in with my eyes wide open!) trashed over and over, both by idjits like Woolcock and some commenters here, I must defend myself and others. We’re not all barking moonbats and those like Woolcock are actually smaller in number than you might imagine. Problem is, they are much louder. I’m untenured and much as some people might think tenure is a joke and allows idiots to keep jobs while doing nothing, it also means I must watch my words until I get there myself. Trust me, once there you won’t be able to shut me up!

Also, it is unfair to categorize community college faculty as bottom of the barrel. Many people (myself included) really like to teach. Most 4 year schools require that researching take precedence over teaching. This drives many into community colleges. Again, there are those who get there because they can’t “make it” in a 4 year school for whatever reason, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.

My two cents.

Jan 6, 2005 - 7:49 pm 37. PJ:

Sounds believable–I work for a university and those types do abound.

However, I thought the story of Iraqi soldiers and the incubators was debunked…or was there a debunking of the debunking?

Jan 6, 2005 - 8:01 pm 38. Dylan:

I read the article, and then read the comments here. Then I re-read both of the student’s articles.

In the frontpagemag article, the student is not explaining to us why he deserves a good mark for his essay. Instead he is explaining why he supports his school adopting the academic freedom bill.

His gripe with his professor is that:

1) The essay question left him no room to articulate his views without getting an F

2) The professors did not read or critique his work, but instead made a personal attack

The student’s issue was never about failing the assignment.

Sorry if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes here. We all want to make sure that young man’s story is properly heard and I was afraid that we were taking the red herring discussing whether the professor had the right to give him an F or not.

Jan 6, 2005 - 8:05 pm 39. Kyda Sylvester:

Hey, BeckyJ, some of the most useful education I’ve received over the course of my life has been from community college courses taken primarily at night. I suspect it’s because so many of the instructors had practical, real world experience in their fields rather than lifetimes spent in the rarified air of an ivory tower. Makes a world of difference.

Jan 6, 2005 - 8:19 pm 40. Jim C.:

Percy Dovetonsils wrote: “Wasn’t confining dissidents to mental hospitals a favored trick of the Soviet Union?”

That was exactly my thought. Maybe it’s just me, but I find that terrifying.

Did anyone see the other account of intimidation of a student by a conservative professor at Foothill?

Another nut. He gets low ratings, too.

Jan 6, 2005 - 9:45 pm 41. Percy Dovetonsils:

(Bless your heart, Roger. Believe me, the physical resemblance between myself and the original Mr. Dovetonsils is staggering…)

Back on topic – these “rate my professor” sites actually might do as much good as any Academic Bill of Rights or similar document. Any student who reads the on-line descriptions of these two profs knows exactly what they would be getting into and can plan around them.

The other helpful thing the Web does is to publicize nuthouses like, say, Evergreen State U. (Rachel Corrie’s alma mater) and help students manuever away from them – or, manuever towards them, if that’s their cup of organic tea.

(Of course, that’s all well and good in theory – if your schedule just doesn’t work out and you’re forced to take one of these morons, well, you’re stuck.)

Jan 7, 2005 - 7:47 am 42. ambisinistral:

Thomas vehemently denied Hill’s allegations and responded with outrage, at one point by calling the hearings “a national disgrace…a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves.” So adamant was each sides’ accounts that many observers in the press labeled the hearings an example of “He Said, She Said,” with both parties offering such vastly differing recollections of events that many wondered if the hearings could ever reveal the truth.

I have been playing Devil’s advocate in this thread not because I think the professor is innocent, but because I destest trial by accusation. I am appalled by many of the posts I’ve read in this thread that jump to a conclusion based solely on the accuser’s version of events and the fact that the accusers charges reinforce the reader’s prejudices.

Above I linked to a little snippet to remind people about the Clarence Thomas hearings. I have little doubt that many of the conservatives on this site howled over him being dragged through the mud in the liberal media based only on Ms Hill’s accusations. And at least Thomas got to defend himself quickly and pubically after she made her charges.

This professor is a named person. I, and most likely you, know neither him or his accuser. It does the blogsphere no service to participate in the tarnishing of a person’s reputation because charges against them — that’s charges and not necessarily facts — meet our preconcieved political notions. Just the other day there were complaints in here about the newspaper trails of celebrities, but now we’ll cast stones at some junior college teacher with out at least hearing both sides?

I’m sorry, but that’s wrong.

Jan 7, 2005 - 9:01 am 43. nittypig:

Signed in to second a lot of the comments here. I taught at prestigious universities for a few years, though not at the faculty level. My background is in hard sciences, but I’ve graded term papers on a few occasions.

In my experience BeckyJ is right. While some of the dregs may well end up embittered at community colleges I know of several people who simply got tired of the publishing and politics that are required to succeed at the top universities and went to teach at community colleges, most of whom are happy to get a dedicated prof with a PhD from a top flight university. A good friend went this route. In the hard sciences very few of the ‘failed’ academics end up in teaching. Although there are presumably more in the humanities.

I also wonder about the wording of the exam question. As is:

“Dye and Zeigler contend that the Constitution of the United States was not “ordained and established” by “the people” as we have so often been led to believe. They contend instead that it was written by a small educated and wealthy elite in America who were representative of powerful economic and political interests. Analyze the US constitution (original document), and show how its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America’s elite interest.”

it is, as mentioned by Catherine, a very poor assignment. Not to mention grammatically dubious, in that it’s rather hard for the ‘orginal document’ to be ‘dominated’ by the ‘elite interest’. And logically suspect in that there is no logical conflict between the people ordaining and establishing the constitution and the constitution having been written by a ’small educated and welthy elite’.

Remove the idealogical claptrap and the question could look like:

“Dye and Zeigler contend that the Constitution of the United States was not “ordained and established” by “the people”. They contend instead that its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and was dominated by America’s elite interest. Provide examples from the the US constitution (original document) that support Dye and Ziegler’s thesis.”

This would be a clearer question and obviously calls for the student to cite the nature of the franchise (excluding slaves and women), the electoral college, the appointed nature of senate, and so on.

Had I given such an assigment, and received this essay I would certainly have given it an F, if only for the simple reason that it contains no citations of the ‘original document’ that the assignment calls for. However, it’s not so easy to give an F in a university (I’m not as sure about community colleges, but I suspect it’s similar). So to ask the student to come to the office to receive the grade is entirely reasonable.

What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Was the comment that “Your views are irrational” made in regards to the contents of the paper, or to views about course grading, what the assignment called for or whatever else. Was the “America is not god’s gift to the world” comment simply an ineffective counter to a statement by the student that it is?

The psychotherapy comment and the threat to approach the Dean of International Admissions sound to me as comments from someone who had clearly lost control and was in a rage. Entirely inappropriate to say the very least. That part is troubling, but again the context of the (presumed) argument is hard to divine. One would hope that the prof would apologize for this part of his comment.

I’d further wonder whether the grievance was about what happened in the discussion or about the publicity. Colleges should be concerned about students taking grade disputes to the media, and to the college it cannot be immediately clear whether that is what’s going on here. Of course if the college refuse to release the contents of the grievance there is no way to know.

To be clear, I do agree that there are planty of moonbats in academia, and that someone is needed to clean out the Augean stables. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is the single minded idealogue he’s being made out to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if the story is substantially as related by the student. But I can see that there may well be another side to this story that is quite different.

Jan 7, 2005 - 9:02 am 44. Tom O'Bedlam:

We have the professor’s question and we have the student’s answer. Maybe one or both are wrong, but I have been reassured enough by the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere in previous cases to believe that the accuracy of the question or the answer would have been (or will will be shortly) debunked if they are wrong. Further, the student’s answer bears internal indicia of credibility, as evidenced by its less-than-perfect nature and the fact that it merits many of the criticisms directed at it.

As for the professor’s requirement that the student get counseling, on pain of losing his visa, that is indeed a “he said – he said” issue (although even that is open to confirmation if the professor did, indeed, visit the Dean of Intenational Admissions).

That said, it seems to me that the real question is the nature of the question. Those who say that the student didn’t answer the question, and give the professor the benefit of the doubt about whether he would accept alternative viewpoints, appear to be saying that the student could have criticized the textbook and still answered the question. I beg to differ. This position doesn’t appear to recognize that criticizing the textbook would also constitute “not answering the question,” since the question required the student to “show how its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America’s elite interest.”

Professors have no business asking questions such as this.

Jan 7, 2005 - 9:30 am 45. RogerA:

I think BeckyJ has it nailed. I went back for my PhD at the age of 55 after teaching at the college level for some 17 years (and that after a full career in the army). The university tenure system is not one that, IMHO, encourages teaching; it rewards researching and grantsmanship. The best teaching I have seen is at the college level, precisely for the reasons BeckyJ notes. Yes, there are flakes; but there are a lot of teachers who really teach.

I do think the doctoral system is also dysfunction unless you have a grounding in real life experience; it reminds me very much of the plebe system at West Point, or the internship system of medical school–take a recent undergrad, put them in a system that evicerates their social life, make them jump through innumerable hoops, and suck up to their committee, and you produce an individual at the end of the process that has zero social skills. I recall an earlier quote of BeckyJ’s: the battles in academe are so intense because the stakes are so small. Clearly she speaks from experience.

As a footnote, I also am a little bit skeptical of this whole story–As St. Ronald said, “Trust but verify.”

Jan 7, 2005 - 9:35 am

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