mia305

BK22889

hahaha, i have no idea, i can't decide if i really want to take a class with her or avoid her at all costs. probably take it as an extra class just to see and then drop it

Sam Lee

Perhaps NU didn't know about this at the time of hiring.

BK22889

^ i agree with a lot of the previous statement, however, at least from the article, it appears the teacher was "questioning truth", and then imposing her interpretation on her students without allowing them to attempt their own interpretations

ilovecapezios

oh dear god. I read this a while back in the dartmouth forum. Then i saw this and was like please don't tell me it's that woman.
I think that if we get her as a lecturer we should do what the dartmouth students did. Argue with her, and have everyone else clap. Let's see how many lawsuits she can have pending at one time.

mia305

Here is the relevant Dartmouth thread

Prof sues students for discrimination!

ettubrutus: It was the lectuere who was intolerant of opposing views to the point of being unstable. Academic Freedom doesnt mean having to sit there and eat whatever incompetent slop is served up. Seems to me these students were exercising academic freedom. I imagine you would have no problem with students questioning (or worse) the opinions of a conservative lecturer.

hktk

She is listed as a "Research Associate" at Northwestern. I hope that means that she does not have any lecture responsibilities. Anybody know what her job is at NU?

Sam Lee

I am not sure. But in general, it's tougher to get professorship at NU than at Dartmouth since NU has better graduate departments. So it would't surprise me if NU just hired her as "research associate". I wonder if that means "post-doc", which is signficantly easier to get.

BK22889

i don't mean to sound like an a**, i'm legitimately curious, is there any evidence for the previous statement?

Sam Lee

Graduate ranking is pretty much a measure of the caliber of faculty (in research, not teaching). Besides, the average salary of NU faculty is the 7th highest among AAU institutions. It's not easy to get a position at NU.

hktk

Brutus--

If this were going on in every classroom at Dartmouth, you might have a point; however, this seems to be a problem with this particular instructor and not with the students in general. Merely because somebody has the qualifications (on paper) to be a good instructor does not mean that he or she is a good instructor. Everything I have read about this situation tells me that this particular person was not a good instructor because she was not able to teach the material in an effective way, was not able to effectively deal with the response from the students, was extremely paranoid in her interpretation of particular events, and was combative. I hope NU has the common sense to keep her out of the classroom until she has effectively dealt with her apparent deficiencies. The instructors are there to instruct the students, not vice versa.

hktk

This quote taken from a recent interview with Dr. Venkatesan shows part of why I believe the problem is with her and not with her students:

"TDR: There is one specific incident where I heard from one of the girls in your class who was pretty outspoken, and one day she hadn’t spoken for a while and you said, “Could we have a round of applause for this girl, she hasn’t spoken in ten minutes?”

PV: She was probably the most abrasive, the most offensive, the most disruptive student. She ruined that class. She ruined it. She ruined it. That class actually had a lot of potential, there were some really bright kids there, but every time she would do a number of things that were very inappropriate. For instance, I had basically gotten a hold of Blackboard technology, but I was making some mistakes too because I was new to the system, and every time that some link was wrong or some link wasn’t set up right, [girl x] in the beginning of class would point this out to everybody. Then what happened was, I was lecturing on morals and ethics and she just gave me this horrible look, and I was pretty disturbed. I just said what is going on here? The problem with [girl x] is that she can’t take criticism. She can’t take the fact that there is something wrong with her work. Now, some people are like that, a lot of people are like that, unable to take criticism, but the fact of the matter is that I have the PhD in literature, I make the assessment if someone has talent for philosophy, literary theory, and literary criticism. A student might say, well, the hell with you I’m still going to become a literary critic, I had to do that, there were people who criticized me while I was a student, you’re not a good writer or whatever, but I said well I’m still going to go ahead with my goals, but I never made any personal attacks on them or made life difficult for them or was rude to them. I just did the socially acceptable way of dealing with criticism, and [girl x] is the kind of student who does not know the socially acceptable way of dealing with criticism. She thinks the way to go about doing it is to go to my superior or to try to undermine my ability to teach the class. One of the things that she did, this is also really interesting, was that she would always ask me how to spell things. That was her thing. She would say how to do you spell this? How to you spell that? I mean—what am I supposed to do?—so I would tell her. One time Tom Cormen was sitting in the class, and she asked me, how many T’s are in Gattaca. This was the kind of question she was asking, “how many T’s are in Gattaca?,” and I was about to answer her and Tom Cormen pre-empted me, “two t’s.” I’ll leave you to interpret it.

TDR: No. No, I don’t understand that.

PV: I have to tell you: it means tenure track.

TDR: Oh, okay.

PV: Because I wasn’t tenured track.

TDR: Oh, okay, yes.

PV: They were trying to intimate that I wasn’t ready for tenure track.

TDR: Yes, okay, I didn’t realize that’s what that meant.

PV: I’m kind of making this leap because this is the kind of subversiveness that was going on in that environment. That [girl x] would ask how many t’s are in Gattaca and that Tom Cormen would respond, “two T’s” as if I had no grasp on tenure track. ..but with [girl x], something’s going on with her. I’m not a doctor, but she’s not all there."

At first glance, "nutjob" seems to be appropriate.

Smoke&Mirrors

"fascist demagoguery"
lol this prof deserves to be smacked.

Oh god, the students criticize me, engage in classroom arguementation, and question their teachers! I believe that that would made her the fascist for trying to suppress independent thought outside of her own.

Wontonforevuh

i hope other NU students give her hell next year

Sam Lee

If she's a post-doc (if that's what "research associate" means), I doubt she will be teaching.