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It sounds like the sort of thing that a powerful teacher’s union would argue for.</p>
<p>Tenure is intended to guarantee academic freedom. The idea is that you can pursue knowledge for its own sake, wherever it leads you, without fear that your ideas will cost you your job on account of being unpopular. For researchers and artists it makes sense to me; for teachers, not so much.</p>
<p>Tenure is designed to protect teachers from getting fired for teaching about subjects that may be controversial to the administration. It is under the theory that if students should learn about subjects regardless of the political beliefs from the administration.</p>
<p>In other words, if the school principal is a loyal democrat, and the history teacher teaches about how the New Deal was ineffective, the history teacher shouldn’t get fired for that.</p>
<p>But, when was it invented?</p>
<p>I should probably just look it up. NVM.</p>
<p>Okay, it’s wikipedia, but I think that’s okay in this case…just in case anyone else is interested.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure</a></p>
<p>So, it’s not really there to protect bad teaching so much as it is there to protect intellectual and political freedom…</p>
<p>Thanks for linking to the Wikipedia article. As obvious as it seems, it didn’t occur to me to go look it up. Duh.</p>
<p>I had a couple of professors who really stunk as researchers, whose knowledge was obviously not current. When I looked up their records, I found that they had published quite a bit of legitimate-sounding research up until they got tenure, then pretty much stopped. Apparently they were motivated to work hard to get tenure, but then rested on their laurels. (Actually, come to think of it, they were associate professors, which suggests that someone did indeed notice their lack of academic productivity.)</p>
<p>This is one of the drawbacks to the tenure system, but I think it’s relatively rare. If you can do good enough research for seven years to get tenure, you’re probably not the kind of person who will suddenly stop once your job becomes secure.</p>
<p>How does curving a test benefit those that cheat? </p>
<p>Test has 5 A’s 10 B’s 20 C’s 10 D’s 5 F’s
the 5 A’s got the test from the Frat files; stolen test; student in the other class… now, none of the other “non-cheating” students have a shot at the grade. Works all the way down the curve. Tests should not be curved.</p>
<p>Your example is logical; your conclusion is not. Perhaps the answer is not to avoid curves, but rather to deter cheating.</p>
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<p>I think what you are saying is that if all of the students did well, but the cheaters did better, and the professor spread out the grades to fit a bell curve, that would be unfair. I would agree.</p>
<p>In practice, I’ve never had a teacher spread grades out along a bell curve like you described. What we all call curving is the professor increased the students grades. Instead, the teacher looked at the median and increased everybody’s score. Cheating wouldn’t influence the curve, and not curving would not punish those who cheat.</p>
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<p>Well, there’s some number of students who drop out for other than academic performance reasons … but your original statement that acceptance into college is an indication that the student has the intelligence to graduate is what I’m arguing against. There’s several studies that indicate that the top 15%, at most, of our kids are the ones that should go to college in the first place, but colleges accept far more than that.</p>
<p>Just thinking about the competing interests that a college juggles is amazing:
- As a business: a good student is a paying student
- As an educator: an enriched student is the goal
[ul]As a competitor: weak students hurt ‘the brand’[/ul]</p>
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<p>I see what you’re saying, but as with many things, I think this comes back to whose definitions to use. Presumably a college that admits 1,000 students doesn’t believe that only 150 of them belong in college. I would think it’s closer to the opposite: They allow for some percentage who don’t belong there and probably won’t make it, but most of them will do reasonably well (as defined by that particular college).</p>
<p>It’s a question of the college’s mission. Harvard University expects to produce the next generation of great minds and world leaders; the University of Missouri at Kansas City is more interested in producing competent professionals. The 15% who “should go to college” would be defined differently in each case.</p>
<p>These kind of things can have a real effect on the quality of Faculty at the University as a whole. If the AAUP decides that this is a serious enough offense, or is part of a pattern of attempts to stifle academic freedom they can place a sanction on the University. While there is no fine, etc. it is a warning to others. I know in “Jobs for Philosophers”, the job listings for the profession, any AAUP sanction against a university is noted. Interested applicants can go to the AAUP web site and review the sanctions. If the sanction is serious or of concern to an applicant, they may never apply for the position. Given the choice, they will prefer a university with no sanctions. That means that the very best go where they feel they will have the most freedom, potentially reducing the a quality of the faculty at an institution.</p>
<p>For this reason, most AAUP chapters are very reluctant to push for sanction, and it happens rarely, but it does happen.</p>
<p>Here is a link to the story in the LSU Reveille, the student newspaper. The story includes letters to the AAUP from the LSU chapter as well as a letter from the AAUP to LSU Chancellor Martin regarding an ongoing investigation that also references the Homberger issue. </p>
<p>[Daily</a> Reveille - Professors outraged by admin. decision](<a href=“http://www.lsureveille.com/news/professors-outraged-by-admin-decision-1.2220728]Daily”>http://www.lsureveille.com/news/professors-outraged-by-admin-decision-1.2220728)</p>
<p>Hmm, interesting, by the college paper’s report after the second of four tests (which she was in middle of when she was pulled from the class) the class average had gone from 53% to 77%. That’s a 45% increase. If on the next two tests the class average only increase half that much by the end of the class the class average would be 92%. Not a bad grade. And the kids would have learned one of the most valuable lessons they could learn at college. You have to work. Instead the dean taught them they if they whine they can get what they want without working.</p>
<p>But the original professor couldn’t have graded the second exam because she was removed immediately after administering it.</p>
<p>The new instructor graded it, and unless everything was 10 question multiple choice, would have graded it differently than the original instructor.</p>
<p>Further, a university administrator said that 92% of the students had grades of D or F in the class. </p>
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<p>Can you think for a moment that the professor was unhappy about having to teach a freshman class to non-bio students and was going to make them suffer as a result? Oh wait, a professor would never do THAT.</p>
<p>I found the comments after the article from the students interesting.</p>
<p>Agree, father 05…Here is one of the comments:</p>
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<p>I do wonder what the back story is in this situation. It really puzzles me why it appears that the dean and others did not speak to the professor about her teaching and grading practices with this class prior to removing her. She was a tenured professor with 30 years at LSU. Something does not seem right here, and not just in regard to the admin’s decision to remove her from her teaching duties.</p>
<p>The writing ability presented in that comment is indicative of a student of lower IQ. It also speaks to the virulent self-esteem boosting mindset of American education today (almost everyone is an “honor student”). Unfortunately, I think a large percentage of the students in Homberger’s class have absolutely no business being in college.</p>
<p>Her class was probably too hard for the students of middling-IQ that were present in the class. She did not want to dumb the material down, and I applaud her for that. think she probably failed close to the correct number of students (those with IQ <115 + those that only wanted to do a minimal amount of work).</p>
<p>Wow</p>
<p>That’s all I can say.</p>