Wed 11 Nov 2009
Students on Moore
Posted by David under Bernard Moore, WSO at 3:09 pm
I am curious to know what current students think of Professor Bernard Moore as member of the Williams faculty. Emma Davenport writes:
surprise surprise, the guy who doesn’t give a damn if we learn anything, who forces people to write “uncritical” book summaries, who implied that nobody had good motivations, and who stays in the room while we fill out our evaluations, also has few moral qualms about stealing money from the government, colleges, and banks. one more reason why Williams should not just hire someone because of connections, but make sure the person actually cares about teaching students – since that is an indication of SOME moral character. worst class of my williams career was last semester, but at least he gave straight As to the entire class. everybody knew he sucked but somehow he was re-hired.
from, a very frustrated student last spring who was reminded by this scandal. ;-)
Is Davenport’s description accuate? What did other students think of Moore as a professor in the classroom? Could someone please add his factrak evaluations in the comment thread?
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46 Responses to “Students on Moore”
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PSCImajor says:
He’s too new to be on factrack, but the reports are accurate. He spent most of his time in DC, away from his students. An interaction I had with him last semester – in his Judicial Politics class, he had a final paper (15 pages) that was worth 40% of he course. I turned it in, and had a conversation with him afterward, in which he confirmed that he had ‘decided” to give me an A 2 weeks prior, and was not going to be reading my paper at all.
Another anecdote:
We were preparing for our Moot Court, and he asked us to explain how the selection of judges to the 9th circuit or something worked. We, having learned NOTHING over the course of the semester, had no good answer for him. He exclaimed, “But this is a judicial politics course!” as though by virtue of the course’s title we would have absorbed the information without him having imparted any knowledge.
Unfortunately, he gave out great grades, so students gave him so incredible evaluations. Sad.
PSCI Major II says:
“Unfortunately, he gave out great grades, so students gave him so incredible evaluations. Sad. ”
I don’t know about that. I’m under the impression (as well as many others I’ve talked to) that Williams only kept him around because of his ability to get important people on campus.
I was assigned to Moore’s section in my “Intro to American Poltics” class. During the first class, he was so horrible that at least half of the class walked out during the first half hour. I stuck around for one more class, realized the first class was not a fluke, walked out and switched into another professor’s section. He was truely the worst Professor I had ever been in contact with at Williams.
JeffZ says:
Wow. Person breathing the biggest sigh of relief right now: incoming President Falk. Good fortune that this all came to light right before his time at Williams begins …
aparent says:
Further from a student on WSO:
“Also, I should add that a group of students (four in a class of 16 or so) in my class almost went to the chair of the department to complain about the COMPLETE absence of teaching and critical discussion or lecture in that class. Why didn’t we talk to the Chair? Because we were all stressed out with finals and packing up to leave in the spring, and the idea fell through.
Those who like them think he’s a “nice guy”, “has connections”, and “gives all straight A’s”. No one takes him – who knows him – because they think they can learn in his classes. Anyway, I would the majority of the class thought it was a joke. But I know I’m the only one speaking here, so it’s not really fair for me to state that on here.
Why wasn’t he on factrack anyway? Who has to add a prof on factrack?”
What a waste of several thousand dollars of either the money of students’ parents, or Williams financial aid — not to mention the Ephs’ finite ability to enroll in beneficial courses.
Although it seems “Prof” Moore’s class was beneficial to students’ GPAs …
Ronit says:
@aparent: just noting that the comment you quoted is also from Emma Davenport
CJK says:
I had a somewhat more complicated experience with the man than those stated above.
To be sure, he was one of the single most disorganized, scatterbrained professors I have ever had at any level–when I got one of the book reviews back (one I’d put a fair amount of work into), he returned only the first of the 4 pages with no comments beyond the grade, and didn’t seem aware that there had been any more to it. I never heard anything at all about the 20pg. final paper I turned in. In class, he had a tendency to divert away from the main topic and have us talk about the election instead. So he was not, by any estimation, a particularly good prof.
With all that said, I did interact with him a fair amount outside of class and he was by no means a bad guy. For one thing, he did clearly know his shit–he seemed to take his legislative job seriously enough, at least, to know the intricate details of all the legislation moving in congress at any given point. He was friendly, at least to me, and he did go out of his way to say when he thought you were making a good contribution to class, and the chance to interact with the CBC members was really pretty incredible. Furthermore, whatever you think of the man (and right now, I am pretty angry at him), the Second Chance Act was a good and important piece of legislation.
None of that, though, excuses the kind of fraud he was engaged in. He espoused good ideals when I talked to him, but clearly he was at his core a pretty flagrant hypocrite, particularly in that he spent so much of his time arguing that criminals could be rehabilitated, even as he continued to commit crimes himself.
hwc says:
One wonders if any of the $800,000 was being funneled to Congressmen in exchange for participation in events to keep this con man his job?
frank uible says:
Why none of these Congressmen know him whatsoever – they only were fleetingly introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance and thereafter once said hello to him in passing on the street!
wslack says:
Pushing back against that – he did a lot of very good work – the Second Chance Act was widely praised, and the fact that he was committing fraud while moving it through Congress doesn’t change the bill’s value. It can be said that no other current prof at Williams has that kind of achievement, though I think Williams doesn’t pick its profs on that basis.
David says:
How much of a role to Moore really play in moving the Second Chance Act through Congress? If your main source of information on that is Moore himself, you may be overestimating his role.
ephling says:
Fraud is a crime involving moral turpitude. Kind of hard to get your students to believe that using unacknowledged sources is wrong when you are a convicted felon. Your can’t even get certified to teach dog obedience classes with that on your record. Well at least the trains ran on time, doesn’t cut it.
AnotherPSCImajor says:
Moore was BY FAR the worst “teacher” that I have ever had during my Williams career. Despite receiving an A (I too was told ahead of my gigantic final research paper that he would not read it and that I would get an A anyway) I wrote a scathing review for the PSCI department. I also took my complaints to Professors in the department but got little sympathy from them.
Moore had NO INTEREST in teaching us anything at all and spent more time recounting the “very close friendship” that he has with Barack Obama and telling us all about how Obama, Pelosi, Reid and every Supreme Court Justice who has ever served where going to come visit campus “in the next few months.” He would them other thinly veiled excuses for why his “close friends” did not come. I actually had a conversation with a student in our class about the possibility that Moore was an obsessive compulsive liar – which now seems to make a lot of sense.
One terrifying anecdote: During the semester we were supposed to do two “book reports,” each wroth a good proportion of our grade. I handing both of mine in early in the semester to get it out of the way and ACTUALLY put work into them because at that point I didn’t understand how useless he was as a professor. I got them both back (graded and clearly unread) and thought nothing else about it. In the last day of the semester (when I could easily have been out of town) I received a very scary and formal email from him saying that I was missing an assignment and that I should see him promptly to avoid failing the class. I, of course, FREAKED OUT… went running over to his office, terrified and near tears, worried that his gross incompetence was about to earn me a failing grade. I had, fortunately, emailed myself the paper to print at the being of the semester so I showed it to him in my email files, which shows the date sent to be printed. He basically responded with a shrug saying “well if I never got it…” to which I responding saying that he had actually handed it back to me with a grade on it! He basically told me there was nothing that I could do. I left in tears. About an hour later he emailed me a one sentence long note saying that he realized that he had made a mistake and that he found the record of my paper. I’ve never forgiven him for this.
Williams College is supposed to be about offering quality TEACHING over all else. I feel that I was deprived of part of my Williams education by being in that class and the A in no way makes me feel better about this loss. The fact that we was allowed to remain after students evaluated him the first semester SHOCKS and saddens me.
Invisible Mom says:
My student had Moore, and last year said he was very well connected, but was totally lacking in organizational/teaching skills – making for a very frustrating class. The moot court project, which sounded amazing, was not a great experience for students. Despite her and others concerns, they felt that his connections was why he was hired and why he’d end up staying.
David says:
AnotherPSCImajor: Can you give us more details? When did you take this class? Which professors in poli-sci did you complain to? What was their response?
wslack says:
@David: No, sorry. That was his bill. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:1:./temp/~c1100rgERk:: Unless, you think other people wrote it for Davis, which I doubt.
@David: It is not your job to investigate this. Please hold off, and trust me/the Record to ask these questions.
David says:
Will: Who says it is not my job to investigate this? I have done more reporting/investigating of Williams-related topics than anyone else over the last 6 years.
Time will tell who has the better sources . . . ;-)
Ronit says:
@wslack: I think everyone who has an interest in Williams has the right to ask questions about Moore’s hiring and his time at Williams.
Ben Fleming says:
Yeah, no.
hwc says:
My money is on dkane beating the Record, Wagner, and the Board at putting together some of the pieces on this one.
I agree with Ben Fleming. The College is not in position to request that people “hold off” on this one. The College hired him.
Ben is also correct in being very concerned about the possibility that Moore got his hands on the laptop with alumni social security numbers.
kthomas says:
Will,
I hate to (be the one to) say this given some of the current dynamics on eB. Let me put it this way: I think most alumni here have the experience that the Record has not or will not or cannot investigate such issues with any sort of ability or integrity (count-examples post-1965 welcome). I would thus be glad if they did a good job, whatever that is (I say sarcastically in the sense that no one here will agree on what that is; but I do think that one is possible).
That said, “it is not the Record’s job,” either.
((P.S. This author did found and publish a Williams newsmagazine because of general sickness with the Record of the time, so I claim less objectivity that my usual entire lack. Perspective, however, is another thing.))
hwc says:
This is a test of the Record, too.
Most disturbing are the reports from the classroom on “Moore’s” teaching performance.
David says:
The wso thread continues to produce interesting comments. I am adding them here since wso threads sometimes disappear.
kthomas says:
Hmm. On topic, I really don’t have enough information to say I have an opinion. “Moral qualification” aside (I believe in it), I don’t have the detail of information necessary to an opinion on the prima facie issue. Should Williams suspend a professor who pleads guilty to any felony?
On the issue of teaching: I hope we’re not hitting someone when their down. Williams’ standards– I also believe in Williams’ standards– but in grad school, “didn’t follow the syllabus” to the point of “I don’t have any idea what the reading is supposed to be this week, or what the lecture is going to be about” was the norm at greater than 80%. (Maybe Berkeley is Berkeley; maybe Berkeley at the time had particular problems; maybe Williams is unlikely to hire the kind of professor Berkeley produced; and certainly I’m attacking Berkeley).
So: in my unclear sort of path: I’m saying that if Moore was as bad a teacher as some are claiming — what the heck is going on at Williams??? — but– how far is Williamstown from Salem?
Let’s not engaging in witchhunting for its own sake and the pleasures of the hunt; give the Truth time to come out; let’s bother to form an informed opinion before we speak.
Ronit says:
@kthomas: I don’t pretend to any kind of general expertise on the topic of faculty hiring at Williams or in academia generally, but my experience tells me that the hiring of short-term visiting professors is one of the (admittedly few) things at Williams that is very broken.
Ronit says:
And to anyone who is getting ready to attack me for lacking evidence of my claim above, I admit I have none other than my experience.
hwc says:
kthomas:
I think we have enough information about his academic credentials, teaching experience, and professional life to question what made him even remotely qualified to be hired as a professor at one of the top colleges in the United States.
And, that’s before we consider that he is a con-man, convicted felon, who didn’t even have a college degree.
kthomas says:
hwc:
My retort would be, all of which may be true– but we may still “have a witchhunt.”
As to Ronit’s claim… well, I did create a dichotomy (which runs the usual threat of being false)… and I’ve just said enough on another thread.
It may be possible that Moore should never have been hired and is guilty of moral turpidude etc, and that the hiring and oversight process is broken, and that a witchhunt/scapegoating/kick the man who is down, is occurring.
In fact, I rather think that all three are occurring, and are “part in parcel” of each other.
Jr. Mom says:
https://www.msu.edu/~holekamp/images/crocuta/HyenaFeedingFrenzy_Engh_smaller.jpg
hwc says:
ken:
The guy has just pled guilty to fraud totaling over $800,000. A second offense after serving jail time for a previous conviction on similar charges. He has acknowledged that he lied about his academic qualifications. I think we can go a little bit further than saying “it may be possible that Moore should never have been hired.” I think that is pretty much a statement of fact at this point.
There may be perfectly reasonable explanations of how Williams was duped by this con man. I can’t conceive of anything that would permit us to conclude, knowing what we know now, that he should have been hired.
kthomas says:
@Jr. Mom: LOL. Are you bringing the tar, or the feathers? I’ve got the noose and the white sheets. David, you’re grandmaster this …. decade, right?
kthomas says:
hwc: read again. I didn’t say “it may be possible that A is true.” I said A, B, and C. The statement has nothing to do with A by itself; restraint!
Ronit says:
@kthomas:
Agreed. Also, I am fairly sure that the students who are reporting their firsthand experience of his teaching are in a good position to provide an informed opinion.
hwc says:
31: Ken, thanks. I see your point. There are several potential “witchhunts” here. I have little interest in witchhunting the felon. Although, to be honest, less than four years in prison for an $800,000 heist seems a bit light to me.
I am more concerned about the process that led to his hiring at Williams. Was the Political Science department in favor of his hiring? Was the Provost in favor of his hiring? Or were they overruled and by whom?
JT says:
I took his class in the Spring last year. I only took it because it looked like it might be relevant to my post Williams life. I agree with Emma on this one. He was completely inept, and the entire class would often make fun of him before and after class. I remember that specific instance in which he said “This is a judicial politics class,” as if he expected us to learn from some sort of osmosis. I routinely kept track of the amount of times he was on his blackberry during class. I assigned 1 point for each time he was checking it/typing away on it and 2 points for every 30 seconds he was talking to someone. I still have the notebook in which he once got 20 points on that rudimentary scale. This should point to the complete lack of meaningful discussion and teaching. Everyone I talked to wrote scathing reviews of his performance, and absolutely nobody respected him as a teacher. He had no lesson plan, and the amount of laptops that students brought to class increased exponentially as the semester progressed. Obviously they were just doing crosswords, playing boggle, and watching youtube videos. It was quite obvious he was only kept around for his connections to the political world.
hwc says:
He used his Blackberry in class?
midprof says:
When I was hired for visiting positions (15 years ago), there was no contract until you’d at least gotten official transcripts in. It’s hard to see how that was finessed. Many institutions today also run credit checks on new faculty hires.
Concerning the lack of clear response from profs who were “told of” this situation, you have to consider that you didn’t see their entire reaction. They may well have gone to a dean about it. They may well have been concerned themselves. They’re not about to have a chat with you about this disastrous appointment.
Will Slack '11 says:
Yeah; that first thing didn’t come off as I intended. I’m worried that meritless allegations from Dave will undermine the very legitimate questions that could be raised. But I retract any suggestion that Dave shouldn’t look at this; I only ask that any/all speculation be withheld.
Or, in other words, [citation needed].
Jr. Mom says:
Heh…
Will Slack '11 says:
@Jr. Mom: I couldn’t continue to post here without some glimmer of hope…..
What I would really be interested to see if an analysis of the legal history.
PSCImajor says:
@hwc: Not only did he use his blackberry in class, but while we were giving our presentations on the inane glorified book reports, he would be on his blackberry and completely ignoring anything students said. One specific instance, he got a call, and got up and left, without saying a word, during the presentation. Obscene.
jeffz says:
Politico chimes in:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29428.html
Interesting that he was able to organize a symposium of sorts that makes his symposiums at Williams seem like small potatoes. This isn’t just some typical Congressional staffer; far from it. He either has very unusual connections or very unusual ability to convince people in high places that his events were worth attending. It seems like Williams and the victims of his financial fraud were but a few of those seduced by whatever quality he had that made his b.s. ring true / seem appealing. To me, the biggest lesson here is that classroom performance (combined with publication record, certainly) does not lie. I am all for (generally speaking, not in this particular case) hiring people who may be a little unorthodox in their backgrounds, to broaden the Williams experience. While the hiring here was, in hindsight, a mistake, Williams is at least in good company in making that mistake. But at the very least, those more experimental hires should be VERY closely watched, and it is indeed mind-boggling that he was kept on after his first year of teaching exposed his utter lack of substance.
Jr. Mom says:
@Will Slack ‘11:
I very much respect your intentions and your vigilance.
hwc says:
That just makes me cry. That’s not what Williams is about. That’s not what Williams students deserve. That’s not what Williams’ parents pay $50,000 year to receive.
I’m still reeling at the reference to “book reports”. That’s not what Williams is about either.
Of course, with $465,000 in unpaid credit card bills and a US Attorney breathing down his neck, he was probably a wee bit distracted!
Jr. Mom says:
@hwc:
Need a hankie to catch your drool?
Ronit says:
@Jr. Mom: The descriptions of Moore’s teaching in this thread made me genuinely sad. I may have been snarky about some bad visiting professors I’d had earlier, but I never saw anything as disgraceful as what has been described here.
Feel free to offer me a hanky, I guess.
Jr. Mom says:
@Ronit:
I believe you.