Rory, I appreciate your concern regarding my privacy and want to say thanks for the gesture. You might not have seen some of my later posts which I signed with my name and year, thus eliminating that right to anonymity.

David (and others who care), I overstated my position in my original post in shocked response to the comment by your source “But it’s only for another year and his overall scores are fine.” Perhaps my expectations, and all of ours, are too high, but it was a bit disturbing seeing this attitude towards education coming from a professor, even if it was hypothetical. In any case, I think we can now all agree that the efforts to hire a short term professor are less thorough than those for a long term one. I’ll just leave it at that.

Thanks to Professor Waters for providing an informative response. Of all of the professors I knew at Williams, he was one who consistently handled himself with the utmost professionalism and courtesy in all matters – not an easy task in such a charged environment. Thanks for being such a stand up guy as always!

Dick Swart
President
EphBlog

Can you even read? I never said that I have known this person for “more than 20 years.” If you are going to accuse me of sock-puppetry, at least get the details of my relationship to the puppet correct.

By the way, if you think that I am making up this person, what do you think of the dozens of e-mails that I have published over the years from other anonymous parents, alumni, students and faculty? Just curious.

I am always looking for constructive criticism. How would you recommend that I respond to Derek when he accuses me of lying about my sources? Ignore him? I thought that snarky mocking was a good option, but you probably have better judgment than I do in this matter.

My source continues to be impressed with your wit and insight. She sends her regards!

What’s this yellow fluid all over the floor?

In journalism, as messy as things get, there are ways to relatively judge the value value of sources, other than the length of one’s stream. David’s source stands impugned.

I don’t really care about the amount of verbiage the parties can throw at each other. There’s only so far this can go. Either we try a different method to resolve, or the yellow pool just gets deeper.

It doesn’t “fit” that a place where undergraduate education is still considered Job #1 would be lazy and apathetic about its visiting profs.

If this were true, the Nathan Saunders would have been tenured. Since he wasn’t (not enough research), we can conclude that teaching undergraduates is, at best, first among equals when Williams decides who to hire, tenure and promote.

I agree with Ronit and his 1) and 2).

Derek: As always you set the highest standards for discussion at EphBlog. My source continues to be impressed with your wit and insight. She sends her regards!

dcat

A few weeks ago, my wife and I made it out for Families Weekend. Our son literally wouldn’t shut up about what was going on in his classes, and top on his list of “must-do” events was Prof. Burger’s talk monkeys & typewriters. It was literally standing room only. One of his other professors was there, and he couldn’t wait to introduce that prof to us. He has since updated us several times on what’s going on in his classes. There has not been even the slightest hint of laziness or apathy toward the teaching of undergrads from any of his four profs. Four PhDs, each one an accomplished contributor to his/her field, has been fully engaged in class, and wonderfully available between classes. I realize that for many in academia, teaching undergrads is not the exciting or rewarding part of the job. For many, it’s the research. I understood this back during my undergraduate days as well. But it was clear to me then, and it seems just as evident today, that the college is delivering an outstanding classroom experience. This is why the Anon Prof’s comments were so shocking. It doesn’t “fit” that a place where undergraduate education is still considered Job #1 would be lazy and apathetic about its visiting profs.

I simultaneously believe both of these things, based on my experience:

1. tenured and tenure-track professors at Williams are on the whole quite passionate about teaching, and departments pay close attention to the teaching performance of such professors, with regular in-class visits from senior faculty, department chairs interviewing students outside of class, etc.

2. Williams departments are generally quite apathetic and indifferent to the teaching quality of visiting professors.

As such, anon prof’s conclusions about the hiring process for visiting profs are not shocking at all to me. The problem is not that Williams doesn’t care about teaching, it’s that Williams doesn’t, on the whole, care very much about the visiting professors it hires.

I just don’t know …

http://1956ephs.blogspot.com/2009/11/please-talk-to-professor-hat.html

barring other evidence, I believe that Dave’s anonymous professor is a sock puppet, one of the many who appears at just the right time whenever Dave needs a convenient argument on his behalf.

Strong charges.

dcat

And let’s keep in mind that this person, whom Dave alleges to have known personally for more than 20 years, and so who must have some seniority at Williams, is apparently part of a program that has conversations about not caring about teaching, yet this person does not speak up against it.

I’m going with “Dave made this person up.” No real person could possibly be as much of a douche as the person Dave’s imagination has concocted. Remember: this is a person whose justification for anonymity was that if they were not anonymous they could not say shitty things about their colleagues. You can’t spell “classless” without “ass” I guess.

dcat

Further, it’s quite possible to have that one great lesson prepped for when your class is observed and be a crap professor in other sessions. While the game is manipulable, it would be good to have such things, but it can be awkward with visiting professors who are there for one, maybe two years.

The general principle of “small college = no secrets” is an apt one for teaching quality. That is, students easily get social networks large enough to find out how good different professors are. Those networks eventually (once it reaches juniors and seniors) include faculty. People know around a campus if a professor is reputed to be a good or bad teacher relatively quickly…within a year, i’d bet. That’s not helpful for frosh (thank god for JAs!), and it won’t work with visiting professors till their second or third terms. That’s why so many alums and upperclassmen warn away from visiting professors–they’re the only unknowns in the pool of teachers.

Personally, I’ve always thought an interview for a professorship should include taking over a (intro, or maybe an upperclass seminar for majors) class for at least 30 minutes, especially at a SLAC. But they don’t. And that can be practiced around, but williams students are smart and can smell an over-prepped teacher vs. a gifted teacher, i’d bet. That interviews don’t (at any school I know) is a relic of colleges following the university model. and in the university model, teaching just doesn’t matter.

The things I learned that surprised me involved what happens after the hire, such as the fact that students’ comments never get to the department – even for visiting profs, and that their classes are not observed – even for visiting profs scheduled for multiple-year assignments.

The apearance of the AP’s comments definately turned the tone of the discussion to one of accusation, and it also directed it more toward the hiring process than the issue of what goes on to evaluate and support the teaching efforts of visiting profs.

some of the disconnect you may be seeing between your experiences + the writings of the NPs vs. the AP (anonymous prof) is that only a specific subset of professors are likely to give their opinions that are so negative towards williams to David.

For example, I know plenty of professors who, were I to contact them, would probably anonymously have some complaints about williams undervaluing diversity. But that’s not on ephblog because I’m lazy and don’t want to stir the pot (even though I agreed when I was there, I do believe Williams is trying to get it right, if not ideally). That I’m not a curmudgeon like that on the issue means I don’t get said complaints. but i could if i tried.

David, for better or worse, is a curmudgeon about williams’ visiting professors and his broad brush strokes towards them is an axe he’s grinded before (just search “visiting professor” on ephblog). It should come as less of a surprise, then, that David’s anonymous contact agrees with him that the process is broken.

Whether they are right or wrong is a different story…the details as to why that one department is potentially an anomaly is also a different story (might they have incompetent administrative leadership? Academics aren’t bureaucrats/managers by training, for one possible explanation), perhaps that one professor is frozen out of discussions because colleagues aren’t friends with him/her (something I’ve seen happen at other institutions–why wouldn’t it happen at williams?)?

in conclusion, i’m sure there are some shitty searches, i’m sure there are (more) decent searches. David’s parsing of the words of people who don’t agree with him is laughable because he trusts the one hypothetical story over the stories describing actual searches. I know from experience that a job talk doesn’t prove that someone is a good teacher, also.

in conclusion, david’s bringing of the bolin fellows into yet another unrelated discussion is proof this is yet another attempt for him to take an individual screw up and push to make a much larger change than is warranted to a program that was completely unrelated to the individual screw up. It’s tired baiting and i’m glad it didn’t fly. what a stupid tangent.

Wake up and smell the coffee!

I’m tryin’, bro – don’t give up on me yet! It’s actually appropriate that you would use the phrase “wake up.” After graduating, I didn’t follow the goings-on of the college at all closely, but when my son decided to come to Williams, my interest in such things was reawakened. I’ve described this experience several times to friends and family as being like Rip Van Winkle waking up somewhere near the Haystack Monument. So please be gentle with me – there is much new to learn, and I am still a bit groggy.

Back to business. David, I meant it when I said I appreciated your detailed defense of the Anon Prof’s comments, and I would like to continue the conversation, but first, since I am rarely the sharpest knife in the gunfight, here’s a summary of my understanding of certain key facts:

1) The Anon Prof’s comments came in response to your request for specific information pertaining to who approved Moore’s reappointment. S/he had no such specific information, but then gave a summary of how the hiring and reappointment processes are typically handled.

2) The Anon Prof thinks many of his/her colleagues are lazy with respect to the amount of time and attention they give to the business of hiring, evaluating, and reappointing visiting profs. From this, I conclude that the impression one got from the tome of the prof’s comments (namely that his/her colleagues are lazy about hiring/reappointing visiting profs) was intended.

3) You agree with the Anon Prof, and your opinions have been known to each other for quite some time.

4) Anon Prof indicates that it is common for one-year visiting profs to be hired without a national search, campus visits with presentations, writing samples and interviews.

5) The “Named Professors” (NPs) have also indicated that one-year visiting profs are commonly hired without going through all of these steps, although, there are also cases where some or all of these procedures are followed in the hiring of visiting profs.

So given the above, let’s get to it: Your claim is that the Anon Prof and the NPs are describing fact patterns that are in many aspects the same. Some lusty “iterating” has “flowed” (as Swart has hilariously shown) from your attempts to get the NPs to stipulate to your claim that their descriptions of the processes are basically similar to the Anon Prof’s description. So let’s assume that you keep iterating until you all achieve a simultaneous organic agreement on the essential fact patterns. (Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching the iterations of others as much as the next guy, but after a while it just gets repetitive and boring, and I get impatient to move on to some deeper, more meaningful analysis. Are we ready to take that next step yet? I think we are.)

But seriously, let’s just say that lots of times visiting profs are hired without the national search, etc. The essence of the Anon Prof’s contribution here is that (a)this constitutes real laziness on the part of his/her colleagues; (b)this laziness is widespread – the norm, really; and (c)that this laziness is caused by a general apathy about teaching undergraduates.

It seems widely held among EhpBlog readers that you also hold these views, and have for some time.

The essence of the NPs comments seems to be that while it’s acknowledged that national searches are not always conducted for visiting, it’s flat-out wrong to attribute this to laziness and/or apathy. They do not agree at all with Anon Prof’s conclusions about the facts (even if all were to agree basically as to what the facts are.) They also have given a number of reasons why it is often impractical to try to conduct a national search and interview process. Anon Prof actually seems to agree that these externals commonly make full searches impractical.

So where exactly is the laziness? What does Anon Prof say the process would/should look like if it were conducted by people who were not lazy and/or apathetic about teaching. Wait….Do you hear that? It’s the sound of all of us parents, who are new to this stuff, leaning forward to hear the answer. . . .

A few weeks ago, my wife and I made it out for Families Weekend. Our son literally wouldn’t shut up about what was going on in his classes, and top on his list of “must-do” events was Prof. Burger’s talk monkeys & typewriters. It was literally standing room only. One of his other professors was there, and he couldn’t wait to introduce that prof to us. He has since updated us several times on what’s going on in his classes. There has not been even the slightest hint of laziness or apathy toward the teaching of undergrads from any of his four profs. Four PhDs, each one an accomplished contributor to his/her field, has been fully engaged in class, and wonderfully available between classes. I realize that for many in academia, teaching undergrads is not the exciting or rewarding part of the job. For many, it’s the research. I understood this back during my undergraduate days as well. But it was clear to me then, and it seems just as evident today, that the college is delivering an outstanding classroom experience. This is why the Anon Prof’s comments were so shocking. It doesn’t “fit” that a place where undergraduate education is still considered Job #1 would be lazy and apathetic about its visiting profs.

Well, I am not sure that I care that much about my source’s “credibility” in your eyes. I know the truth. She knows the truth

Cut! David, your line here is: “But YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH, Vicarious!” Let’s take it again from “I am not sure. . .”

Again, how clearly to a I need to spell this out? ANSO . . .

You keep saying this . . . but I do not think this spells what you think it spells. ;-)

Yes, I see on the bottom of the page the boilerplate about outstanding teaching. I also see that teaching interests are the first point of inquiry.

Why on earth would you assume that teaching one course is aimed at people who don’t like teaching much? Those kind of people are not the ones who come to SLACs for postdocs. They go to R1s, where they won’t need to teach much *ever.* This fellowship, by acknowledging that the poor sod is WRITING A DISSERTATION in the first year and developing professional work the second, is *wisely* limiting teaching to one course. That augurs well for a good course. It allows the person (who presumably lacks gobs and gobs of teaching experience) to actually work on his/her pedagogy. These kind of postdoc plums typically go to extremely strong scholars who are interested in teaching, not just in being extremely strong scholars. In this way the postdoc starts to develop a roster of strong, well prepared classes, as well as a professional reputation, making him/her a stronger candidate for the next TT market.

By the way, I’m not denying that there’s some godawful teaching going on in SLACs. But it has little if anything to do with all the places you’re looking.

1) I would assume that Moore was re-appointed after December 31, 2008. That is, the College would have had his first semester teaching scores available.

2) I would assume that, if this time line is correct, that the committee that appointed him would have known and considered those scores.

Yes to both.

A few other things. First, I have heard from multiple people about this, though I’m also recalling some conversations from last spring that I may not remember with complete accuracy. You’re also attributing things the wrong way, but I frankly don’t care enough to correct you in that regard. I should also point out that Moore talked openly in class to many people I know (including me personally) about his relationship to the college, and that access to information about his scores might have been wider than you think. The nice thing about talking to you instead of being a reporter is that I don’t have to obey the same rules of attribution, so you can take or drop my analysis, which is partially based on hearsay.

I also dispute that having the lowest average score counts for “horrific,” but that’s semantics. I would say that it’s been indicated to me that he was a worse prof in the second semester, which might have caused the scores Just was talking about, and that the people involved in the reappointment, I’ve heard, were not seriously alarmed about his teaching until AFTER his reappointment. Actions were taken after that point, but he had already been named.

The question of whether more proactive steps should have been taken to evaluate his teaching is probably a wiser one.

as I understood your answer to my Bolin Fellows point, the College does not care about teaching because…you say so?

I am just describing what the standards for the Bolin are, at least as described to me. (This is very different than the standards for tenure-track appointments at Williams. For those, teaching skill is a key concern.)

Here is the Bolin application process. See anything in there about teaching ability? I love the phrase “teaching just one course.” Don’t like teaching much? The Bolin is for you! (Apologies for the snark.)

As best I can tell (corrections from Sam Crane are welcome!), Bolin applicants to not give a public lecture/class, nor are they asked to provide any evidence about their teaching ability/talent/desire.

The college did NOT reappoint Moore knowing the stories about his teaching that it does now. They simply were unaware.

Without revealing your sources, can you provide more detail on this claim?

1) I would assume that Moore was re-appointed after December 31, 2008. That is, the College would have had his first semester teaching scores available.

2) I would assume that, if this time line is correct, that the committee that appointed him would have known and considered those scores.

I think that both these must be true since we know that, at the same time, Moore had applied for, and was rejected from, a tenure track position. All of that would have taken time. I bet that he wasn’t appointed to the Schumann position until the spring of 2009. If your sources claim different, please tell us.

Assuming that the above is true, we get to the question of just what Moore’s scores looked like. You write:

Though, as other sources of mine have asserted, Moore’s SES scores were polarized, such that some people who cared more about his connections gave him very high scores to counter the low ones, then it’s possible that his scores were not so low as to appear out of the ordinary!

I have no trouble believing that Moore’s scores were “polarized.” Lots of students gave him horrible ratings. I could imagine that a handful, like R. Hill, gave him excellent ratings. So, if that is all your source said (and the number of people with access to the scores is low), then I believe him. But did your source say directly that “his scores were not so low as to appear out of the ordinary” or did he (slyly?) want you to conclude that without fibbing to you? What does “possible” mean in your sentence?

I have no first hand knowledge of Moore’s scores. But, given the student testimony we have read, I would bet that his average scores were worse than any other member of the Department. If that is so, than “horrific” would be a fair description. All I know for certain is that Professor Peter Just wrote:

From what I understand, and to no one’s surprise, the statistical data regarding student opinions of Mr. Moore’s teaching was also horrific as well as statistically significant, but I haven’t actually seen it.

I suspect that your source is misleading you about who knew what when.

Please pay attention! Everyone now admits that Moore had “horrific” teaching evaluations — quoting Peter Just. And yet Williams still re-appointed him. That should clue you in as to how teaching is much less important than you think it ought to be.

Time to throw my own sources right back at you. The college did NOT reappoint Moore knowing the stories about his teaching that it does now. They simply were unaware. There are two conclusions: first, I think might have been a worse prof in his second semester, espeically after he secured a re-appointment. Second, the department may not have investigated his teaching enough.

Though, as other sources of mine have asserted, Moore’s SES scores were polarized, such that some people who cared more about his connections gave him very high scores to counter the low ones, then it’s possible that his scores were not so low as to appear out of the ordinary!

Get it?

…as I understood your answer to my Bolin Fellows point, the College does not care about teaching because…you say so?