Blowing the whistle on the uc berkeley mathematics department
This remark that I should align more with department standards has been the resounding theme of my time at Berkeley, and Arthur Ogus's comment in the April 18th, 2014 memo was not an isolated slip. On September 22nd, 2013 he wrote in an email "But I do think it that it [sic] is very important that you not deviate too far from the department norms." On November 12th, 2014 he wrote "I hope that, on the basis of our conversation, you can further adjust to the norms of our department." This raises the question: What does it mean to adhere to department norms if one has the highest student evaluation scores in the department, students performing statistically significantly better in subsequent courses, and faculty observations universally reporting "extraordinary skills at lecturing, presentation, and engaging students"?
This question is one that I asked, and in response it was made very clear to me what is meant by the norms of the department. It means teach from the textbook. It means stop emailing students with encouragement, handwritten notes and homework problems, and instead assign problems from the textbook at the start of the semester. It means stop using evidence-based practices like formative assessment. It means micro-manage the Graduate Student Instructors rather than allowing them to use their own, considerable, talent and creativity. And most of all it means this: Stop motivating students to work hard and attend class by being engaging, encouraging and inspiring, by sharing with them a passion for the beauty and wonder of mathematics, but instead by forcing them into obedience with endless busywork in the form of GPA-affecting homework and quizzes and assessments, day after day, semester after semester.
In a nutshell: Stop making us look bad. If you don't, we'll fire you.
Schools comparable to Berkeley have one of three common organizations of math teachers. One, Berkeley's old structure, is to employ no lecturers. Another is to employ a lot of lecturers, whose job is simply to teach as well as possible.
But I think the most common organization is to employ a small number of lecturers who do a small amount of teaching, but whose real job is to handle the administrative details of teaching, such as placement of freshmen, curriculum design, and instructing graduate students in teaching. I think the complaints make most sense in the context of the department expecting him to grow into such a job.
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