Comments for Worst Professor Ever

Comment on Putting the ‘Ass’ in Classics by Ippolytos

Ippolytos — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:07:53 +0000

Although another comment may not seem appropo”chuckle”…I think the strength of the article is that she is condescending. More power to her, where it is deserved. A discpline or field isnt merely, a single whole that has its own rules, as surruh above me sudgests. something like greek classics is universal, a provenance of the world, not unlike you can be a botanist without working at a college with a biology phd. And I think the people of this fien nation who arent so fortunate should repossess some of these subjects out of the tyrrany of such expets, as universal ones. And 2nd, I think shes too stereotypical, although obviously encouraged by real life. As fellow classics student I soon realized unlike her, that these people werent worth wasting your time around, and its too bad they cluster in certain areas. and shes right the rpivate sector wouldnt allow such things ever, but the private sector has its own bs. (it ican im sure).

Comment on Teaching Isn’t “All About the Students,” It’s All About Me by JS

JS — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:48:33 +0000

Thank you. I needed this. Someone who was actually honest about education and didn’t just spout some teaching jargon about, “You just need to connect with the students and everything will be rainbows and sunsets.”

Comment on When Oral History Argues Back by A. W.

A. W. — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:47:50 +0000

As a milennial, there is a certain frustration when people want to exclusively focus on what someone did “as a women.” It isn’t necessarily rooted in historical ignorance either (though there is undeniably plenty of that to go around) so much as in a deep hope that we have moved beyond symbolic victories for women, African Americans, etc. into an era of more substantive influence.

The problem arises, I suppose, in that Ann Richards is a historical figure (which sounds odd to me, growing up as I did in Austin in the 90s), and what we expect from contemporary discussions of feminism do not necessarily apply to the gender climate twenty years ago. The question then may very well have been valid on behalf of current women politicians looking forward, but I can understand a degree of hesitancy projecting that expectation back into history.

Comment on When Oral History Argues Back by wopro

wopro — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:46:45 +0000

Thanks! I know it’s frustrating when younger students don’t get that women *couldn’t* act like men, historically, but I think pragmatically we have to be really careful about how we bring that up — in this case, I think it was very condescending (and kind of sexist, really) to assume that this woman didn’t understand the point of the talk, rather than answering her question directly the first time.

Also, as I’ve learned, a constant litany of “you have to remember that in the past….” simply isn’t interesting to those who want to change the present. I once saw a great talk by a black history professor who said that the hardest and most important lesson he’d learned was letting go of the past, and not bringing historical racism into everything, the better to move forward into the future. I feel the same way about this type of situation — the most important thing to do, in a moment like this, isn’t to give a history lecture. It’s to answer to the question, so that we might have more women (and men) leaders who don’t have to think in terms of “what would a (wo)man do?”

Comment on When Oral History Argues Back by Sue

Sue — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:20:40 +0000

I do find this interesting, although the title of the Panel was “Can Women Change Politics?” so the woman should not have been too shocked by the focus on that during the panel. I teach college and I can understand the “I don’t get why women have to be talked about differently than men…” discussion – Difference Feminism vs. Equality Feminism prepared me for that. But, what frustrates me is when students are somewhat hostile to pointing out that women sometimes not only CAN/COULD and SHOULD (HAVE DONE) DO things differently, but they HAD TO do things differently because they were women. And sometimes what they did was modeled by men because it was found to be more successful. So, what Ann did, as a woman in politics, was change politics. As a rhetorician who studied a few female politicians, you see that Ann Richards was an amazingly adaptable politician, but one who did not model her actions on the male politicians, but instead on who she was as a person. Since then, others, including men have modeled her actions as politicians.

I do love Ann Richards. And I think its great that Gen Y women are not feeling like they can’t do things that men do. But, I do think its sad if we lose touch with the fact that sometimes we CAN learn how to be better women at the same time we are learning how to be better politicians…

Great post! Thanks for sharing! I may turn this into a blog response – if I do, I will let you know!

Comment on Guest Post: Death of a Soul (On Campus) by Amy Vidali

Amy Vidali — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:23:56 +0000

I really appreciate what you’ve had to say here – thank you! I just want to ask that you reconsider the Asperger’s comment – it’s really not appropriate.

Comment on Academia vs. the Real World, Round One by First (Link)Loves « Adjunctorium

First (Link)Loves « Adjunctorium — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:49:01 +0000

[...] Krauss describes and reflects on her relatively recent escape from academe at the Worst Professor Ever [...]

Comment on Looking Forward, Looking Back by Hokster

Hokster — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:02:52 +0000

I think you’ve picked up on somewhat disturbing trend. It’s why I would never want to be a senior academic administrator who needs to tow the party line yet keep a tight lip about selling out their former peers. Just getting a TT job or tenure was the golden ticket back in the day. We’re now seeing a disproportionate amount of the pie going to a VERY small group of “superstar” profs. It’s disgusting. I’m not only talking about labs, grad slave labor, etc. on the science side. I’ve seen humanities profs negotiate for 1-1 or 0-1 teaching loads, cars, swank apartments, etc. It’s not like the university came upon more money. That money is coming from the resources previously given to other members of the community, especially adjunct and now even asst./assoc. profs. with the lowest hanging fruit coming from the humanities. Full profs in the humanities know that it’s only a matter of time for them as well. Many keep quiet and enjoy the ride knowing that little can be done.

Comment on My Two Cents on SOPA by B

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:56:10 +0000

The idealism and entitlement from the tech sector makes me sick. The union between “liberals” who protest in the name of freedom and tech giants who benefit from pirating information is one of the creepiest I’ve ever seen. I, like you, don’t think we should force the world to step backward, but I also don’t think we should pretend that a world where nobody gets paid for providing information is a good thing.
Sometimes, I even sense a bit of sadism from techies… as if they feel that they deserve a stream of free content and that content producers deserve to be slaves.
Long before any of this, Paul Krugman published this article, which is basically a short sci-fi story. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/magazine/white-collars-turn-blue.html?pagewanted=all
I’m wondering if you’ve read it. He predicts all the things that we’re starting to see now, and he doesn’t pretend that they’re good or bad.

Comment on My Two Cents on SOPA by wopro

wopro — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:05:24 +0000

Well, sure, we could disagree on little things until the cows come home, but I’m glad to hear someone agrees with me on this point – let’s either do away with copyright or not, but this selective enforcement is bullshit.