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Im starting to think Dakka really hates colleges

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, Educate me, I see tenure as a good system. It allows teachers to be secure in their job.


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nkelsch wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

3B Not veryone is uppity, but some people consider academia uppity which I dont understand

College professors are not qualified to teach, simply to be 'subject matter experts'.
.

I dont know where this comes from. Im trying to become a college professor, And I have to get my teaching credentials for it.
And it is those owns peoples fault for going to college if they are not prepared for. And there are ways to go to college and NOT pay massive debt. Im nearing the end(2-3 more years) and y'know how much debt I incured? None. NONE!!!!
And here is the thing, many jobs I know require a degree. If you want a good job, go to college or trade school.

Most colleges require zero education degree to teach. There is no 'teaching credentials' or 'certification' for the college level. It simply doesn't exist. If they require a k-12 education certification for professorship, more power to them. I know for a fact that is not the norm and I explicitly questioned every one of my professors qualifications. I would be really interested in what 'teaching credentials' they are making you take for college professorship outside higher education in your field. You are not taxing the praxis or getting a state education to teach at the college level.

I can tell you a lot of adjunct professors are people with nothing more than an undergrad and are willing to take the crappy pay. Many of the 100 level classes are taught by people who are not even SME.

Everyone should explicitly research and question the qualifications of their professors, sadly, if a school has a bunch of worthless unqualified hacks, you may not be able to do much more than change schools.

I dont know. Most of my proffs have been Doctors. I have had a few bad ones, but that was the older proffs stuck in their ways of "@ weeks for 5 page paper"

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I dont know. Most of my proffs have been Doctors. I have had a few bad ones, but that was the older proffs stuck in their ways of "@ weeks for 5 page paper"

Being a PHD = Subject Matter Expert. Doesn't mean you know gak about educating others on the material or educational techniques in general.

Being a world class biologist and teaching biology to hundreds of students who all learn in an array of ways are not the same thing. College often expects students to 'learn on their own' and see the professor's role as an observer and not an educator. While extreme higher education benefit from such SMEs, undergrad does not, and having professors who can't teach at the undergrad level wastes everyone's time and harms people and they pay for the privilege.

But you do not need to be a PHD to teach at the college level... You usually only need to be at the level or above what you are teaching. I know many people who have nothing but a masters who teach freshman comp at the college level. Hell, I know people without a college degree who are certified in the computer industry certs and are certified to be a Microsoft/cisco instructor who teach at the college level because there is no one else to teach it. But none of them have the training or skill which k-12 educators have to have to actually 'teach' students VS being a SME in a field.

That's why I'd advocate two ways to get tenure...

1) Become an excellent educator. (only teach class... no need to research, get grants, etc...)

or

2) Become an excellent researcher (publish papers, get grants, etc...) but don't need to teach classrooms.

But, not both.

It's not 100% foolproof, but it should mitigate the gakky teacher scenario.

nkelsch wrote:
This happens all the time in government agencies. You take the King's coin, you do the King's bidding.

Your email is not your email. It is a government-owned tool for you to do your work. If you are doing personal and inappropriate things on your government work phones or emails, you are held responsible for your actions and it is a matter of public record.

Work emails in private companies are also not private and is property of your employer which they can do with as they please.

If you want privacy... go get gmail (lawl)

I actually agree with Nkelsch 100%. I may have to go sit down for a minute...

How do you expect people to teach 100+ students in a room, a Proff doesnt have the time for that. If you cant handle that "Learn on their own" then dont bother with college.


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 whembly wrote:
That's why I'd advocate two ways to get tenure...

1) Become an excellent educator. (only teach class... no need to research, get grants, etc...)

or

2) Become an excellent researcher (publish papers, get grants, etc...) but don't need to teach classrooms.

But, not both.

It's not 100% foolproof, but it should mitigate the gakky teacher scenario.

What is someone wants to do both? Like me?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

the gakky teacher scenario.

What is someone wants to do both? Like me?

Then be good at BOTH.

hotsauceman1 wrote:So if you work for the government you are subject to give you emails to people?

Yes. The idea is it's not "your" emails. The public owns that.

d-usa wrote:But students will email personal details to their professors because they assume that they have an expectation of privacy.

That's on them. There is no reason to think a college professor is a profession that requires confidentiality - something you really only get with a priest, lawyer, or health professional. There is no veil to be pierced.

d-usa wrote:If the professor is using his work email for non-work related activities that he would like to remain secret then he should follow the lead of our elected officials in Oklahoma:

"Here are all my emails, you see I didn't do anything questionable. What's that over there you ask? That's my private Yahoo mail account, not public at all. I never use it at work or for government related things *wink wink*"

It's very popular for politicians of all stripes to do this. In an ideal world, in my opinion, doing state business on private providers to avoid public record laws (in the way Sarah Palin, George W Bush, and more recently, the EPA have done) would be a felony.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Im starting to think Dakka really hates colleges

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't care it's a college one way or the other. I'm simply a very big fan of accountability in government and open records laws facilitate that. The motivations of the requestee are totally irrelevant to me.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, Educate me, I see tenure as a good system. It allows teachers to be secure in their job.

You say that like its a good thing. Ideally, people should only be secure when they do a good job.

I often see Dakka really hate teacher, educators, princibles, gakking on colleges and saying how they suck. And I do not know why.

nkelsch wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
This happens all the time in government agencies. You take the King's coin, you do the King's bidding.

Your email is not your email. It is a government-owned tool for you to do your work. If you are doing personal and inappropriate things on your government work phones or emails, you are held responsible for your actions and it is a matter of public record.

You know how I can tell you did not read the article?

A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities.

UNC is a public university. Employees of that university have no expectation of privacy and are subject to laws which impact other taxpayer funded institutions.

You want privacy? become a private university.

Both parties do this, so I am not going to get outraged at political witchhunt accusations as the Dems are spying their ass off via the NSA right now. Sure some people may use FOIA for political trickery but it is better to have transparency when they are spending taxpayer's dollars.

So I have no pity for this school, the employee or the smelly lawschool professors who signed a letter.

Again 100% agreement.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im starting to think Dakka really hates colleges

Not all just tenure and disgust at the cost now. The rest is envy on my part of my Boy.

Isnt part of being a parent is seeing them do better then you Frazz?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
How do you expect people to teach 100+ students in a room, a Proff doesnt have the time for that. If you cant handle that "Learn on their own" then dont bother with college.

Have you not been through first year yet? Often your classes are gigantic. I had 300 students in my biology at the "Big" university. Ironically, most of my core classes were at a CC and were quite small in contrast to what others did at the 4 year.

I took one law class with 900 students. I gak you not.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I often see Dakka really hate teacher, educators, princibles, gakking on colleges and saying how they suck. And I do not know why.

princibles? Please clarify.

For the rest, when you get older you get more than your share of crappy [pick a category] and the bloom is off the rose.

I have. Im in my fourth year. My topped at....50 students.

@Ouze: my wife started to work for a school a few years ago, and I remember that she had to go through a lot of privacy training regarding students and their records and communication. It seemed like it was similar to HIPAA, but in an education instead of a healthcare setting.

Now I don't know if that was a state vs federal law, and/or if it applies to K-12 only. And if it does apply it seems like one should be able to just redact all personal information if there is an expectation of privacy there.

On one hand I do agree with "you should have to show a reason why you want the records", but on the other you would end up with "the reason why I want the records is in the records" situations.

tl;dr: I'm okay with e-mails being public records as long as student information is somehow protected...I guess

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
How do you expect people to teach 100+ students in a room, a Proff doesnt have the time for that. If you cant handle that "Learn on their own" then dont bother with college.

Why are crap colleges, with increasing tuitions and public funding packing 100+ kids into a class? We can do it at the public school level with 30-person class size for 8-10k a student, why can't colleges do it for the same? Why is it costing 5 times that to provide a inferior education? and that 5 times the cost is supplemented with taxpayer funds.

Then why should people even go to college? Sounds like anyone should simply be allowed to go to a public Library for free for 4 years, self-study and make society better as an educated qualified person without spending a dime? If College is 'Self-study' then what role does the professor provide and why do we need them? Why are we wasting all this money when we simply could have 'self-study' environments provided for people to teach themselves and gain skills without the need for colleges?

The issue is people who can 'succeed' in college can also 'succeed' without college... but are forced through the college institutions to gain access to a higher level of employment which doesn't expect or require actual skills, or knowledge just right of passage. College graduates which colleges are churning out now a days from 4 year institutions are grossly unqualified for everything they do right now and have huge debt to show for it.

Public school teachers are more qualified to TEACH than college professors, and sadly, being a SME is of little use if they can't transfer knowledge. I can read a book and totally remove the need for a worthless SME who can't teach. Killing Tenure is the first step to getting rid of these crap professors. Until then, all you can do is over enroll every semester and then withdraw any class you end up with one of those uneducated Hacks as your professor. Navigating through your major while avoiding the crap professors is a needed skill for colleges.

 d-usa wrote:
@Ouze: my wife started to work for a school a few years ago, and I remember that she had to go through a lot of privacy training regarding students and their records and communication. It seemed like it was similar to HIPAA, but in an education instead of a healthcare setting.

It may have been FERPA requirements. Grades, transcripts, and things like that are privileged.

I feel you on redacting, but am not sure what a good middle ground would be between protecting privacy of non-targets, so to speak, vs the public interest. My idea solution would be for professors to be very clear with students that their communications are public.
'

 Ouze wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
@Ouze: my wife started to work for a school a few years ago, and I remember that she had to go through a lot of privacy training regarding students and their records and communication. It seemed like it was similar to HIPAA, but in an education instead of a healthcare setting.

It may have been FERPA requirements. Grades, transcripts, and things like that are privileged.

That might be it. Of course I could just put down the phone and ask her...

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Isnt part of being a parent is seeing them do better then you Frazz?

You bet your ass it is. Thats why I am envious.

 d-usa wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
@Ouze: my wife started to work for a school a few years ago, and I remember that she had to go through a lot of privacy training regarding students and their records and communication. It seemed like it was similar to HIPAA, but in an education instead of a healthcare setting.

It may have been FERPA requirements. Grades, transcripts, and things like that are privileged.

That might be it. Of course I could just put down the phone and ask her...

And when you do a FOIA request, part of the process is documents get redacted for actual protected information where it applies. If I had discussed HIPAA data in a government email, while the DATA may be protected, the email may not be, so they can redact the data and release the email.

really?

the arguement is about wether PUBLIC records should be made public?


the arguement that these PUBLIC records contains PRIVATE info is irrelevent, as these people have willingly put their private info into a public data bank... if you post your personal info in a public park, its your own fault.

the only issue here, should be weather or not the appropraite notification was given to all participants, that the university intra-net, emails, and so on, is ALL PUBLIC data

and at least at my uni, yes, its VERY apparent if you read the student agreement (which 99.9% do NO bother to read, so its on them)
that every single paper/email, electronic or otherwise, that you put through the UNI systems, is now a matter of public record since it is goin to public service emails, computers, ect ect ect

even then, usually when documents are retrieved, personal info not related to the specific request will be redacted

It's a classic question: how to balance the needs of the public wanting to know about an agency against the needs of the public that has to interact with an agency.

nkelsch wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Snip

They exist to make sure you learn the material. And I have a question. if you go read a book about lets say......biology. How do you know what you remember is correct.
Colleges exist to allow for a better educated society. And I find you villianizing of academia insulting.

 d-usa wrote:
....tl;dr: I'm okay with e-mails being public records as long as student information is somehow protected...I guess

Yeah, this is usually the sticking point. As you pointed out earlier in this thread, while the professor's emails are subject to public scrutiny under the law, students and other correspondents may not be.

A similar situation occurred in Wisconsin around 2010/11: Professor William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin wrote a blog entry about the growing influence of the ALEC in state legislatures across the country. Pretty much immediately, the conservative members of the state legislature started demanding to sift through all of his public/professional correspondences looking for some ill-defined search terms.

Leaving aside the fact that this was an incredibly transparent attempt to intimidate and bully a professor who had written a rather innocuous and even handed assessment of the goals and reach of the ALEC, he refused to turn over the requested documentation where it pertained to or involved his students on the grounds that their right to privacy was more important than the state's right to fish through his communications.

I recall he ultimately stopped state Republicans from gaining access to emails between himself and his students (although I might be wrong about this).

I believe very much in personal and governmental accountability, and despite my obvious feelings about the motivations behind this request, I do believe state Republicans were legally justified in asking for Cronon's records. However, I think that he was right in demanding that exchanges between himself and students should be protected in some more significant ways.

I would like to see this situations worked out in a similar manner.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

They exist to make sure you learn the material. And I have a question. if you go read a book about lets say......biology. How do you know what you remember is correct.
Colleges exist to allow for a better educated society. And I find you villianizing of academia insulting.

Then be insulted, because I am insulting it and those who blindly defend it and don't see that the current system is crumbling in purpose and quality under the weight of corruption. While some are doing things for the true betterment of society, many are not and there is a lot of corruption and dirty money going on in higher education. I find college athletics particularly offensive and a cancer and dislike the harm it does to student athletes.

College professors do nothing to make sure you learn the material and do nothing to make sure what you remember is 'correct'.

If they were about the betterment of society through education, they would do more to make sure people are actually educated and expect more from those providing the education and requiring those who provide the education to actually be able to teach others. Higher standards and all that. Tenure and 'hiding dishonesty' by trying to hide emails obstructs that and harms society. There is nothing wrong with people who want to educate to have standards applied to them and people who are ineffective to be removed.

"College professors do nothing to make sure you learn the material and do nothing to make sure what you remember is 'correct'. "

Ha, No. Every proffessor I have had you can go up to, talk, and make sure you know it.

nkelsch wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

They exist to make sure you learn the material. And I have a question. if you go read a book about lets say......biology. How do you know what you remember is correct.
Colleges exist to allow for a better educated society. And I find you villianizing of academia insulting.

Then be insulted, because I am insulting it and those who blindly defend it and don't see that the current system is crumbling in purpose and quality under the weight of corruption. While some are doing things for the true betterment of society, many are not and there is a lot of corruption and dirty money going on in higher education. I find college athletics particularly offensive and a cancer and dislike the harm it does to student athletes.

College professors do nothing to make sure you learn the material and do nothing to make sure what you remember is 'correct'.

If they were about the betterment of society through education, they would do more to make sure people are actually educated and expect more from those providing the education and requiring those who provide the education to actually be able to teach others. Higher standards and all that. Tenure and 'hiding dishonesty' by trying to hide emails obstructs that and harms society. There is nothing wrong with people who want to educate to have standards applied to them and people who are ineffective to be removed.

The Civitas Institute has NO INTEREST in educational standards.

Plus... once you get to college you should have long ago stopped worrying about what is "correct" as the sole goal of education. I've only had one teacher require that we remember stuff verbatim (islamic law schools and codes. promptly forgotten now).

McGill had a long policy statement that we had to click that any and all matters discussed in our emails was property of the university and not to be considered private under any circumstances. Every syllabus we got handed at the beginning of every class reminded us of that. Plus with the lowering levels of public monies going toward its coffers every year, it's becoming less and less of a public entity.


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 Kanluwen wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

They exist to make sure you learn the material. And I have a question. if you go read a book about lets say......biology. How do you know what you remember is correct.
Colleges exist to allow for a better educated society. And I find you villianizing of academia insulting.

Then be insulted, because I am insulting it and those who blindly defend it and don't see that the current system is crumbling in purpose and quality under the weight of corruption. While some are doing things for the true betterment of society, many are not and there is a lot of corruption and dirty money going on in higher education. I find college athletics particularly offensive and a cancer and dislike the harm it does to student athletes.

College professors do nothing to make sure you learn the material and do nothing to make sure what you remember is 'correct'.

If they were about the betterment of society through education, they would do more to make sure people are actually educated and expect more from those providing the education and requiring those who provide the education to actually be able to teach others. Higher standards and all that. Tenure and 'hiding dishonesty' by trying to hide emails obstructs that and harms society. There is nothing wrong with people who want to educate to have standards applied to them and people who are ineffective to be removed.

The Civitas Institute has NO INTEREST in educational standards.

They might. Maybe them like them as low as possible?

 Kanluwen wrote:
The Civitas Institute has NO INTEREST in educational standards.

Probably not.

Not sure why that means members of the public shouldn't have access to public records, though.