Sunny skies and fuzzy bunnies
Thank you all for replying to my last post with the kind words and suggestions. They were much appreciated.
So I have talked to my colleagues, and they were not too concerned about what the Chair said to me. One of them pointed out that there are thankless courses to teach in the department, and that I have the honor of teaching the most thankless one. Evidently my stats course, now that it is now taught in-house instead of externalized onto the Math department, counts in our students' marks for their major. This means that it can effect whether or not they can enter our Honors program. So now I see myself as culling the herd so I don't have to suffer lazy sods in my Honors course, and I'm also doing my colleagues a favor.
Another colleague told me that no social science Dean that he could imagine would be bothered by anyone whose teaching evaluations in a mandatory statistics course were much lower than they were for other classes. And my teaching evaluations tend to be fairly good, at least from the numbers that I've seen here and back at UCLA. This colleague also noted there is a difference between a popular teacher and a good teacher. I'd like to think of myself as a good teacher (but then I guess everyone thinks that, no?). I'm just not all that interested in being popular if that means lowering my standards. And as another of my colleagues pointed out, teaching evaluations really don't matter, publications do.
The Otter Princess suggested I think of my students as fluffy bunnies: they are sweet, timid creatures. I added that bunnies are also dumb, and she told me to shut up and not ruin the analogy. If I treat them like I would treat fuzzy bunnies, then perhaps that will cause me to have a somewhat more compassionate avenue.
I'm still implementing my policies for next semester where I minimize the amount of contact time with students to the bare minimum required by my union. I have better things to do than expose myself to those annoying energy sinks. I'll do the minimum, and work at home the rest of the time. This way I can make sure I get some papers published, and make up for time lost this semester.
I received a revise and resubmit on a paper, so that made me quite happy. The Otter Princess also wandered home with a 14 pound turkey for an Xmas dinner. Last night I fell asleep at 8:30pm, and awoke again this morning at 8am. 11 plus hours of glorious snoozes. And one of our smart students came by and chatted with me for a while. And I finished two letters of recommendation for a student who wants to go to grad school at York and Guelph. Now I am home, and will shortly commence shooting things on my computer before retiring to my bed to be snuggled indulgently.
So I have talked to my colleagues, and they were not too concerned about what the Chair said to me. One of them pointed out that there are thankless courses to teach in the department, and that I have the honor of teaching the most thankless one. Evidently my stats course, now that it is now taught in-house instead of externalized onto the Math department, counts in our students' marks for their major. This means that it can effect whether or not they can enter our Honors program. So now I see myself as culling the herd so I don't have to suffer lazy sods in my Honors course, and I'm also doing my colleagues a favor.
Another colleague told me that no social science Dean that he could imagine would be bothered by anyone whose teaching evaluations in a mandatory statistics course were much lower than they were for other classes. And my teaching evaluations tend to be fairly good, at least from the numbers that I've seen here and back at UCLA. This colleague also noted there is a difference between a popular teacher and a good teacher. I'd like to think of myself as a good teacher (but then I guess everyone thinks that, no?). I'm just not all that interested in being popular if that means lowering my standards. And as another of my colleagues pointed out, teaching evaluations really don't matter, publications do.
The Otter Princess suggested I think of my students as fluffy bunnies: they are sweet, timid creatures. I added that bunnies are also dumb, and she told me to shut up and not ruin the analogy. If I treat them like I would treat fuzzy bunnies, then perhaps that will cause me to have a somewhat more compassionate avenue.
I'm still implementing my policies for next semester where I minimize the amount of contact time with students to the bare minimum required by my union. I have better things to do than expose myself to those annoying energy sinks. I'll do the minimum, and work at home the rest of the time. This way I can make sure I get some papers published, and make up for time lost this semester.
I received a revise and resubmit on a paper, so that made me quite happy. The Otter Princess also wandered home with a 14 pound turkey for an Xmas dinner. Last night I fell asleep at 8:30pm, and awoke again this morning at 8am. 11 plus hours of glorious snoozes. And one of our smart students came by and chatted with me for a while. And I finished two letters of recommendation for a student who wants to go to grad school at York and Guelph. Now I am home, and will shortly commence shooting things on my computer before retiring to my bed to be snuggled indulgently.