Some Kind of Professor
Well, I’m some kind of professor anyway.
I’m still pondering whether “passable professor” means my teaching is marginally acceptable or that students can pass my classes.
by James Hanley · September 26, 2014
James Hanley
James Hanley is a two-bit college professor who'd rather be canoeing.
April 23, 2010
July 30, 2018
January 21, 2009
From CNN Business:
New York (CNN Business)Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands and a major donor to Republican politicians, died late Monday following complications related to his cancer treatment, his company said. He was 87.
AdelsonĀ took a leave of absenceĀ from Sands last week to resume treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which his aides first disclosed inĀ late February 2019.
(Featured image is "Some birds hanging out at the Sands Casino in Atlantic City"Ā byĀ iirraaĀ is licensed underĀ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Comment āIn the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trumpās supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited āfree speechā ā but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.
The researcher, who asked to be referred to by their Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of āvery incriminatingā evidence. According to the Atlantic Councilās Digital Forensic Research Lab, among others, Parler is one of a number of apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.
(Featured image is "A radio tracking device on a Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) at the Cotswold Falconry Centre"Ā byĀ Anguskirk and is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Comment āFrom Twitter Safety:
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y
ā Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
(Featured image is "Free Bird"Ā byĀ Ennev and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Comment āFrom DFW's CBS:
DALLAS, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) āĀ Chief Judge Barbara Lynn of the Northern District of Texas has reversed aĀ previous ruling of the Court that had dismissed all claims against the City of Dallas in the murder of Botham Jean.
The federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Dallas is now allowed to proceed once an amended lawsuit is filed.
We discussed Amber Guyger getting indicted here.
We discussed her trial here.
(Featured image is Botham Jean from The Botham Jean Foundation/Facebook)
Comment āJanuary 18, 2021
Game of Thrones: Little People, Big World
January 18, 2021
Sunday Morning: “Swann’s Way/ Swann in Love” by Marcel Proust (Pt 2)
January 17, 2021
Yann’s Hot Dog Stand, Chocolate Milk, and Hometown Tradition
January 17, 2021
January 18, 2021
January 18, 2021
Game of Thrones: Little People, Big World
January 18, 2021
Sunday Morning: “Swann’s Way/ Swann in Love” by Marcel Proust (Pt 2)
January 17, 2021
One of the Saddest Sights In The World
January 17, 2021
Yann’s Hot Dog Stand, Chocolate Milk, and Hometown Tradition
January 17, 2021
Saturday Morning Gaming: Guacamelee!
January 16, 2021
Saturday Spins: Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Session
January 16, 2021
It’s Not Just About A Speech: Impeachment and President Trump
January 13, 2021
January 6th: A Layman’s Post About Group Behavior
January 14, 2021
I Love My Country, But Letās Not Kid Ourselves.
January 16, 2021
Impeachment, President Trump, and Evidence That Demands a Verdict
January 12, 2021
Game of Thrones: Little People, Big World
January 18, 2021
Love it. Related: my favorite student evaluation ever was “She went and had a baby during the semester and her substitute sucked.” My husband just got one last semester that said it he was mean to people with disabilities.Report
@rose-woodhouse Some of my fathers (retired geneticist) reviews are floating around online. It truns out that his labs were awesome when stoned!Report
Your dad’s Walter Bishop? š
(If you’re not a Fringe fan, ignore this.)Report
Not being able to finish your homework on time is a disability, right?Report
Maybe passable means plausible?Report
But having tenure renders this a purely academic inquiry!Report
Well, it may be relevant that I was denied promotion to full professor last year on the basis of supposedly not being a good enough teacher.Report
Hm, I don’t know anything about your pedagogical style, in person or all, but having had plenty of conversations with you on the blog here I’d be hard pressed to imagine that you’re anything but more than a “good enough” teacher, James.Report
@patrick,
My best students mostly say good things about me, but there might be multiple ways to interpret that evidence.Report
Maybe they think the cost of taking one more class from you is worth the tuition they have to pay.Report
Do they no longer teach how to write legibly these days?Report
To be fair, it is a waist high horizontal surface, and I’m not sure American education has ever emphasized practicing writing in that kind of hunched over position.Report
Which is disrespectful to hunched over, waist-high writers, no?Report
incoming freshmen have enough issues with typing essays that handwriting should be right down there with teaching them how to send telegrams or ride mastodons.Report
@dhex
I believe the latter is actually a course of study at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne.Report
huh. you really do learn something new every day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPFW_Mastodons#Mascot_and_Monikers
“By using the name Mastodons, IPFW is the only NCAA college to use an extinct organism as its mascot.”Report
The university of Illinois at Chicago uses a dragon, which while not extinct, hasn’t been seen in a while.Report
You’re a good, passable, above average blogger too.Report
@james-hanley
Have you ever been called a potable professor?Report
Since he’s not not a potted plan, I suppose he has to be potableReport
Well, I’m often potted.
More seriously, a student once saw me having a very small drink of bourbon in my office with a colleague, and later wrote on the evaluation that she went to my office once and I “was boozing it up!”
I do find the very religious students a challenge at times.Report
Thats like the time, Saul and I were on vacation as kids with our parents in Lancaster County. Our first night, we had dinner at this buffet place. My dad asked what beer they had. The waitress’ eyes grew wild and sharply told them they were a family restaurant and did not serve beer.Report
I wonder what that person thinks you are passing as? White? Straight? Nonlibertarian? šReport
@scott-the-mediocre
As a professor. Professor Smith in English Literature comes off more like a loan officer at a bank than an expert on Romantic Poetry.Report
My favorite teaching evaluation, of all those that I received, said: “I think Dr. New is an excellent professor. I never fell asleep once in his class.”
At least I entertained them.Report