Giving Zeroes for No Work

The Lynden Dorval situation continues to show up in the news.  My own sentiments are firmly with the teacher in this case, but this post is more to do with the underlying educational theory that led to the no-zero policy.  If I understand it correctly, the reason for this policy is that failing to complete work should be treated as a behavioural failing rather than an academic one, so an academic sanction should not be applied.  I'm not sure I buy this argument, but what I am wondering is whether this sort of philosophy is followed at the university level.  Do people at U of A give students indefinite opportunities to complete assignments or take exams?

Swing Low

Hard to imagine something like this happening here.

Compare and Contrast

University of Alberta.

One of our alleged peer institutions.

Five More Years

Congratulations to Carl A. on his reappointment to a third term as Provost.  Although a polarizing figure, I think he has accomplished a lot of positive things for the University, much more so than the President.  On the other hand, this reappointment was about as surprising as the outcome of a North Korean election.  Nevertheless, I wish him the best, and I hope he enjoys the 1-year leave that he has certainly earned over the last 10 years.

Hilarious

Crooked Timber has a great summary of the Sullivan mess at UVirginia, in the form of an updated Declaration of Independence:

Charlottesville, June 19th, 2012The More or Less Unanimous Declaration of the Board of VisitorsWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a Board to dissolve the administrative bands which have connected a President with a University, and to assume for themselves the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and the Bond Market entitle them, it is best to do it secretly, quickly, and in the middle of the night.

However, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation, especially when one is unexpectedly faced with large, angry crowds on the Lawn at two o’clock in the morning and a quite stupendous media shitstorm thereafter...

Kudos to Kieran Healy, and of course...read the whole thing!

What Happened?

Lots of things IRL have stymied my ability to keep up with this blog.  Now that we're into summer, I want to dwell a bit on the recent vote held by AASUA.  A highly flawed proposal that included minimal COLA increases for the next two years plus faculty participation in an ill-defined "Renaissance Committee" that seems destined to help cause the extinction of the professor as we know it was passed by a 59% to 41% vote.  What is pathetic is that only 29% of eligible voters did so.  If people cannot exert themselves to get involved enough to vote online, I guess we deserve whatever is done to us.