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Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

alexandercoward.com

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Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#71

Post by ak217 »

socrates2016 wrote: post #37

Have a Berkeley math degree. Two observations. Student ratings are whack. I had a professor I thought was really good but had an average rating. I had one fellow student state that he hated the professor. I am pretty sure the professor did nothing to him that deserved that hatred. People don't like it when they don't do as well as they expect. Second, it appears that the math department hires based on research becaus…

I have a triple major from Cal with math among them. All I can say is that Berkeley math classes were the most brutal, boring, and demotivating classes that I've ever encountered. For the longest time I tried to suck it up and blame myself. Luckily, since then I've had enough great classes and mentors to realize it really was the department and its professors that made me miserable, and I overcame the massive GPA drop and near-suicidal tendencies that Berkeley Math drove me to.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#72

Post by greenyoda »

Gatsky wrote: post #45

Classic Sayre's Law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

Except that this isn't just petty political infighting among the faculty over office space and such. It affects students' educations, which are pretty high stakes (the main purpose of the university, some might even say).

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#73

Post by brianchu »

Gatsky wrote: post #45

Classic Sayre's Law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

I think the stakes are quite high. If he is truly a superior lecturer, at stake is the calculus education of over 800 students per year at one of the top schools in the nation, many of whom will be future scientists and engineers.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#75

Post by dustintran »

ak217 wrote: post #71
socrates2016 wrote: post #37

Have a Berkeley math degree. Two observations. Student ratings are whack. I had a professor I thought was really good but had an average rating. I had one fellow student state that he hated the professor. I am pretty sure the professor did nothing to him that deserved that hatred. People don't like it when they don't do as well as they expect. Second, it appears that the math department hires based on research becaus…

I have a triple major from Cal with math among them. All I can say is that Berkeley math classes were the most brutal, boring, and demotivating classes that I've ever encountered. For the longest time I tried to suck it up and blame myself. Luckily, since then I've had enough great classes and mentors to realize it really was the department and its professors that made me miserable, and I overcame the massive GPA dro…

You've voiced my own feelings exactly.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#76

Post by greenyoda »

NhanH wrote: post #20
stonogo wrote: post #9

Keep in mind how you would handle this situation if you managed a large and well-established dev team with procedures and policies you worked hard on and are proud of. It is not enough for a team member to be fantastic in a solo role. I'd be more interested in hearing from other faculty than I would from the students, who don't much experience actually working with Coward.

It's not really comparable between a dev team and the teaching position. At the very least, there are argument to be made that superstar but annoying dev can have detrimental effect on other devs. There are approximately 0 chance that an amazing professor can have negative effect on other professor's teaching ability (yes, they can, but you know what I meant and please don't get into pedantry here). The closer compar…

"Further, the current Interim Chair, Craig Evans, explained that I am causing problems because students are not signing up for other Professors' classes on account of me."

Perhaps it's the other professors who are causing the problem by not putting any effort into teaching well?

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#77

Post by nilkn »

analog31 wrote: post #54
socrates2016 wrote: post #37

Have a Berkeley math degree. Two observations. Student ratings are whack. I had a professor I thought was really good but had an average rating. I had one fellow student state that he hated the professor. I am pretty sure the professor did nothing to him that deserved that hatred. People don't like it when they don't do as well as they expect. Second, it appears that the math department hires based on research becaus…

Conventional wisdom among teachers is that ratings are mainly a function of the grades that students expect to receive in the course. I was in the room when two profs were discussing their grading policies, and one of them flat-out wanted to give easy grades because he was coming up on tenure.

I found this snippet from an open letter he wrote to the Mathematics Department in the past:

> you instructed me to show a draft of my final to another very eminent member of faculty and former winner of the distinguished teaching award. His comment on a draft that contained 8 questions was that it was already too long and too hard, and should be no longer. I had originally been planning on asking 15 or so questions, including some difficult ones, but I was not allowed to do so. In the end we settled on 12 questions. The result of this intervention by you and other faculty was that the median score was over 90%, and in order to keep to departmental grade distributions I had to set the A- cutoff at 93%

The implication here seems to be that his final exam was notably harder than is typical and yet he was forced to throttle the cutoff for an A- to enforce regulated grade distributions (which in and of itself is a horrendous policy).

The letter is here:

http://alexandercoward.com/OpenLetter.pdf

I think it's hard to ignore this in combination with the highest teaching scores anyone in the department has received in apparently 18 years.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#78

Post by philip1209 »

I'm not associated with UC Berkeley, but I have been involved in a lot of campus politics in the past. Because I see many alumni commenting here about the effectiveness of this lecturer, I offer a suggestion: Give a restricted gift to the university. Earmark it for something like the salary or research of Dr. Coward. If they want to play politics, you can too and restrict that your donations are tied to his continued employment.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#79

Post by xamuel »

greenyoda wrote: post #72
Gatsky wrote: post #45

Classic Sayre's Law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law

Except that this isn't just petty political infighting among the faculty over office space and such. It affects students' educations, which are pretty high stakes (the main purpose of the university, some might even say).

A skillful writer can make any job sound indispensable. Money is a better indicator than words when it comes to what society really values beneath all the soundbites.

Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department

#80

Post by jleader »

analog31 wrote: post #50

In addition there are further mischaracterizations of my teaching in my personnel file that I am prevented from sharing because the University claims it is their property. That's worth confirming with a lawyer. AFAIK most states require employers to let you copy your personnel file.

My guess would be that you're allowed to copy, but they probably don't want you to publicly share what you've copied. Whether that desire for you not to disclose is legally enforceable should be confirmed with a lawyer, of course.
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