Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
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Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
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Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#2I'm not sure if "complaining about getting fired" counts as "whistleblowing".
I'm not necessarily inclined to take this guy's side of the dispute just because I read it first.
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#3I had the pleasure of taking Differential Equations from Dr. Coward at UC Davis back in undergrad. He was one of the best math professors I ever had.
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#4I'm not sure if "complaining about getting fired" counts as "whistleblowing". I'm not necessarily inclined to take this guy's side of the dispute just because I read it first.
I think this goes far beyond complaining about getting fired, and delves into the pernicious attitudes of the department's faculty. For example:
"Given the success I am having with students, one might think that the Mathematics Department leadership would be expressing curiosity about how I am achieving that success. Instead, Craig Evans [the interim chair of the department] in early 2014 asked me 'If you had a job at McDonalds and came along with all these new ideas, how long do you think you'd carry on working there?' The fact that the now Interim Chair of the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department should compare undergraduate education to fast food reveals everything you need to know about how students are regarded by the leading clique of men at the helm of the Mathematics Department of the number one public university in the world."
Should faculty be punished for having new ideas about teaching (which happen to be successful[1], and well-liked by students)?
[1] "My Fall 2013 Math 1A students were tracked into the next course in the sequence, Math 1B, and it was found that their average grade in Math 1B was 0.17 grade points higher than that of those students who took Math 1A with another instructor."
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#5As a UC Berkeley student who's never taken one of Coward's classes, I've heard great things from every single friend of mine whose taken his class ("I love Coward" is heard a lot). I know students are already rallying to keep him at Cal. However, I think that perhaps the Math Department at Cal doesn't deserve such a great professor if the system is as decrepit as described.
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#6#WithCowardWeStand
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#7#WithCowardWeStand
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#8More rotten news from Berkeley. Just this week, it was revealed that the university administration decided a warning was sufficient punishment after a Title IX investigation revealed Prof. Geoff Marcy participated in a decade of abusive and harassing behavior.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/science/astronomer-apologi...
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#9Keep 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.
Re: Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department
#10[deleted]