4 ms·

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 pr

by stonogo 11y ago

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.

mckiddy 11y ago
His entire job was teaching students, so I don't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the faculty thinks if the students like him and perform well.
- jannotti 11y ago
  Right. I was skeptical in first few paragraphs, since students' teaching assessments do have their flaws. But if there was a statistically significant improvement in his students performance in later classes, then the man's doing his job. Yes, there could still be confounding factors. He is seen as an enjoyable lecturer, and students who care about their classes enough to select the better lecturer might be better students. But still. If you want to continue the analogy to software engineering, the modules he's producing are students, and they are meeting their specifications (later performance) quite well.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
striking 11y ago
A software dev team requires far more one-on-one interaction between "faculty members" than teaching does (where faculty are the ones producing the software and the students are the users). And in any case, if someone on a dev team got significantly better numbers by bucking the trends, I would be obligated to try and understand their methods and help them gain greater acceptance. It doesn't make sense to remove someone who gets results. It makes sense to integrate them.
- Sven7 11y ago
  Not always. I have seen cases where the most productive/well liked person on the team has got fired cause they made the wrong people look bad. Did that turn out bad for the team? Not really. Life goes on. And sometimes its just a good learning experience for both parties.
  - striking 11y ago
    That sounds more like a testament to the sociopathic nature of business in practice, rather than the ideal way to carry it out.
chris_wot 11y ago
If your procedures and policies within a well established team cause poor performance, then I think your pride is probable unjustified. Mathematics is actually fascinating, but teaching and listening to math lectures is generally not interesting at all. Anyone who can teach it and keep Students interested and have them understand the material is a gem and should be kept at all costs!
NhanH 11y ago
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 comparison would be a Big 4 accounting partner (or law firm partner) that bring in revenue, is well loved by his clients. You know what would happen if the firm fires them? The clients leave with the partner. Luckily for Berkeley their clients can't leave nilly wily here. Edit: On second reading, this was mentioned: "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. This is to be observed this semester, Fall 2015." Yeah, if this was some consulting professional firm, the firm would be in big trouble already.
- greenyoda 11y ago
  "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?
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    Or maybe they're not putting the effort because they're "just doing what they've been told to do"...
analog31 11y ago
But it is a solo role. There is no team, no procedures, no policies. I taught math as an adjunct at a Big Ten university with a prestigious math department several years ago. I never once met with any member of the faculty, even my supervisor, and nobody ever observed my teaching. All of the sections of the course that I taught had the same syllabus and exams. I had students from other sections sitting in on my lectures. As for hearing from faculty, oddly enough I was on the other side of the issue as well, since I also taught the 3rd year "weeder" course in electrical engineering. My students were woefully unprepared in math despite N semesters of calculus in the math department. Once during a break in the activity, I asked my engineering students how the university could improve engineering education. Their consensus: Better math teaching.

by stonogo 11y ago

mckiddy 11y ago

His entire job was teaching students, so I don't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the faculty thinks if the students like him and perform well.

jannotti 11y ago
Right. I was skeptical in first few paragraphs, since students' teaching assessments do have their flaws. But if there was a statistically significant improvement in his students performance in later classes, then the man's doing his job. Yes, there could still be confounding factors. He is seen as an enjoyable lecturer, and students who care about their classes enough to select the better lecturer might be better students. But still. If you want to continue the analogy to software engineering, the modules he's producing are students, and they are meeting their specifications (later performance) quite well.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

striking 11y ago

A software dev team requires far more one-on-one interaction between "faculty members" than teaching does (where faculty are the ones producing the software and the students are the users). And in any case, if someone on a dev team got significantly better numbers by bucking the trends, I would be obligated to try and understand their methods and help them gain greater acceptance. It doesn't make sense to remove someone who gets results. It makes sense to integrate them.

Sven7 11y ago
Not always. I have seen cases where the most productive/well liked person on the team has got fired cause they made the wrong people look bad. Did that turn out bad for the team? Not really. Life goes on. And sometimes its just a good learning experience for both parties.
- striking 11y ago
  That sounds more like a testament to the sociopathic nature of business in practice, rather than the ideal way to carry it out.

chris_wot 11y ago

If your procedures and policies within a well established team cause poor performance, then I think your pride is probable unjustified. Mathematics is actually fascinating, but teaching and listening to math lectures is generally not interesting at all. Anyone who can teach it and keep Students interested and have them understand the material is a gem and should be kept at all costs!

NhanH 11y ago

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 comparison would be a Big 4 accounting partner (or law firm partner) that bring in revenue, is well loved by his clients. You know what would happen if the firm fires them? The clients leave with the partner. Luckily for Berkeley their clients can't leave nilly wily here. Edit: On second reading, this was mentioned: "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. This is to be observed this semester, Fall 2015." Yeah, if this was some consulting professional firm, the firm would be in big trouble already.

greenyoda 11y ago
"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?
- psykovsky 11y ago
  Or maybe they're not putting the effort because they're "just doing what they've been told to do"...

analog31 11y ago

But it is a solo role. There is no team, no procedures, no policies. I taught math as an adjunct at a Big Ten university with a prestigious math department several years ago. I never once met with any member of the faculty, even my supervisor, and nobody ever observed my teaching. All of the sections of the course that I taught had the same syllabus and exams. I had students from other sections sitting in on my lectures. As for hearing from faculty, oddly enough I was on the other side of the issue as well, since I also taught the 3rd year "weeder" course in electrical engineering. My students were woefully unprepared in math despite N semesters of calculus in the math department. Once during a break in the activity, I asked my engineering students how the university could improve engineering education. Their consensus: Better math teaching.