Resources

Presents the teaching philosophy of a Columbia University assistant professor who has learned to win good evaluations from his students. Opinion that, as of January, 2001, colleges are following a business model which allows parents and students to think of courses as services; Statement that instructors need to teach the teachable and please the unteachable, in the interest of getting high ratings.

Of all America's religious traditions, the author writes, evangelical Protestantism, at least in the twentieth-century conservative forms, has long ranked "dead last in intellectual stature." Now evangelical thinkers are trying to revitalize their tradition. Can they turn an intellectual backwater into an intellectual beacon?

Linda McDowell (1994) has called for styles of teaching which put into practice arguments about the 'politics of difference', which has become an increasingly central part of human geographical research. This paper draws on a number of years' experience of teaching an undergraduate course on multicultural historical geography, in which this was attempted. Here students were encouraged to get more involved in these debates, to take them more personally, and to develop 'situated knowledges' about the UK as a multicultural society. The approach to teaching, learning and assessment which made this possible was based on the principles of 'border pedagogy' and on students writing journals throughout the course which charted the development of their understandings of the materials they encountered.

Examines the author's teaching evaluations to help understand what they measure and how they may be used to make changes in classroom performance. States that teachers should view teaching evaluations as an opportunity to develop as teachers.

Examines sociology student perceptions of faculty and graduate instructor educational attainment as a function of gender. Finds that students misattribute in an upward direction the level of education by male graduate instructors and in a downward direction the level of formal education attained by women, even if the female is a full professor.

A junior faculty member reflects on the dilemma of that professional position, noting that its anxieties fall into two categories: "Is this all there is?" and "What if we lose it?" She examines problems with, and prohibitions against, speaking one's mind in that position, sees solutions as being institutional or individual, and examines how concerns are linked to other campus constituencies.