Posted on 02/12/2010 3:31:27 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
That’s still true, for a very logical reason: if you already have tenure and are going to a different university, it’s because they want you pretty badly. Schools like to hire the “stars” away from other schools. But no one is going to give up tenure to go elsewhere and go through the normal tenuring process—what if, after 6 years, you are denied, when you once had tenure elsewhere? So basically, they hire at senior level either with automatic tenure or with the promise of mostly pro forma tenure within a year. (Often the “star” takes a leave of absence from his tenured position, so that, if for some reason, the new place doesn’t like him or he doesn’t like it, he can return to his tenured position.)
Guilty.
It protects me as a conservative in academia. I had to walk a tightrope to get it and had to be very careful what I said and suck up to the students (give them high grades). Once I got tenure I could begin to grade harder and speak my mind. My colleagues despise me, half my students hate me and the other half love me(I get much lower student ratings than before tenure), which to me suggests I’m doing something right. If every student gave me high ratings it would have to mean I didn’t offend anyone, didn’t demand much, graded easy. Student ratings are the biggest source of grade inflation—adjuncts, non-tenured teachers have little choice but to grade easy, in order to get good student evaluations which the teachers need if they are ever to get a tenured position.
It’s become a joke, the university business, at least in the humanties. A few students in each class are serious and there to learn and you stick with the crud for the sake of those few.
Well if they can carry there, it’s got to be the only school in the country where they can............
Here are her ratings on RateMyProfessors. Nothing at all out of the ordinary in the comments, and overall rating about average for the department or even a bit above average. Absolutely no sign of a problem from what’s there. Odd, though, that there are no ratings from last semester — last rating is from May 2009. It would be very unusual for a professor who was on the verge of a tenure decision not to be teaching for the semester, so more likely no student bothered to put in a rating for the most recent semester (though she’d had a pretty steady flow of ratings for the preceding few semesters). Assuming she was teaching last semester, if she’d done anything really odd or worrisome, most likely a bunch of students would have posted ratings on her.
__________
Amy Bishop’s Scorecard:
No. of Ratings: 34 Average Easiness: 2.3 Average Helpfulness: 3.7 Average Clarity: 3.4 Hotness Total: 1 Overall Quality: 3.6
5/26/09 BYS314 1 5 5 4 Professor is helpful but the class is super hard! She has classes for extra help since there are so many students in the class.
5/19/09 BYS314 3 5 5 5 This class was great. Bishop makes the class interesting by talking about her research and her friends research. That speaker she had for class was hard to understand but smart. She expects alot and you need to come to every class and study. She is hot but she tries to hide it.And she is a socalist but she only talks about it after class.
5/19/09 BYS313 2 5 5 2 Dr Bishop is an excellent teacher! She is very helpful and nice. She does everything to help students do well. She even offers extra classes! The students who show up and work think she is a good teacher.
11/21/08 BYS314 1 1 1 5 Dr. Bishop does not put what she says will be on the test on the test!!!!! If you study what she tells you to study, you will fail, simple as that. From experience I’m a 4.0 student with a 100 in lab, and a C in her lectures class, if that doesn’t tell you that somethings up, I don’t know what will!! Take Dr. Adcock, she help you learn the material
11/18/08 BYS313 1 1 2 1 Hard class to pass.. Requires a GREAT deal of studying!
11/17/08 bys313 1 1 1 1 Extremely horrible teacher. All she does is read information from the book and never explains anything. Her review is telling you to study everything, and she picks the most insignificant information on tests. You have to teach everything to yourself, but her tests are so insame it’s hard to do well. TAKE ADCOCK
11/6/08 BYS313 1 1 1 4 What a waste of a great resource. Dr Bishop is very intelligent but a horrible teacher. No point going to class, she will tell you to read and know the entire book. She does not teach but gives you a list of topics that you have to teach yourself. Unfortunately this class is only offered with one other instructor! Take it with Adcock if you can.
10/20/08 BYS313 1 2 2 3 Horrible teacher! You’ll learn way more in lab. Previously old tests were sufficient study guides for the exams but she changed everything for fall 2008 so good luck.
6/24/08 BYS313 1 5 5 4 She is an excellent professor! very helpful and very intelligent! Study hard, attend class, take notes when she talks about diseases. Her exams are hard and not the same as her old exams that she gives. Very interesting during lecture. High recommend!! Had her for 313-314. Exam questions were seen on MCAT.
5/14/08 CLASSSECT 3 3 2 5 If you have the old tests, you should do fine...she doesnt change them that often.
4/14/08 BYS4000 4 3 4 1 Neuroscience essentially turns into a bioethics class. She’s a liberal from “Hahvahd” and let’s you know exactly how she feels about particular subjects. Class is a breeze, but you’ll have to put a bit of concentrated effort into a few things.
11/30/07 anatoPhys 1 5 5 1 I am in her lab and her class. She is smart, talks about more stuff than just the book. She lets me sit in her office and study. She always dresses nice. She should stop trying to straighten her hair and go natural!
4/30/07 BYS400 4 3 3 3 No Comments
1/13/07 BYS313 2 5 5 4 Bishop uses the online stuff, the internet, powerpoint, from the book and some stuff not from the book. If you show up to class and listen to what she tells you what is important and what is not as important you will get an A. Her animations from that anatomy program always crash the laptop(last year). This year her she bought her own laptop.
12/10/06 BYS313 5 5 1 5 Study wha she tells u to study. If you have previous exams, u are more likely to get an A. Make sure u have good friends in that class, b/c they might have more resources to share with ya. Dont sweat it and go for it.
6/1/06 Biology 2 5 5 5 Dr.Bishop is so cool!
4/7/06 BYS 313 3 3 3 4 She is very nice, but her class is boring. Human A&P all we do is highlight the book. She reads straight from the book. I can do that at home. There is tons of material and she doesn’t really narrow down what’s going to be on the test. However, the class wasn’t too hard though. There’s just a lot of studying.
2/8/06 BYS400 1 5 5 5 This prof is absolutely the bomb! Knows her stuff cold, and quick witted too. Never met anyone who knows more random knowledge. Sci-fi to quantum mechanics with a little art history thrown in the mix. Who knew? Definitely take one of her courses!
1/24/06 BYS313 1 5 5 5 Dr. Bishop says she has to teach us about so much so we are ready for nursing classes. It is so much material! But she is nice, helpful and makes it interesting. I like her study day she has before the test.I heard she is from Harvard.I hope she remembers that she is not at Harvard.
1/9/06 BYS 313 1 5 5 3 Dr. Bishop is a great teacher! She talks about the stuff in the book but then she talks about extra stuff like diseases. This makes the class fun. She’s super smart and thinks everyone else is too so sometimes she goes too fast.
12/9/05 A&P I 2 1 1 4 Dr. Bishop tries to be a good teacher, but it’s really pointless to come to class. All you do is highlight the book word for word. She is also very vague about her tests and what you should study; her answer is just study everything (which is the entire book.) She might have graduated from Harvard, but she has very little common sense.
9/22/05 human anatomy 4 1 2 4 No Comments
9/3/05 A&P 3 2 2 5 I don’t know what you people are talking about! She is not “easy” unless you are her favorite. She gets off on random**** all the time and is sooo completely scatter brained! I was there everyday, studied HARD, and still barely passed. I don’t like her and don’t recomend her.
4/6/05 BSY 313 1 5 3 5 Beware of Tangent Square Root!
1/12/05 BYS 313 3 5 4 4 Awesome teacher. She tends to make a lot of tangents but you learn a lot and she’s always willing to help you out.
1/6/05 BYS 313 2 4 5 5 Mrs Bishop was totally awesome! She made this class fun and entertaining with her great sense of humor. She is always willing to help, and is great at working with students. I highly recommend this teacher!!
11/25/04 bys313 1 5 5 5 brilliant & hot
11/17/04 BYS313 1 5 5 3 She makes class fun eventhough it is still hard.I thought because she is from Harvard she would be a snob but she isn’t.She does not give multiple choice tests so her tests are hard. By the way Diane teaches BYS310 not Dr. Bishop.
10/18/04 BYS 313-14 3 4 4 3 If you didn’t understand something in this class, she was willing to take time and give you a hand. She does what a professor is suppose to do: helps you and doesn’t make you feel stupid.
6/23/04 BYS 310 5 4 1 She makes it seem like it is going to be hard but it is extremly easy. She is very unorganized, but its easy to get an A
6/14/04 BYS313,314 3 5 5 Dr. Bishop is brilliant. Her research is fascinating. She will surely get the Nobel Prize. She is the best teacher I have ever had.
6/14/04 BYS 313 3 5 5 No Comments
6/1/04 BYS313,314 4 5 3 Dr. Bishop is extremely knowledgable about her field. She is grateful to help, you just have to ask. Her lectures are disorganized, but if you read your book, you’ll get an A. I learned alot.
4/22/04 BYS 313/14 3 3 1 Dr. Bishop is very unclear in her test preparation, grading, and overall teaching style. She is not at all organized and neither are her lab instructors. The tests are fairly easy and you never really have to go to class except on review day.
It’s Annie Oakley.
I am one of those pesky professors :) At the Land Grant University I work at, a new faculty assistant professor (tenure track)is “given” 6 years to make associate professor with tenure. Typically, there is a mid-tenure review @ 3 years where the faculty with tenure will give a thumbs up or down confidence vote. By that time, the writing is on the wall based on grant procurement, the paper/manuscript trail and undergraduate teaching reviews.
Now, the leap from the Associate to Full professor rank is alot trickier to attain. Typically, it will take a minimum of 5 years and onward. Some people never get there.
What does tenure mean to me? It means I have the academic freedom to state the facts based on sound science and not fear any political backlash from stating the facts. Does having tenure mean that I can never be released from my present Full professor ranking? Absolutely not but difficult nontheless. At evaluation time (conducted annually), my Dept Chair will evaluate my tenths responsibility (resident instruction, research and Extension) and determine what I have accomplished. There is a mechanism in place that can be used to report non-performance. Repeated scores of this nature could be used to initiate expulsion. Now, improper behavior (sexual harrassment, theft, academic dishonesty, etc) can certainly be used to build a case for a tenured professor’s immediate dismissal.
I apologize in advance for this long winded response. In my particular department, achieving tenure has never been a problem for the faculty member who works hard to help students, write grants, collaborates will with those in his/her department and others from other departments and who publishes information. Granted, the majority of us (I think)in my department are conservative. That is not the case for the Liberal Arts departments.
My two cents.
MFO
Yes, I spent 15 years on probation (graduate school, in non-tenure-track jobs) before I got a tenure-track job another 6 years on probation in TT—a total of 20 years from beginning of grad school to tenuring; almost all those years were at entry level wages, one year at no wages at all (one of three years in a row on the job market after a 10-years of non-TT jobs came to an end). Twenty years on probation and seeking to get established, no building of retirement savings, marginal wages.
But those who wish to can bitch away about it. Gives ‘em something to busy their mouths with.
Typical liberal.
“Guns are bad” “Save the environment”... blah, blah, blah.
And as soon as her bubble of idiocy is popped, she goes homicidal.
Yes, that truly is a liberal in a nutshell.
Rate My Professor is a joke. Total anonymity, no accountability whatsoever. Students can and do post outright lies.
Yes, one of her students noted that she was a liberal, and another said that she was a socialist.
.
Looks like she cuts her own hair.
Just my opinion.
Looks a lot alike, blue eyes...but she’s put on some weight since the first photo...
Thanks, I heard that later on Fox.
Nice critical thinking and communication skills there C.O.C.
Actually, as someone who has been taking courses part-time at a large public university for the past 6 years, I’ve found it to be very useful. Most of the posts are reality-based. Of course when a professor only has a few ratings, they may reflect either a few pissy students who didn’t like their grades, or a few brown nosers who “love” any professor they got an A from. But where there are a large number of ratings, it’s a very valuable tool. A couple of times I’ve registered for a course without checking it, and then ended up sorely wishing I had, when I finally go look at the ratings and see they would have told me everything I’ve found out the hard way. When somebody posts an “outright lie”, comments refuting it generally follow quickly so it’s not hard to spot.
The bottom line reason for the demand for research and publications is $$$$$$.
The professor’s salary is covered in part or in whole by grants. A professor’s grants provide jobs for grad students. Also the grant covers some of the costs of overhead.
The ability of a professor to teach means nothing beyond them being criminally abusive or obviously politically incorrect.
These people (not all, but most) are viscious and catty. UTMB had their Dean of the Medical school under attack by the dear professors because she was demanding too much change (work). Their Union was furious and threatening. Next thing you know, thugs beat her husband and her dog at her house while she was at work.
Making scientist wackos into the high priests of truth in society is absolutely insane. The global “scientists” of climategate are not the exception...they are the rule in the cleansed culture of research today. Very sad that the radicals took over Western science.
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