 |
 |
 |
 |
MONTHLY UPDATE
UPDATE CONTD 1
UPDATE CONTD 2
UPDATE CONTD 3
UPDATE CONTD 4
UPDATE CONTD 5
UPDATE CONTD 6
UPDATE CONTD 7
STUDENTS SPEAK
QUALIFICATIONS
EVALUATION FORM
LINKS
MEMOS
May 23 1994
Sept 6 1995
March 20 1997
April 3 1997
Jan 5 1998
March 31 1998
Sept 15 1999
May 17 2000
Sept 11 2000
Oct 16 2000
Nov 14 2000
Nov 15 2000
Feb 10 2001
March 15 2001
March 19 2001
June 9 2003
April 17 2006
Sept 18 2006
Sept 27 2006
Oct 23 2006
Dec 9 2007
Dec 16 2007
| MEMO TO: Math Faculty FROM: M. Millman DATE: 5/17/00 RE: Academia at its Worst - the LaGuardia Community College Math Department Political cronyism that rewards favored faculty members (with tenure, promotions, etc.) and punishes others (with firing, lack of promotions, etc.), without regard for merit, causes great damage to a department. This kind of unethical politicking inevitably allows crony faculty, having the barest qualifications and the worst student ratings, to secure tenure, promotions and leadership positions solely on the basis of their political affiliation. Conversely, other faculty with very fine education and abilities and the highest student ratings are passed over for promotion and even fired. Thus, the firing of M.I.T. graduate Dr. Evan Siegel occurred this year while, incredibly, certain favored Full Profs. were permitted to remain ignorant of most of Elementary Calculus and Statistics! Further compounding this bizarre imbalance is the fact that our present acting chairman has himself been previously dismissed from the College for incompetence! The rise of the not-very-competent to policy-making positions often results in horrible decisions regarding course content and the selection of textbooks. Such decisions have led to a significant decline in the academic standards of this department over the past several years. To wit: 1. We currently have a 50% failure rate on the CUNY remedial math exam, which is directly attributable to a one-year arithmetic/algebra course that any independent evaluator would find not merely poor, but unbelievably absurd! (Coincidentally, the arithmetic text is co-authored by our acting chairman). The mandatory requirement that students purchase expensive graphics calculators for the arithmetic course is not only pedagogically ludicrous, but also places a needless financial burden on them. Attempting to cope with this situation, which has already affected the lives of thousands of students, by concocting supplementary "workshops" is like treating a cancer with a band-aid. 2. We currently have hundreds of students enrolled in Calculus II and Calculus III who have practically no knowledge of precalculus, let alone Calculus I. They have passed through on the wave of grade inflation, assisted by a "dumbed-down" version of Precalculus and Calculus that has been declared mandatory. This direction for the Calculus course was chosen for unannounced reasons that seem ethically questionable at best. It is painfully obvious that my Calculus I and II students this semester are so badly prepared that I expect to give half of them F grades, as I did in Calculus I this past Fall. I personally find abhorrent the widespread practice of grade inflation and refuse to engage in it. Several other Calculus instructors, while fearful of speaking out openly, have privately expressed the same concern to me. 3. Our Statistics I course has been senselessly "reformed" for the past THREE years in a patently impossible attempt to teach two semesters of work in one, with no corresponding increase in class time. A glance at the final exam archives reveals that there are now several thousands of students who were taught only half the syllabus or less, resulting in their complete lack of exposure to Hypothesis Testing - the very heart of the subject. Naturally, there have been few student complaints on this score, but much fraudulent education. (Each Fall I need to lecture a couple of hours a week at N.Y.U. to remind myself that I am still an educator). Meanwhile angry, en-masse student complaints that occur in other courses, directed at blatantly incompetent cronies, are kept under quiet wraps. The courses referred to in 1 - 3 above constitute over 90% of our classroom time. In the total absence of College administrative supervision, this entire bogus operation is able to perpetuate itself indefinitely. Thus, even the hands of fine instructors are tied. That is how our department has gradually melted down into an educational Chernobyl - an environment so utterly contaminated by corruption and incompetence as to be rendered lethal, for years to come, to students seeking a decent education. cc: Acting President R. Matthews LaGuardia College P&B Committee Board of Trustees, CUNY |
 Sign Guestbook |
 View Guestbook |
| Visitors: 02048 |