We practice progressive stacking when calling upon people to participate in class discussion. .. [If] you are white, male, or someone privileged by the racial and gender structures of our society… we will often ask you to hold off…
UD has tried to find out more about the Binghamton University professor who put this on her syllabus, but for some reason she has been 404’d by the school, and as for her home page, fuggedaboutit.
There’s this – hasn’t been taken down yet, but now that I’ve linked to it, it might be.
The school has made her take the language off the syllabus, but it’s probably too late for Binghamton to do anything about the (legal?) complaints it’s going to be fielding. As for embarrassment about the bigot on the faculty, well, you hired her.
February 21st, 2022 at 4:12PM
This is obviously dumb, but I think a lot of instructors do a version of stacking, where you call on a quiet person who doesn’t speak much but raises a hand over other students who speak more often and also want to say something at that moment. It’s just not political stacking.
February 21st, 2022 at 4:12PM
Sorry, I meant this person and her syllabus are dumb. Normal stacking to privilege quiet people is fine.
February 21st, 2022 at 4:24PM
Four or five years ago this practice was commonly discussed among professors, and justified as a way to lift up the thoughts of students who were reluctant to speak (because of discomfort in the classroom based on their identity). So it’s interesting to hear that a college is reacting with fright over a professor’s avowed use of it. My thought at the time was that by calling it progressive stack (as opposed to just calling on the quieter students and tamping down the over-eager ones) these professors were naming themselves as allies of the oppressed. Easily the most oppressed person I had met in college was a white female from a nearly destitute background. She was also (bless her) not afraid to speak up in class. It would have been an insult to her to assume that she needed hand-holding in order to speak.
February 21st, 2022 at 6:03PM
EB, Rita: There’s education, and there’s re-education camp.
All thoughtful instructors try to get a sense of the personalities in their classes over the course of the semester; all do what they can to encourage everyone to have something to say. Madame Mao on the other hand shows up on the first day of class fully equipped with a punishing ideology and with The Truth, and she will write The Truth on her syllabus and she will punish deviationists. Way to encourage people to say something.
Why anyone — anyone — would remain in a classroom featuring that syllabus is beyond me.