Ironies of the
Professor Thing
Joel Wingard, an English professor at Moravian College in Pennsylvania, gets about the worst Rate My Professors ratings UD has seen. With seven respondents (a respectable number of students, among whom just one with a vaguely positive impression of the man could have pulled Wingard's numbers up a bit), he receives virtually all ones.
Ones. Ones are the basement under the cellar beneath the cesspool of online professor rating.
Yet on his department webpage, Wingrad describes himself as very pro-student:
In my classes, I try to establish and maintain a student-centered classroom, a place where students' learning takes precedence over teacher's teaching. By 'students' learning' I mean their guided self-discovery; by 'teacher's teaching' I mean lecturing, testing, conferring judgment and other forms of authoritarian practice. My philosophy holds that self-motivated, self-directed learning is best, is 'liberal learning' in its best sense of liberating; that in the largest sense the most valuable "lesson" students may learn from literary study is not content but method, not information but process.
Look at all them quotation marks! SOS will let it go, however... will let go the whole business of this writing instructor being a very bad writer indeed... She will instead note the profound distance between this self-congratulatory non-authoritarian (teaching, conferring judgment, and communicating content all representing authoritarian activities) and what his students say about him.
Samples from the first page of comments (there are two pages, but UD hadn't the heart to look at the second):
... an all-around jerk ...
... worst professor I have ever had the misfortune of working with...
He goes off on these insane rants that have nothing to do with what we're talking about. And he sends out emails with words like "prolly" and "yall." It's pretty bad.
How can we reconcile these two descriptions?
I'll tell you what I think. I think Professor Wingrad is a certain sort of humanities professor. The irony of this sort of professor is that he will profess an anti-authoritarian, student-centered philosophy; and yet he's really (UD's guessing here, of course) a kind of tinpot classroom dictator -- a man enamored of his own cleverness and higher knowledge, who loves to hear his brilliance ring out on a vast range of subjects, and who has a captive audience for that.
It's sadly true that the conditions of professors' lives make possible this narcissistic indulgence, should a person have a taste for it.
Professor Wingrad, currently in a spot of trouble because of what UD takes to be his self-love, seems to have this taste.
The local newspaper reports:
'A Moravian College professor issued two campuswide apologies for an e-mail he wrote the day after the Virginia Tech killings that said he was going to "go out and buy a gun" and "some ammo" to "prevent more Blacksburgs, more Columbines."
"Why, if I see anyone looking threatening, Asian, wearing black -- I'm going to shoot that sucker first and ask questions later," English professor Joel Wingard wrote in an e-mail exchange Tuesday that was circulated on the college computer network. "I'm going to drop into my shooter's stance, one knee on the ground, gun hand supported by the other hand braced by the other knee, and do what has to be done."
In subsequent e-mails, Wingard wrote that he was being ironic.
"The nature of e-mail is such that verbal subtleties such as tone of voice or irony do not come across well," he wrote. "However, neither that nor my intention can excuse me from having had the effect of causing fear. I take responsibility for the effect. I should not have done anything to create fear. There is enough fear abroad as it is without my adding to it."
Contacted Thursday, Wingard said he felt terrible but would not comment further on the e-mails. He apologized in a personal e-mail Thursday and a message Wednesday that was also signed by Dean of Faculty Curtis Keim.
College spokesman Michael Wilson said Keim and President Christopher Thomforde were not available for comment Thursday. He said the college's policy is to not discuss personnel matters and would not say if Wingard had been reprimanded in any way.
... The e-mail exchange, which was addressed to everyone within the college and seminary, began Tuesday morning when the Rev. David E. Bennett, the college chaplain, asked the school's community to contribute to a "banner of hope" containing signatures, prayers and words of encouragement that was later sent to Virginia Tech.
Wingard responded by writing that the banner was a nice gesture but said he also would like to see a banner sent off to Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey as well as Rep. Charlie Dent. Wingard wrote the banner would be a "cry against interpersonal violence and especially against gun violence" and would "demand an end to this deadly, sick and needless 'right' (to bear arms)."
In a follow-up e-mail, Wingard said the banner was up and ready to be signed at the student center. Wingard also thanked those who had written to him about the banner, whether they supported the message or not.
About an hour later, Wingard sent the offensive e-mail, titled "apologies," and sarcastically asked forgiveness for sending e-mails instead of posting to a blog or writing a letter to the editor for questioning the presence of guns in society.
In the last e-mail apology sent Wednesday signed by Keim and Wingard, the two say that Wingard's intent was to address the possibility of someone having a gun, what Wingard fears and "what we should all fear."
"In this case sarcasm, a time-honored mode of expression, didn't convey for some the message that Dr. Wingard intended."
... Many Moravian College students on Thursday said that while they agreed with Wingard's anti-gun politics, they disliked the timing of his argument.
"It was stupid of him to make it a political argument this early," said sophomore Kia Paskas, who signed Wingard's anti-gun banner.
Geoffrey Roche, a junior political science major, said Wingard was known to raise controversial issues to stir discussion but made a mistake by sending out the e-mail.
"While sarcasm is good in some ways, people are on their toes" right now, Roche said.
Some Moravian students said they knew people who attended Virginia Tech and were unprepared for the issue to turn political.
"I think perhaps he needs to understand the grieving period," Roche said.'
|