Friday Items

"It was at that point that I figured the corruption runs the full gantlet of the administration," Professor Gundlach said. "We were getting sociology majors graduating without taking sociology classes. I’m a director of a program putting out people who I know more than likely don’t deserve a degree."

According to the reporting, the professor* dropped the number of directed readings down to 24, and one semester taught as many as 152 -- in addition to teaching his normal courseload (probably a 2-2 courseload, which means about six hours per week in the classroom, and at least six hours per week of prep. Let's call it 12 hours of regular coursework per week). When I teach a directed study, I usually spend an hour per week with the student (not counting prep). Let's assume, generously, that the professor only spent an average of 30 minutes per week on each student, with absolutely no prep. That would mean that with his reduced workload of only 24 directed readings, he would spend an extra twelve hours per week, or 24 hours total, without including any research or service. So assuming the professor taught a 2-2 load, did absolutely no prep, research, or service, it might be possible (though implausible) that he could have taught such a load.

Let's now apply the same formula to the semester he taught 152 directed readings. That would mean 76 extra hours per week, not including his normal, full-time workload. Assuming his department is closed on weekends, he would have to spend more than 15 hours per day meeting with students -- again, ignoring his normal teaching, research, and workload schedule. I can't think of any way this would be possible.