…who is completely perplexed by this?
(Oh, WARNING, the subject matter is slightly mature, and may be inappropriate for those not yet in high school.)
Are you perplexed by his dismissal, or by his teaching style?
By his dismissal. Excuse my vagueness.
I find for the most part, college students appreciate candor. Hard to judge from afar whether the charges in some of the girls’ evaluations had merit, though. Political correctness can though, as we know, be dumb.
My real problem is that this was an elective class about human sexuality, and the teacher was (as reported by several students) largely understanding and classy about the whole thing. I mean, they could have at least done the man the justice of an inquiry of some sort before labeling him a deviant.
Am I out of line?
No. I am perplexed, although I suppose we could be perplexed in different ways. 
I’d have to agree with people that were surprised that college credit was being given for this class myself. And it’s in the Excercise Science Department? I don’t know exactly what a college level Human Sexuality class should be talking about, but I would have thought it would be talking about more, oh, sociological issues or something like that—disease transmition, gender roles, society things. It could be a class worth college credit certainly. Or if it was to prepare students for teaching sex education in K-12 or something. But would “topiary work” be a topic in those schools?
One in which the professor accepts papers asking if “a little topiary work” should be done—that is ridiculous, to me. This sounds like an advanced “how-to” class—which is fine for some venue, sure, but college? For that sort of information you just sort of keep your eyes and ears open—I think most of us manage to get along on that sort of research.
Edited to say—You know, I really didn’t consider the dismissal part. I’m sorry, since that was your point. I just found the content of the class to be intellectually not what I would have expected. I didn’t consider the argument. I hadn’t seen any of the responses when I wrote this or I would have seen I was going off on an odd tack. I would have certainly expected there to have been an inquiry, the possiblility of an appeal, etc. I would have thought he had tenure since he had been there so long. Even if you don’'t, I believe at most schools there are very rigorous procedures that have to be gone through when trying to terminate someone. I am not certain we are getting the whole story I guess.
I’m pretty sure that this “question and answer” type discussion was only a small part of the class. The article hints at this. I couldn’t tell you what else the class covered, but the topic in general is one very important to college kids (and increasingly to high school kids, but that’s a different topic). College is a time in your life when sex is at the forefront a lot of the time, and so a lot of questions come up. If nothing else, I think the class has value in that regard.
Well, I’m long past that age and I’m sure things have changed. I certainly don’t object to the discussions—let’s say the Health Center had an anything goes discussion group about sex, I think that would be a very good thing. It is just the giving of credit if there isn’t much challenge. But, perhaps just one little thing is being taken out of context here and it is a more substantial class.
Some people should not be allowed to take some classes.
Who dares call it “higher education” ?
[quote=“brainc]Who dares call it “higher education” ?[/quote]”
Depends on the position, doesn’t it? Now, if we take the chandelier, for instance … 
djm
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Depends on the position, doesn’t it? Now, if we take the chandelier, for instance …
djm[/quote]
There go the insurance rates!
What surprises me is that the prof was an adjunct for 17 years.
There are certain subjects that, if you are going to teach them, you’re better off being tenured. This is one of them. Adjuncts have very little job security, and are easily let go for whatever reason a university wants. They are practically contractors.
Job security in the form of tenure is not easy to find, especially in certain departments. But then again, with 17 years and stellar reviews, I hope a prof could find some way to cement a level of job security above that of an average adjunct. E.g., people who will bat for you.
I’m guessing that the offended students had offended parents who said something about a lawsuit to a higher-level administrator that never heard of the course. Then an angry phone call to the department to “just do something about it.”
Caj
Bureaucracy… :roll:
The reason these places call themselves “universities” rather than “colleges” is that they teach darn near everything. Everything that profs are willing to teach, and that students are willing or required to take.
It is very easy to find courses in a university catalog that don’t seem to “deserve” to be college courses to a skeptical public. For example, you can take golf. You can take a yoga class. You can get credit for marching band. These are common classes at many universities.
These may violate the public’s image of a college course, but if the students are learning something it’s fair game.
For that sort of information you just sort of keep your eyes and ears open—I think most of us manage to get along on that sort of research.
Well, we can say that about a lot of college courses. You can learn a lot on your own without help from an instructor.
But I think part of the motivation of teaching this type of class–in college or high school–is that is better to have it in a classroom than learned by word of mouth. You can learn some crazy things by word of mouth.
Caj
Looking back on my answer, I believe that I did not really think before I spoke. This is an unfortunate habit of mine. Communicating in print seems to make it worse rather than better for some reason.
I do think that since I don’t know the entire syllabus of the class, I can’t really draw any conclusion about whether it should be in a university curriculum. And there certainly are electives which may sound goofy, but which might well be taught in a quite rigorous way. I taught one myself as an adjunct instructor----bookbinding.
I totally missed that the man was an adjunct instructor. Yes, they can just be dropped. I think it quite possible, though, that we don’t know everything about the situation.
I know many people are sexually active at a much earlier age than when I was in college. And the presence of AIDS makes sexual activity risky in a way it wasn’t when I was single. Word of mouth is definitely a poor way to learn about anything, particularly sex. I assume I have flunked my audition to replace Dr. Ruth?
I am still perplexed by the article and probably will remain that way unless more facts come to light but I do agree with you on the points you made.
Yes, I also suspect we don’t know the whole story.
There are many reasons to let an instructor go, including money, money, and sometimes money. It might be that the student evaluations were just part of a plausible excuse made by the department to cut personnel.
Months ago (so this memory is untrustworthy) I read about an adjunct somewhere who was fired after it was discovered he was a neo-nazi outside of work.
This initially raised some sabre-rattling about “academic freedom,” mostly from pundits railing against political correctness. But then it came to light that the teacher had missed weeks of class–and the department claimed that they only found out about the neo-nazi part after they decided to let him go.
Caj
An interesting situation, possibly.
I agree with the emerging consensus that there is not enough information in the article to enable one to comfortably form an opinion.
As a matter of general principle, I think that sex ed is a good thing. I also think that one of the most important features, both of what is taught and of the way it is taught, should be consideration for others - whether they be one’s sex partners or one’s students.
I can see how the ‘topiary’ subject could arise as an example of how one may consider the comfort of one’s partner and make certain acts more comfortable/hygenic/enjoyable.
I think it would be appropriate to always check privately beforehand when asking a student to speak on a subject like this. Many students may be quite comfortable studying and attending the classes, but may be embarrassed if they had to speak and thus draw specific attention to themselves.
More detail on the specific case in question would be interesting.
Yep. The media will report what they want. No way to tell the whole reason for his dismissal. I imagine you couldn’t be a teacher for 17 years and not get a complaint now and then by a whiner. If they fired every teacher everytime a student got P.Oed then nobody would reach tenure.
On the other hand, back in my day we learned about sex the way it was meant to be learnt. On the street!!!
Cost you much money?