philosophysmoker-Mstarz

I am about to go on the job market for the first time post PhD. I have had one year of a postdoc, but I imagine others who have spent two or three years on a postdoc have the same question.  

Are there any differences between what search committees will expect from my job app now and what they expected a year ago? What mistakes might I avoid as I prepare for the market this year? 

Thanks for your help in advance.

This is just a guess, but my guess is that the search committees will expect you to have some good publications--on the assumption that your postdoc is a research-oriented one, which may not be the case. If it's a teaching postdoc, I have no idea what they'll be looking for. Good evals? idk. Probably letters from your chair and other colleagues about your teaching. Not sure what else.

Of course, if you're only one year into your postdoc, it might not be reasonable for them to expect you to have a bunch of publications. After all, it takes a lot of time to get a publication. You have to write it, and then you have to send it out, and then they have to pester the delinquent referee, and even the best paper might still get rejected, and then you have to send it out again, and so on. It can take a long time. And the search committee might realize this, and they might even allow this realization to inform their expectations for your file. If they did that, they'd probably look for a highly solid writing sample. They'd probably also look for a well-developed research statement that sounded like it had clear, compelling descriptions of a lot of pretty fully-baked papers. (How many is "a lot"? idk.) You'd probably also want some letters from one or more of your current colleagues that discuss your research in detail, and in particular how awesome it is.

That's my $0.02, anyway. What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

Awesomeness ensues.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Document-an-Open-Letter/138937/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

~zombie

... in a big way, and not just because of the way that it always kicks my ass. It's bad for the discipline. It's bad for philosophy.

I've been here for a few years now, and in that time I've seen a lot of undergraduate students come through our major program. I've had the opportunity to watch a number of them over their entire undergraduate careers: I see them in their first, introductory-level philosophy classes, and then their second or third, then in upper-division classes that are required for the major, and in department functions and extracurricular activities. I get to know them and their work. I see their ideas get more sophisticated. I see them develop an enthusiasm--a "passion," I guess, even though it sounds corny--for philosophy. Finally, they graduate, and sometimes they ask me to serve as an employment reference or write them a letter of recommendation for law school or something. Usually they let me know where they end up going, and sometimes we keep in touch after that. It's a nice thing to see, and it's one of my favorite parts of this job.

A lot of them are really sharp, clever people who really love philosophy. They tend to be good readers and writers. They tend to be clear-thinkers who have been well-served by the philosophical education they got here. Some of them would, at least potentially, make good philosophers. It's hard to say, obviously, how they'd handle grad school, or whether they'd finish the dissertation, or how they'd fare at writing for a professional audience rather than their professors. I can't see the future. But I've had at least two students whose grad-school recommendation letters would basically write themselves, and maybe two or three more who I could see being highly successful in the program I come from. I don't know if that's a "good number" or whatever; I'm really just thinking about the particular people, not the numbers. But it's about one a year, give or take.

But none of these students, however enthusiastic, have indicated to me a substantial interest in a philosophical career, and I don't try to talk them into it. Once in a while someone will express a casual, not intense, interest, and I give the same "don't do it if you can think of anything else" speech my undergraduate professors gave me, and it's always dissuasive. If we've sent anybody to philosophy grad school in the time I've been here, I didn't hear about it. They all go into other fields, which I can't imagine are remotely as interesting as philosophy.

The thing that bums me out is, I want to feel like that's a mistake. I want to feel like they've cheated themselves. I want to feel like they've blown the chance to pursue an incredibly interesting, and fulfilling, and fucking amazingly fun way to make a living, in exchange for a career that has no chance of being close to as good or rewarding or whatever. But that's not how I feel. I feel like not going into philosophy probably wasn't a bad idea. I feel like they're probably better off where they are.

This does not reflect how I feel about my own choices. I love my job and I can't believe I'm able to make a living this way. It's incredible to me that I can spend the day doing the things my job consists of and call it a solid day's work. I almost feel like I'm getting away with something.

But I don't feel like I can recommend this career to my students, even if I think they'd be good at it; even if I think they'd be deserving of success; even if I think that, if they found success, they'd be happier with this career than the thing I wrote them a recommendation for. I wish I could encourage them to continue their studies--to try to make a life out of doing philosophy. Like I did. And philosophy is missing out on their contributions. I wish that the prospects for a career in this discipline were such that I could recommend it in good conscience to my students. But they're not, and I can't. And that bums me out.

--Mr. Zero

Questions about CC jobs come up periodically, and in the current job climate, some philosophers who previously would not have considered teaching at a CC are probably giving those jobs a good, hard, longing look. My experience with CCs is pretty limited. (I took an art class at a CC once, and I'm a big fan of Community.) I applied for a few CC jobs in my last go-round on the job market, and found the application process to be quite different, and in some ways, quite onerous. I was in contention (early on) for one job, and remember having to respond to a lot of very specific additional questions with fairly lengthy written answers. As I progressed through different levels of the process, it seemed the search committee demanded more and more from me. Still, the particular school was in a desirable city, and I was willing. But I can't say I was heartbroken when I was eventually eliminated. So maybe a CC job wasn't for me.

Here's what I've gleaned about CC jobs from fellow Smokers:

• The teaching load is relatively high, with the usual expectations of service.You should really, really love to teach.
• The students are far more diverse socially, economically, educationally, and in every other way, than the typical four year college student.
• There is generally no research requirement for tenure.
• The pay is equivalent to (or better than) four year college salaries.
• Expect a multidisciplinary atmosphere.
• It is not at all unusual for CC jobs to require a PhD these days.

Those in the know are invited to correct any inaccuracies. This is an open thread for those of you who have questions about CCs, and those who have experience and answers.

~zombie

I've been teaching an online course this summer, which more or less requires me to use Canvas. (I guess I could have built a website and such, but Canvas is there, and set up for this kind of thing, so...) But what I've noticed, at least at my school, is that the Canvas gradebook totally enables the instant gratification neediness in students. They freak out if their grades are not posted RIGHT AWAY. They send me emails asking WHY grades have not been posted. They are SURE that there must be some mistake that accounts for that void sitting there in the gradebook.

Me, on the other hand, I hate posting the grades, because as soon as I do, the grubbing starts. The demanding-to-know-why-I-only-got-an-A-minus starts. Which makes me want to not post grades. I'm required to let my students know how they're doing before the drop deadline each term. Freshmen and transfers get midterm grades as well. But I'm not actually required to let them know how they're doing at every moment, and I'm disinclined to do so because of the grade-grubbing and the whingeing and whining.

On the other other hand, the gradebook feature is handy and easy to use, except that it is visible to students. It's not that I think their grades should be a complete surprise to them at the end of the term. They should get enough feedback to know if they're doing OK, or not. And my assessment and pedagogical strategy is to give them more frequent assignments rather than a couple of high-stakes ones. But that only increases the frequency with which they are inspired to complain.

I suppose I could do what I did before Canvas, which is keep my own grading spreadsheet, and make students ask me about their grades. I'm curious about how the rest of you deal with this, and if you see the same instant gratification syndrome in your students.

~zombie

I've had a number of unpleasant interactions with students in the past couple of months. One in particular involved a student to whom I had to assign an "F" in an introductory ethics course. Although it was a high F, it wasn't close to a D and there was no way in good conscience to give her the benefit of the doubt--there wasn't any real doubt that this was a failing performance. She emailed me as soon as final grades were released to students, informing me that she does not fail classes and demanding to know why I found it necessary to grade her various assignments unfairly.

(I thought this last was kind of interesting. Not that it's literally impossible, but there's a clear sense in which you just can't accept the premise of the question. It's possible, I guess, that The Joker was going to poison Gotham City's water supply unless you gave this student an undeservedly low grade and that's why it was necessary to grade the assignment unfairly. Or that you were just being malicious; but it seems to me that in that case the unfairness was clearly optional, not necessary. Other than that, it seems to me that if you were really trying to grade it, you were trying to grade it fairly. I feel like there's something akin to Moore's Paradox here.)

Anyways, I wrote back with a set of detailed explanations of the grading of her various assignments--her work suffered from the same set of problems all semester. She didn't listen when I had explained what I was looking for, and kept making the same mistakes. She replied a day or two later with an iPhone screenshot of her report card, showing all As and Bs and one F, and some accompanying text about what a shitty teacher I am, what a shitty person I am, how much more valuable to society than philosophy her major subject is, and which contained sarcastic mockery of language I employed in my previous message. The screengrab was taken at 1:00 in the morning; she sent the email shortly after 5 AM.

I thought for a long time about whether to respond, and if so, how. For example, I thought about telling her to try to see this as a learning experience, so that she could understand how this happened and thereby prevent it from happening again. But a) I wasn't sure that it's really my place to offer advice like that, and b) I didn't think she'd accept the advice coming from me, anyways. I ended up just saying that I understand that she's unhappy with the grade she earned, and then I encouraged her to file a formal appeal with the dean's office if she really thinks that the grade is unfair. She didn't write back. I don't know if she went to the dean.

The reason this exchange stood out to me is this: I got a few shitty grades when I was in college, and I got a grade or two that I thought was unfair, to the point where I actually did inquire about filing a formal appeal or grievance of some sort. But I never even considered the idea of throwing a temper tantrum like this. Of sending an insulting letter to a professor and including a copy of my report card. What in the fuck? And although I don't have anything like a set of empirical measurements that would support this claim, I feel like I've witnessed an increasing tendency of students to treat their professors with what I would describe as profound levels of disrespect. I mean, I don't want to be one of those old people who says, what the hell is wrong with the kids today?!?!?!?!. And I'm open to the possibility that there's something I'm doing that is inviting or otherwise failing to discourage this behavior. So I guess I'll just ask: is there something wrong with the kids today? Is there an increasing level of disrespect? Or is it me?

--Mr. Zero

I wrote this post a while ago, but didn't feel like posting it just then. I'm not sure I feel like posting it now, but I figure, what the hell. So, here's what I hope is my last annual "I didn't get a job this year" post:

Although I haven't received any final word on any of the jobs I interviewed for this year, I have some pretty convincing data that suggests that I'm out of the running for every job I applied for so far in this year's job cycle. There's one school I haven't heard a peep from but is listed on the wiki; another I haven't heard from and which isn't on the wiki but whose department website lists a suspicious number of colloquia by junior philosophers who work in my area; another who sent me a nice "we'll be glad to hire you if the folks we invited to campus don't work out" note. (Seriously. It was a very nice note, for a note that says "we invited people to campus, but not you, though.")

This is a real bummer. I mean, that's obvious, but it's also worth repeating. What a fucking bummer.

When I arrived at my first full-time teaching job out of grad school, I had two goals. 1. To learn how to do this job well—to do a good job of teaching while at the same time carrying out a productive research/publishing program; 2. To compile a record that demonstrates that I am capable of doing a good job of teaching while carrying out a productive research/publishing program. I feel good about what I've accomplished. I'm proud of what I've accomplished. My teaching is going well; my publishing is going well—I had no idea that my publishing would ever go as well as it has; but my job search is not going well. And I am bummed.

Last fall, someone asked me in comments how I can continue to muster the energy to keep applying for jobs year after year. I didn't answer at the time because I wasn't sure. How do I keep this up? It's hard to say. One important factor is that my family is very supportive—Mrs. Zero is behind me all the way, as are my parents and my siblings and what subset of my extended family has a clear idea of what's going on. My friends, both in and out of the profession, and particularly my colleagues here in my department, are supportive, too.

The other thing that keeps me going is that I really do believe in what I'm doing. I feel like I'm doing good work. I like teaching and I believe in my classes. I like writing papers, and I believe in the papers I write, and I am able to place them in good journals. I have compiled a record that I am proud of in the time I've been here. I believe in my record. I believe that my record proves that I can do this job. But my job search is not going well.

In years past I have been able to shrug it off and channel the disappointment into an effort to do better next year. This is the first year I've been genuinely discouraged. I'm not sure what else I can do. I realize that, at a certain point, I just have to get lucky. There are a lot of us—a lot of people who look good on paper. Good enough to interview, and good enough to hire. In order to get the job, you have to look good in all the right ways, and be one who happens to connect in all the right ways. And it's frustrating, because there's not much you can do to make yourself get lucky.

So, I wouldn't say that I'm ready to throw in the towel or anything like that. But I thought about it this year more seriously than I usually do. And I find myself muttering curse words under my breath pretty often.

So, that's what's going on with me. How are you?

--Mr. Zero

P.S. God damn it.

Yesterday's post on advertising for your class was not, of course, really about advertising for your class. I have been persuaded that it would be worth having a post that actually was about how to keep your courses from getting cancelled by advertising for them.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have a tiny bit of experience with this sort of thing, from grad school and people I went to grad school with. However, it is not at all clear to me that the posters we were putting up were very effective. It seemed to me that there was no clear relationship between the posters and cancellations. One of my friends had the idea to aim his poster at people who'd failed [notorious professor X's] intro class and to suggest that the summer-school version would be easier, but this person was made to take the posters down after an uncomfortable discussion with the department chair. Although we didn't get to see how it worked, the suggestion of easiness is one potentially effective strategy.

Another thing I often see, mostly in the class-advertisement posters around my current campus, is that they try to make the class seem like it would be fun (in addition to being easy). These posters are for classes in other departments, though, where they can make up a class on the study of some pop-cultural topic that is marginally amenable to academic study. So, like, a class on Calvin and Hobbes as literature or anthropology or something. These classes seem like they'd be pretty fun, and also like they wouldn't be too tough. And you also sort of get the idea that this might be the only opportunity to take it. But they also seem like there's a better-than-average chance that the class is total bullshit--that it's not of any academic value whatsoever. And I guess I wouldn't be willing to make this kind of suggestion in order to attract students. I wouldn't want to be the guy who runs easy, potentially worthless classes for the sake of enrollment. And I wouldn't want to attract the kind of student who is attracted to easy, potentially worthless classes.

And I also don't have any hard data about these classes: I don't know anything about how full they get, how often they get cancelled, or whether the ads themselves are effective.

All this is a kind of long-winded way of saying that I don't know very much about how to make an effective ad for a philosophy course. It seems to me that some effective ways to increase enrollment might include making the class seem fun, easy, frivolous, and unique. But I'm not at all convinced that this is helpful in any way.

However, I can say that, in my somewhat limited experience, the best way to increase enrollments and to make sure your classes don't get cancelled is to make them required for something. In the departments I been associated with, the core gen ed requirements are very popular. Major requirements are somewhat less so, but still popular. Courses that serve as prerequisites for other popular majors and degree programs are also very popular. Straight-up electives can be a tough sell.

What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

Over the last four or five years, I've noticed that an increasing proportion of students demonstrate an increasingly difficult time understanding how conditionals work. To the point where a huge proportion of them now seem incapable of understanding sentences of the form "if P, then Q". They act as though it means the same thing as plain old "P and Q".

This causes problems. For one thing, it makes it hard for them to understand, in a general way, what in the hell is going on with things. It's as though they see the world as a series of fundamentally unconnected, independent occurrences. They see two facts sitting there by themselves, and it doesn't occur to them that they might have anything to do with each other—that they might be somehow connected. (And I find it very hard to believe that this accurately reflects how they see the world. It can't be that they don't see a connection between the drinking and the drunkenness, for example. They can't see the drunkenness as unconnected with the drinking. Can they? They can't.)

For another thing—and this is where the confusion really makes itself known—it causes problems when they try to explain how the philosophers we study defend arguments in which they employ conditional premises. Which is almost all of them. And it causes real trouble when they try to defend a conditional that comes up in the context of an argument in the form of modus tollens. In that case, they're trying to explain why some person thinks that "P and Q" is true, when they know that the very next thing is to explain why the same person thinks Q if false. They tie themselves into highly confused, contradictory knots.

Relatedly, students often find it hard to explain how to defend a premise when the student him- or herself believes that the premise is false. That is, they find it hard to explain why someone would think that P is true when they think (or maybe they even know) that P is false. I think this is closely related to the conditionals thing. They don't realize that you can use P even if you don't believe that P. Maybe there are interesting hypotheticals involving P; maybe Socrates believed that P; maybe reasonable people disagree about P. But they can't see it, or at least they act like they don't. If they believe that P is false, they find it impossible to consider what things would be like if it were true, or why someone else might disagree with them.

I think this is pretty strange. Right? I don't really remember when I learned that if/then sentences don't just mean that P is true and so is Q; that they assert some kind of connection between P and Q. But I think I don't remember because it's so obvious that this is what it means that I didn't find it noteworthy (or else it happened so long ago that I forgot about it). So, I guess the question is, how can these students be so oblivious to something that's at once so obvious and so crucial to understanding how the world works?

--Mr. Zero

Anon 4:18 asks:

Would it be possible to have a thread on adjuncting?

Sure.

Here are some things I'd like to know [enumerated for ease of reference]:

1. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job?

2. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job that's something like fulltime?

3. With health insurance?

4. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job in one's home town?

5. How does one get such a job? I sort of have the idea that you just email the department chair at a particular institution, but maybe that's wrong.

I know some smokers know something about adjuncting that would be helpful to those of us who know very little, and may need to do adjuncting work in the very near future. Maybe a thread on it would be helpful to some of us.

I'm not an expert, but I have opinions about several of these questions:

1. It depends. They're normally not very competitive, though. Your biggest obstacle is probably availability.

2. Not possible. If it were a full time position, it would not be an adjunct position. In order to adjunct full time, you're going to need to have two or three jobs.

3. No.

4. Depends on the home town.

5. Probably emailing the department chair is the best way. It couldn't hurt.

--Mr. Zero

Comments on the last post indicate an interest in the teaching portfolio, particularly for applications to those institutions where teaching is "valued." There was much discussion of the value of student evaluations, but I think a more general discussion of the teaching portfolio would be informative for job applicants.

I'm at a new school this fall. I really like my students. They seem like a great bunch. Lively, engaged, thoughtful. Their first paper is due in a couple of weeks. The university has made Turnitin available. I've never used it before, although I've caught my share of plagiarized papers over the years. I now have a Turnitin account, but I have misgivings about using it. I guess because I feel like I am essentially accusing my students of being (at least) potential plagiarists even though I currently have no reason to think any of them are or would be plagiarists. It strikes me as being like overzealous airport security -- treat everyone like a potential criminal in order to (presumably) catch the rare miscreant. But at what cost?

As I may have mentioned earlier, pretty soon I will be teaching one of those very large lecture hall classes, with no help. I haven't done this before, and I wonder if any of the Smokers with experience with this sort of thing had any tips. What are the pitfalls, and what are the secrets of success?



Thanks, y'all. I hope you're making the most of the last few weeks of summer. Or the first few weeks of the semester, as the case may be.



--Mr. Zero

I glanced at this NewAPPS thread this afternoon in which people say what courses they are teaching this fall, and what the enrollment caps for those classes are. And now I notice that In Socrates' Wake was getting in on the action. (Although so far there hasn't been much action.)



What stood out to me was this: a lot of people seem to have pretty favorable course loads, and a lot of these people also teach classes that are capped at low, low levels. I'm teaching a large introductory-level lecture-hall class that's capped at 200, an introductory ethics class that's capped at 55, and an upper-division ethics class that's capped at 35. So I guess I'm kind of jealous of the people who are teaching two classes to a total of under 50 students.



--Mr. Zero

I got an email from my Dean last week. The email went out to all of the College's non-permanent faculty and says that we might get a raise starting in the Fall. I was like, that sounds pretty good. The email goes on to point out that there are potential problems, as of course we all knew it would. For one thing, the legislature could put the kibosh on it. For another thing, the raise is contingent on whether the school meets its enrollment goals. The Dean concludes the email by pointing out that we all have an interest in ensuring that the students have an obstacle-free path to enrollment.

I realize, of course, that most Deans are incompetent psychopaths. But what the hell is that supposed to mean? Does the Dean imagine that the temporary faculty spend their summers putting obstacles in the paths of students who are trying to to enroll? What influence could he possibly think I have over this process?

The more I think about this, the more angry I get. I teach a lot of classes--many more than my colleagues (this calendar year, I will teach 10 more classes than a typical TT person in my department; this figure includes summer school courses, which are elective). I work hard to do a good job. My evaluations are above average for the department and the College, I get good feedback on my classroom visits, and many of our best majors have come to the department through my intro classes. This school makes such extensive use of non-permanent faculty that it could not function without us and our hard work. And this guy emails us not to say, thanks for all the hard work that keeps this institution of higher education running, but the vaguely threatening you better not get in the way of us meeting our enrollment goals or you won't get a raise.

--Mr. Zero

I am on record as being opposed to multiple choice philosophy tests. But suppose I have been tapped to teach a large introduction to philosophy course that will meet in a humongous lecture hall, and that I won't have any TAs or help with the grading, but I will have 150 students in this one ginormous class. I'm thinking that multiple choice might be the way to go. But I still sort of worry that these things are frowned upon. Suppose I get a nice interview at the APA, and the committee says, "I see you've got a humongous lecture class here. How'd you do it?" If I say, "Multiple choice tests..." will I be fucked? Or will the people be understanding and merciful? I plan to work in some in-class writing, but this wil have to be highly informal. What do the Smokers think?

--Mr. Zero

A friend of mine teaches at a university where one of your grade-assignment options is "DNA," which stands for "did not attend." If you assign a student a grade of DNA, you have to specify the last date on which they attended class. If that date is early enough in the term, the student is retroactively withdrawn from the class. I don't know how common this is, but I don't think this is an option at my school. At least, nobody told me it was at the bullshit new faculty orientation thing I had to attend.

One immediate drawback to the DNA grade is that you have to know that the student never attended, and you have to know when the student stopped. For a number of reasons, I don't collect that information in any detailed or rigorous way.

Why would you assign this grade? Apparently, the DNA grade can fuck up the student's financial aid. You have to maintain a certain credit load in oder to get certain scholarships or student loans. A grade of DNA retroactively reduces the student's courseload. This can make the student retroactively ineligible for financial aid for that semester. Obviously, this can cause all sorts of problems for the student. The DNA grade can be worse than an F in profound ways.

I guess the logic is that Fs are for people who try and fail; DNAs are for people who blow off the entire class. It is, apparently, much, much worse to blow off the class than it is to make a failing attempt to complete it.

I kind of have a problem with this. I see why you'd want a complete failure to attend class to have certain consequences for the student.^* I see why you'd want there to be a failing grade on the transcript. I see why you'd want the medical school or the nursing school or whoever to know it's there. I see why you'd want it to be academically troublesome for the student, and insofar as these academic troubles cause personal troubles, it seems to me that the personal troubles are sort of warranted. You didn't attend class all semester and now your parents are upset with you? That seems right to me. You didn't attend class all semester and now you're not getting into nursing school? That seems right to me, too. These things don't seem to me to count against assigning the F. They seem like the negative consequences rightfully associated with earning an F.

But I guess I think getting the student's financial aid yanked is going too far. That consequence seems far worse than what is deserved.

What do the Smokers think?

--Mr. Zero

^* I am assuming that there are no mitigating or extenuating circumstances.

An anonymous correspondent asks:

I've heard several times through the grapevine that accepting a position at a community college is career death poison. Is that right? Right now I have a part-time position at a well-ranked university, but the pay is shite and the possibility of advancement nonexistent. I look at the pay at some community colleges and see that it is double what I make now. Would accepting one of these positions be career suicide, even if only temporary?

My sense of this is that 1. community college jobs involve more teaching and fewer research responsibilities than jobs at four-year colleges, and are a good choice for someone with corresponding career goals; and 2. search committees at four-year colleges will (probably unfairly) hold an employment history at community colleges against you.

What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

Since the semester ended, I've had the usual number of student emails about grades. One student in particular got his report card and saw that I had assigned him a failing grade, and wrote to demand an explanation. He literally said, "I demand an explanation."

So I looked at the gradebook and saw that he had failed every assignment. Every one.

I imagine a basketball coach angrily approaching the referee after having been declared the loser of the game. "I demand an explanation!" he says, and so the ref lets him know that his team was outscored in all four quarters. How do you earn a passing grade in the class when you fail everything your grade is based on? And then how do you muster the righteous indignation to demand an explanation? Does he really want me to go through all the assignments and for each one tell him how much of his grade was based on it and how much he failed it? Because that's what I did.

In fairness, I should mention that he hadn't picked up any of his exams, so he probably couldn't have been sure that he failed them all. But you have to figure that if you're not in class enough after the first exam to have heard that they had been returned, you're not going to do super awesome on the second one.

And, of course, I've been getting my annual allotment of "now that the semester is over and final grades have been submitted, what can I do to improve my grade" emails.

Happy solstice, everybody!

--Mr. Zero

I recently received an email from a student who earned a really solid D on an exam. The student was sort of asking if there was anything I could do about this grade. I am accustomed, of course, to receiving requests for special extra-credit assignments and the like. But this one was different. This student just wanted me to change his grade. He seemed to sort of acknowledge that there was nothing in principle wrong with the grade--there was no grading error; no extenuating circumstance. He just wanted me to give him a better one. Then he says, "im just asking you to be fair and just."

Again, I get this kind of request a lot--though usually the student wants me to let him do a special extra-credit assignment. A lot of times they will preface the request by saying that they don't want to be unfair to their classmates, which I take to be an implicit or backhanded acknowledgement that granting the request would indeed be unfair to their classmates. A lot of times they don't say anything about fairness--the question of fairness either doesn't occur to them, or else it doesn't interest them, or else they realize that it's not to their advantage to bring it up. A lot of times they stress their willingness to do extra work: "I'll do whatever it takes," they say. "I'll work really hard the rest of the term," they say. I have a standard reply that I send to all such requests, which stresses the degree to which they and their classmates have a right to expect that the policies of they syllabus will be honored blah blah blah.

But I have never, ever had a student ask me to just scratch out the 65 at the top of the exam and write in an 87 instead, for nothing, no extra work, and no legitimate reason. And I have never, ever, ever had a student tell me that I should do this because of justice; because it would be the fair thing to do. My head is spinning.

--Mr. Zero