Editor,
I'm grateful that the Daily Lobo has finally revealed the truth.
All us professors here at the good old UNM should and must entertain the students at all costs.
In fact, entertainment = learning. As for me, I structure all my classes like "Survivor" game shows. It's quite fun to see who makes it off grammar-class island through the Sea of Gerunds and the misplaced dangling modifier monsters to survive at the end of the semester.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if any students actually make it, so the ICES scores are really good, because, since no one survives, I can make stuff up about how great I am.
"Writing Class Survivor" is another game show I use to disappear students, most of whom can't make it through the first paper, which is again great for me because dead students' papers are much easier and faster to grade than the bored and plagiarized papers of live students.
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Another thing we professors need to get it together on - I don't think just our jobs should be determined on the basis of student evaluations, but our lives should be dependent on the statements that appear on ratemyprofessors.com
I would humbly suggest that if professors are rated by not getting hot chile peppers, they should be subjected to public execution.
Administration can play a vital role here. The entertainment value of publicly beheading our faculty cannot be underestimated. Before these lousy teachers die, however, selected administrators can read out their sins by rating them for their pomposity, inaccessibility and poor and boring teaching.
Let's face it, "If you're not hot, you're not." That should be the new UNM faculty statement that all UNM professors say when they sign their enhanced loyalty oaths, the oath that allows the University to take our lives in the event we are both lousy teachers and unentertaining.
Since the two are synonymous, I would expect there would be a good many of us faculty to die during the semester. That's OK. These spots could be filled by great entertainers and game show hosts who are a lot more engaging than dull old college instructors who just drone on and on, and whose classes students sleep through anyway.
Also, thanks to the Daily Lobo for the high standards of evidence presented in Thursday's article on ratemyprofessors.com, I bet the reporter learned about sourcing from an entertaining class on journalistic ethics - just another example of all the fun you can have while you are learning about libel and slander at UNM.
James Burbank
UNM faculty
