Saturday, November 18, 2006
Constructive and Destructive
Baylor People:
I really love Baylor, and I'm very protective of the people and institutions that I love. If you want to hurt Baylor, I'm not going to help you.
Loving something doesn't mean pretending that it is perfect, and we have some stuff to work on. From my perspective, that starts with my own role in the institution. I'm doing my best in my classes to teach well. I mess up sometimes-- I'm inefficient, the reading assignments sometimes require detective skills to find the relevant parts, often during lectures I jet off on a tangent, and I'm a novice at writing tests. I do some outside work, too, an area that some people seem concerned about. That falls into two groups: Sometimes I teach continuing legal education or take federal panel cases. For that work, I make $90/hour. That constitutes about 1/4 of my outside work. The rest is pro bono, and includes (in the last year) civil rights litigation and sentencing appellate work. In my outside work, I have students working with me for independent study credit. It's not very lucrative in terms of money, but I do think that it is lucrative in the sense of promoting the school, keeping current in my area of study, and involving students in a high level of legal discourse.
Feel free to critique my teaching; I'm open to that, and have learned a lot from students in the past. However, don't ask me to either critique or comment on any other prof's teaching methods. I know this much-- that we have an extremely strong faculty. I respect my colleagues, enjoy working with them, and know how hard they work. I think we were extremely fortunate to bring in the four new profs we recruited this year-- I'm proud to know each one of them. If you have a problem with a teaching method they employ, raise it with them.
Want some perspective? At Yale Law, I had a prof schedule classes for 8 am on Saturday morning. I had a prof stand me up for nearly the full hour because I had broken a minor rule. There may even have been a professor who walked out on a class in frustration (though I don't remember being in such a class). I can't say that this happens at every school or most schools, but I do know that similar things happened there, and that people got wigged out by it. The picture to the right is of Yale Law's "Free Speech Wall" where students posted their grievances (and still do). Even at such a privileged place, people felt aggrieved, and sometimes they were right (just as sometimes the grievances of Baylor students have been correct).
Please note, however, that my blog is not a free speech wall. It has my name on it, and a picture of someone who looks kind of like me. I won't let it be used as a place to tear down people I am close to, as opposed to legitimate and constructive ideas for change.
Baylor Law is a place we share. If you want to change it for the better (and I am one person who wants to change some things), there are positive and negative ways to do it. If in the end your goal is to make it better, I'm probably with you. If your goal is to hurt something I love and believe in, I'm not.
Comments:
<< Home
Prof. Osler,
Thank you for sincerely trying to make things better. All of us at Baylor Law, students and professors, can improve. And thank you for encouraging positive critiques. I know when someone tears into me that I'm less likely to listen, but when I know someone cares enough to advise me of my faults and does it in a tactful and respectful manner I am more willing to listen.
And I support your decision not to openly criticize your fellow professors.
Thank you for your example of humility. If only all of us shared your perspective, Baylor Law School would be a much better place (Not that it's all so bad to be here in the first place).
Thank you for sincerely trying to make things better. All of us at Baylor Law, students and professors, can improve. And thank you for encouraging positive critiques. I know when someone tears into me that I'm less likely to listen, but when I know someone cares enough to advise me of my faults and does it in a tactful and respectful manner I am more willing to listen.
And I support your decision not to openly criticize your fellow professors.
Thank you for your example of humility. If only all of us shared your perspective, Baylor Law School would be a much better place (Not that it's all so bad to be here in the first place).
# posted by 
: 11:18 PM
: 11:18 PM
Given that Coyote Ugly is posing the same crap on various pages, I follow....
alum of the 90's said...
The god syndrome (by the way, it's not hyphenated, dumbo). Did you think that maybe YOU have a god syndrome?? "Most of us have been successful in our undergrad institutions...." Then go to med school and be of use to someone.
You're worried about being embarassed in front of your peers? Try being embarassed in front of a jury with a client's interests at stake, bozo.
alum of the 90's said...
The god syndrome (by the way, it's not hyphenated, dumbo). Did you think that maybe YOU have a god syndrome?? "Most of us have been successful in our undergrad institutions...." Then go to med school and be of use to someone.
You're worried about being embarassed in front of your peers? Try being embarassed in front of a jury with a client's interests at stake, bozo.
# posted by : 11:23 PM
: 11:23 PM
Note to readers--
"Alum of the 90's" is responding to a comment posted on other blogs. That comment was part of what I was responding to in my own post.
"Alum of the 90's" is responding to a comment posted on other blogs. That comment was part of what I was responding to in my own post.
I believe there is a saying that it's a soldiers right to complain - and we all complained at Baylor when the going got tough, but this other stuff is just absurd.
This "Coyote Ugly" group is making a serious mistake. There are much better ways to make a point that will have a positive and constructive effect. I hope that the current students who read this will be turned off by the juvenile and self-destructing rants and tactics of the individual(s) that make up that group.
It's easier for me to say now that I have graduated, but if I had to do it all over again I would go back to Baylor Law in a heartbeat. I am proud to be a BLS alum.
This "Coyote Ugly" group is making a serious mistake. There are much better ways to make a point that will have a positive and constructive effect. I hope that the current students who read this will be turned off by the juvenile and self-destructing rants and tactics of the individual(s) that make up that group.
It's easier for me to say now that I have graduated, but if I had to do it all over again I would go back to Baylor Law in a heartbeat. I am proud to be a BLS alum.
# posted by : 1:54 AM
: 1:54 AM
Prof. Osler-
I have not had you in class yet. I do not know how you teach classes and I do not know how you deal with students in a classroom setting. I recognize that you don't want this to become some sort of "wailing wall" and just some place that students complain about how things are going at Baylor Law.
However, I think you might be glossing over a problem that is real and not some situation that will merely pass with the times. I'm not OK with how I was treated recently in class. I'm am not OK with how this has happened before. I'm not OK that I came a long way to come to Baylor Law and this is how I get treated (having worked my ass off to make the grade here.)
Again I have to say that I haven't had you and that I am looking forward to seeing you in class as you seem to be a demanding yet fair professor. However, I hope that you don't dismiss the complaints of the students that are trying to accomplish and being shot down without cause. And there are a lot of us. I understand that this is a strict environment, but it needs to be one that we can succeed in.
I have not had you in class yet. I do not know how you teach classes and I do not know how you deal with students in a classroom setting. I recognize that you don't want this to become some sort of "wailing wall" and just some place that students complain about how things are going at Baylor Law.
However, I think you might be glossing over a problem that is real and not some situation that will merely pass with the times. I'm not OK with how I was treated recently in class. I'm am not OK with how this has happened before. I'm not OK that I came a long way to come to Baylor Law and this is how I get treated (having worked my ass off to make the grade here.)
Again I have to say that I haven't had you and that I am looking forward to seeing you in class as you seem to be a demanding yet fair professor. However, I hope that you don't dismiss the complaints of the students that are trying to accomplish and being shot down without cause. And there are a lot of us. I understand that this is a strict environment, but it needs to be one that we can succeed in.
# posted by : 3:21 AM
: 3:21 AM
I seriously considered deleting Coyote Ugly's comments, something I am loathe to do. I eventually let it stay up there if only because I believe their manifesto was so poorly written and thought out that exposing it to the light of day would rally people in opposition to their position. Which I think it has.
There hasn't been one comment in support of Coyote Ugly on any of the many blogs they have posted their screed on. That should tell you something. BLS is not perfect, and we all have a stake in making it better. But it needs to be constructive.
There hasn't been one comment in support of Coyote Ugly on any of the many blogs they have posted their screed on. That should tell you something. BLS is not perfect, and we all have a stake in making it better. But it needs to be constructive.
Who needs cable tv when every weekend there is some Baylor blog drama going on?
~F
~F
# posted by : 5:50 PM
: 5:50 PM
You know, if these "Coyote Ugly" people spent half as much time studying as they did constructing poorly-written manifestos and chasing people through the parking lot, maybe they wouldn't get embarrassed because they're not ready for class.
Post a Comment
# posted by : 2:18 PM
: 2:18 PM << Home
