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February 26, 2006
Tenured Canadian Professor Fired for Posting Comments to RateMyProfessor.com
Professors joke about this all the time. We know that our job performance is influenced, in part, by how others perceive our teaching. Websites like RateMyProfessor.com help shape these perceptions, but they are very unreliable because they do not confirm the authenticity of comments. Given how easy it is to game the system, wouldn't it be funny [yuck yuck yuck] to boost our RateMyProfessor.com rating...and, while there, perhaps take a swipe at some of our colleagues so that we look better by relative comparison?
Stephen Berman, a 30-year math professor at University of Saskatchewan, found out that this is no joke. Berman went to RateMyProfessor.com, anonymously posted 80 comments where he bashed some colleagues he didn't like and stroked some colleagues he did, and for this he was fired (sub. required). I'm not sure the firing was unwarranted, but it does reinforce the inherent unreliability of any tool that allows people to post anonymous comments about other people.
Posted by Eric at 05:49 PM | Life as a Law Professor
February 25, 2006
Beer Theft
News item: Thieves Make Off With $26,000 of Beer.
Location? Brewtown, of course! (more precisely, the greater Milwaukee metro area).
The AP story helpfully gives the lowdown on the stolen items:
- 384 24-packs of Miller Genuine Draft cans
- 560 18-packs of MGD 12-ounce bottles
- 980 18-packs of MGD 12-ounce cans
- 40 24-packs of Miller Light 16-ounce plastic bottles
Based on this inventory (beer in a plastic bottle?), I have a hard time imagining that the thieves were motivated to steal for their own personal consumption.
UPDATE: Michael's funny comment below got me thinking about beer in plastic bottles. Being an ever-curious researcher, I looked into the phenomenon. The American Plastics Council has a helpful page on the topic where they offer the following insights:
When a sample of 457 beer drinkers were questioned about the plastic bottle concept, but did not actually see, feel or touch a bottle, the results revealed the perceived perceptions which must be overcome. However, when a separate sample of beer drinkers were provided the opportunity to see, feel and touch a plastic beer bottle, then taste-test the beer, the results were dramatically different.
Overall attitudes towards plastic beer bottles were overwhelmingly favorable, with consumers rating a 16 oz. plastic beer bottle as an 8.0 on a 10-point scale. Additionally, the plastic container was perceived to have the look of glass and the shatter-resistant safety convenience of cans. Beer drinkers also praised the plastic beer bottle for:
* its re-sealable top;
* light weight;
* beer's better taste (versus cans);
* its comfortable grip;
* its recyclability;
* shatter resistancy;
* its appearance - it "looks like glass" and;
* its non-slip surface"
It's true. Although I've heard of beer in plastic bottles, I've never actually seen one in real life, let alone sampled it. So I felt like the American Plastics Council was speaking directly to me by pointing out the risk of ill-informed perceptions.
However, the argument loses me when it tries to compare beer in plastic bottles v. beer in cans. Let me be blunt--NEITHER ARE A GOOD IDEA, so establishing that one is better than the other doesn't really sway me.
In my research, I also came across this great (but technical) page that discusses the physics and chemistry of oxygen permeation in beer bottles. The following conclusion stopped me cold:
"Public opinion on using plastic for beer bottles has been investigated, and consumer studies show that acceptance is, not surprisingly, highest in the 18 to 25 age group and lowest in the 50+ age group. The generation that has grown up with soft drinks packed in PET doesn't think twice about beer in a plastic bottle, and so it is likely that it will not be long before beer packed in PET will become commonplace in supermarkets, pubs and clubs throughout the world."
Ugh. I think this paragraph tells me that I don't like beer in plastic bottles because I'm old.
Posted by Eric at 04:18 PM | Life in Wisconsin | Comments (1)
February 21, 2006
Some Professors Don't Like Student Email?
The NYT has a reactionary story today about professor-student email interactions. The subtext of the article is that some professors don't like some of the emails they get from students:
"At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance."
The article also implicitly laments that professors are now more accountable to students, and students have high (in some cases, aggressive) expectations for professor availability.
All of this may be true, but it strikes me as a universally good thing to eliminate some of the unnecessary barriers between professors and students that may hinder student learning. When a student emails me, the student opens a new channel of communication that extends the pedagogical space outside the four wall of the classroom into a format that may be more comfortable for the student. What a golden opportunity for me as a professor! And while I expect students to exercise discretion and common sense in communicating with me by email, it's my responsibility to set boundaries and establish appropriate norms for our interactions. In some sense, this boundary-setting may be equally or more pedagogically valuable than the substance we cover in the classroom.
I felt particularly uncomfortable with the decision by some professors not to answer a student's email at all. If a student emailed me a question about which binder to buy, I can think of several responses that would be more helpful than silence, such as:
* "do what works for you"
* "either choice is a good one"
* "you might consult your peers for perspectives about how they manage their course information that is more current than my experiences"
I'm not suggesting that I'm perfect with email, but I can't imagine many circumstances where I would deliberately ignore an email from a current student.
Posted by Eric at 08:56 AM | Legal Education Industry , Life as a Law Professor | Comments (2)
February 19, 2006
New Blog: Empirical Legal Studies
Congratulations to my colleague Jason Czarnezki on the launch of his new blog, the Empirical Legal Studies blog. According to its first post, "the ELS blog will advance productive and interdisciplinary discourse among empirical legal scholars." Good luck!
Posted by Eric at 09:22 PM | Blogosphere Issues , Family & Friends
February 16, 2006
Hurt on ABA's Latest Diversity Initiative
At Concurring Opinions, Christine blogs on the latest ABA diversity admissions initiative. As she points out, critiques that the ABA's efforts are illegal miss the point. She writes:
"Putting aside debates as to whether affirmative action is good, bad, constitutional, unconstitutional or whatever, the most affirmative action-minded admissions committee has to make very difficult choices in an environment of scarcity. Scarcity of applicants; scarcity of dollars."
She then details her frustrations as an admissions committee member at Marquette, which indicates that solving the diversity problem is not easily mandated by accreditation bodies.
Posted by Eric at 02:24 PM | Legal Education Industry
February 10, 2006
Law School Applications Decline 10%
The New York Times reports that law school applications this year are down about 10%. Maybe there will be a late run of applicants, but if applications decline again this year (like they did last year), possible explanations include:
* better economic times means more/better jobs for prospective students (increasing the opportunity cost of law school and giving more students a way to productively allocate their time)
* students feel like they already have too much education-related debt, which increases the pressure to make sure law school is the right choice
* more students are interested in medical school (med school applications are up)
* no recent hot lawyer-oriented TV shows or movies (i.e., no The Practice or Legally Blonde or even Ally McBeal or Ed; and the Law & Order fervor may have cooled off)
* my favorite explanation comes from David Kelly (who is responsible for a number of the TV shows that have driven people to law school): "The more lawyers there are, the more people are out there to encourage others not to go to law school"
Whatever the case, the decrease in applications could have significant repercussions. A smaller applicant pool means that there are fewer students with GPAs/LSATs that help a school's US News rankings. Competition for these students should get even fiercer.
At the same time, I've noticed a minor trend towards schools shrinking their entering class size. Reduced enrollments helps schools control entering students' GPA/LSAT numbers by trying to avoid matriculating the bottom X% of incoming students (as measured by numbers). However, this is also a costly management tool because fewer incoming students means less revenue for the school/university. Nevertheless, if the applicant pool is shrinking and most schools want to avoid lower entering GPAs/LSATs, entering class sizes--and law school budgets--will have to shrink.
Posted by Eric at 11:49 AM | Legal Education Industry
February 08, 2006
Coasean vs. Coasian--Which is Correct?
My next big paper is titled "A Coasean Analysis of Marketing." An earlier draft was titled "A Coasian Analysis of Marketing," but then I got nervous that Coasian was not correct. So I asked my buddy Scott, who teaches Law & Economics, about the correct spelling. He didn't know off the top of his head, but he did a few searches and concluded that it was mostly a draw, with a slight preference for Coasean. With that, I switched.
Now, Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy provides a much more definitive analysis on this topic. Based on his literature searches, he concludes that Coasean is preferred slightly (60% to 40%). Read the comments--they are hilarious. Interestingly, some of the pro-Coasean camp appear to have strongly held views about the correctness of their position, so I'm glad I switched.
Posted by Eric at 10:24 AM | Legal Industry
February 06, 2006
Bloggers Get a Lot of Emails
I get a surprising and steadily increasing flow of emails related to my blogs. Just today, I got the following emails:
* an email from an attorney working on a case I blogged about, wanting to clarify the case. I actually get several of these types of emails a week; it's interesting how many litigators Google their cases to see what people are saying about them. (I swapped emails with her and ended up posting an addition to my blog post)
* a cryptic email from some company that helps mobile phone users read blogs, asking if they could offer my blog to their subscribers. (I didn't understand the request, but I said yes so long as I could change my mind)
* an email from a blogger notifying me that he had posted on a topic of putative interest, with the implied request that I link to the post (I did check out the post, but I'm not going to link to it; others appear to have gotten the same message and have already promoted his site)
* an email from an undergraduate who was sued by the RIAA and who is now trying to recoup his settlement payment through a donations website. The email asked me for a link (I told him good luck on his endeavors)
* an email from a former student saying that he had perused my blog and had a follow-up question about a legal point (I pointed him to a speech outline on my website that answered his question)
Whew! I've never been so popular in my life. And I didn't even get any PR contacts today, but I get those pretty regularly now.
As I've said before, my blogs are pretty small-potatoes as blogs go. So if I'm seeing this type of inflow, I shudder to imagine what real bloggers get.
Posted by Eric at 08:30 PM | Blogosphere Issues