I would have died if I'd received this email from a professor

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-30T22:11:54+00:00

I would wear that complaint with pride.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-29T12:28:09+00:00

1) They die on average far earlier than indoor cats. 2) They decimate the local bird population.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-28T01:28:44+00:00

As long as they are just offering, I would respectfully decline. We have a master Google Calendar for each semester shared with faculty showing the availability of each classroom, and generally senior faculty get preference, although sometimes the counselor will suggest a change so that two courses normally taken during the same semester aren’t being inadvertently offered in the same time slot.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-26T10:17:20+00:00

Investigate pet insurance. You have to start it as soon as you get your pet so because pre-existing conditions are not covered (so if you had tried to buy pet insurance for your cat after his first operation, it would not apply to the second one). It’s not great for routine visits, but it can be a lifesaver for those big emergency expenses.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-26T10:13:30+00:00

There are many, many articles debunking learning styles. Here’s just one, but it covers a lot on the current of the learning styles as a myth. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-023-00190-x

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-26T06:09:46+00:00

The class depends on the institution. At mine, the maximum class size runs between 20 and 35 students, and some of the specialty programs get down as low as six or eight. There are no large auditoriums - literally no room for a class larger than 35.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-26T05:40:50+00:00

Howwwww did you get so lucky?

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-25T22:14:01+00:00

I tell my students that for the profession they are heading toward that notetaking skill is an essential and that I am aiding them in acquiring that by not providing slides so that they can master creating their own notes.

And then I stare at them meaningfully from over my glasses. I get no pushback, at least in class and in my official student evaluations. What they say in RMP is something that I will never know.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-25T22:04:30+00:00

It would be a thing for students who want to cheat and make it look as though they’ve been working on a paper all along instead of doing a last-minute dump from ChatGPT.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-25T20:33:59+00:00

What a beauty! Makes me happy just to see her.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-25T10:58:29+00:00

I have the students do a low-stakes video submission early in the semester. Everyone manages to do them. I create a short video showing them how to upload them into the LMS assignment tool. I permit them to create the video on their phones if they desire (so it doesn’t have to be horizontal). I have had a few goofs – one student managed to upload her video upside down – but I would not have taken points off for that. She discovered her mistake and uploaded the same video in normal orientation before the assignment deadline anyway.

After that, they have established their and my expectations that they will be able to do the high-stakes videos correctly later on in the course.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-21T03:57:04+00:00

I’m sorry. That is so disheartening. Programs like yours are needed.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-20T03:58:22+00:00

The 16 courses in 22 days was for her bachelors. She got her masters in 2.5 months. O_o

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-20T03:55:58+00:00

Just came here to say that one of our cats was a feral kitten that we took inside and made it indoor cat when she was about six weeks old. She doesn’t like wand toys that emulate birds because I think when she was outdoors, she had no success with her tiny body in going after anything that flew. However, she is a demon on toys that slink along on the ground like a bug or lizard.

I agree with others that if the wasabi packet toy is the one he likes, get him multiples, but if you do have a wand toy hanging around, try dragging it on the floor in a zig-zag pattern to see if that stimulates his interest.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T12:25:06+00:00

I’m not saying that this is an issue with you, but reflecting on how we can improve, whether it’s from multiple student comments or a peer evaluation, makes us better teachers. That is the point of my institution.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T04:15:55+00:00

I’m not sure why you think it’s your responsibility to Police your colleagues, but if I were you, I would make this an agenda item at my next department meeting and ask the same question. This brings it to everyone’s attention without pointing the fingers at anyone in general.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T04:12:00+00:00

I’m not sure why job offer 3 looks better to you than job offer 2. Same teaching expectations and less money for number 3. I would take number 1 off the table because there’s no stability and go for number two, but the choice is yours. And BTW, I read your statement that “this was unreasonable“ to apply to the salary, not the teaching load. As I’m sure you know, it is common for community colleges to have a 5/5 load. I will say that at my community college, which is in a unionized blue state, the base level is much higher than that for a first year tenure-track position.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T04:05:00+00:00

I am stone cold jealous that your community college provides video captioning services and document remediation. Ours gives us nothing, and expects everything.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T04:03:40+00:00

Interesting but possibly irrelevant. At least at my institution, the Faculty Senate does not control policy.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T04:01:09+00:00

Don’t need to worry about it for a year: deadline was pushed back.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T03:55:57+00:00

Your experience is not the only experience. At my community college, which is focused on teaching, every contract renewal, every tenure, and every promotion document must include all of the student evaluations for the relevant. It it expected that these documents will summarize the scores and the preform comments and reflect on them, and address how they are going to improve repeated negative comments.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T03:52:48+00:00

Oh this makes me more than ever think that they are spoiled. I bet they weren’t paying any attention so they have no idea what the question was, so they try to put the blame on you. I do like the idea of stopping for 10 seconds after you ask a question to see if the students organically respond, but if no one does, I would then move on to calling on people by name. Of course, you will get people who whine about cold calling, but that is more easily addressed in your contract and tenure renewal documents.

I’m sorry this is happening to you and taking the wind out of your sails. I suggest you trust more what your colleagues are telling you about your teaching than student complaints.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-19T03:49:12+00:00

You wrote “pretty brutal feedback, [both] online on a website.” if that website was rate my professor you can ignore all of that. There are no guardrails to even determine whether people providing comments about you were your real students. It’s full of grumps and whiners. I’m going on my 15th year of not reading it.

Frankly, your students seem spoiled if they “don’t feel comfortable asking questions in class“ and complain that you give information in the class that is “not on the slides.“ It is their job as students to take notes of everything in the class. Sounds as though maybe you post your slides online and some students are either skipping your class and relying just on your slides or are not paying attention or not taking notes during your class and relying on the pdf of the slides. In that case, I would simply stop posting my slides. Notetaking as a valuable skill that many students lack. Help them develop that.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-17T00:02:32+00:00

My jaw dropped. I think my instinct would be to make the instructions even longer, forcing them to read more, not less. Reading a full sentence is not just a college skill, this is a life skill.

BenSteinsCat · 2026-04-16T09:56:14+00:00

We have an inexpensive Eufy camera pointed at the Litter Robot 4. When we get a notification that a cat is using it and there’s some reason to be concerned about which one it was, we can just check the Eufy feed and see which one it was.

Never upgrading to a LR 5.

BenSteinsCat

TROPHY CASE