Whats the most difficult experience you’ve faced in teaching undergraduate students?
In the twilight of my teaching career, I taught the introductory U.S. history survey at a community college. For the first time, I encountered what we now call “classroom incivility.” I achieved legendary status among my colleagues for my inexperience handling a particularly difficult student. To my surprise, the problems I experienced (and subsequently learned how to deal with in a useful and progressive way) are not confined to one level of higher education. It’s lucky we have several good souls in faculty development researching and writing about the issue and providing strategies to employ in the classroom. Q: Your book makes witty use of administrative plans, like “Push the Pedagogy.” Is it a mistake for administrators to create so many complicated plans that seem to take up a lot of time for faculty members? A: What a nasty question for someone who has been on both sides of the fence. Yes. Administrators create complicated and unwieldy plans that draw faculty away from far more p
