I’m grading the exams and term papers. I’m the instructor of record for this course. It’s unnerving seeing this twitter thread blow up over the internet.
(Longtime BoingBoing reader, first time commenter.)
Let me give you folks some info about the situation.
This is an online course offered through the university and a 3rd party company as part of an online education partnership started 10 years ago. The professor in the lectures was an illustrious expert and beloved teacher at my university. He worked with the company to create and develop this course. The whole organization, readings, assignments–everything is what he put together.
There are two TAs along with myself (Ph.D. art historian) to grade the assignments and exams and give feedback to the students. Although it is online, this is a completely standard kind of survey class with standard forms of assessment in my field. Nothing out of the ordinary in that regard.
My name appears in the first sentence of the first line of the course outline. The second sentence explains that the late professor is the one in the recorded lectures. It’s a shame that this student appears to be upset about the passing of the professor, but they missed the parts of the syllabus and registration that list me as the person on the other end of the email address for the course.
By the way, one of my colleagues tells me that a member of our department reached out to the online learning company and told them that the original professor had passed away. They didn’t don’t seem to have done anything with that info.
I’ve worked at universities where the upper admin would have loved to create recordings of professors and replace us all with underpaid adjuncts or TAs. This is not that kind of school. I’m really fortunate to work here now.
There’s plenty in the world to get outraged about these days. This is not one of those situations.
