Free David Weale

Aside from the question of a community that measures itself by the volume of attention it gets in the press elsewhere, your analogy fails to take into account that dead guy at the bootlegger’s bar and the failure of Weale to go to outlandish lengths to teach rather than not teach. Net positive should not be good enough.

Perhaps it’s not all that unusual in PEI but I know the players in this story. David Weale and I have lunched about a wide range of topics. It is my feeling that PEI is lucky to have David. He’s a tremendous intellect, wit, and prankster (the “Rocky” hat, a la Rocky & Bulwinkle, seems to betray this a triffle). Richard Curial is a brilliant man. We’ve riffed spontaneous improv over beers, held court on Cable 10’s Point of View, and always had a great time fooling around. He’s not incapable of a sense of humour which would have served him better, I think, than the law-and-order stance he took; you’re absolutely right about that Pete. (Faculty Assn Pres) Wayne Peters was a serious student at UPEI when I was the other kind. Regardless, I was all ‘law and order’ back then. Plenty of students thought I was too serious about what would be called “professional behaviours” (I’m fairly sure he agreed). Generally they thought that whole thing ought to be taken more loosely. Ironically, Wayne and I have switched sides. But, what’s going on with my friend Richard? He chairs the Premier’s Task Force on Closing Small Schools (my interpretation) which seems to be promoting the idea of standardized testing. Richard (and Mr. Binns), it’s far more important that kids know stuff than we know they know it. Anyway, I’m used to Richard’s hard-right-leaning views of the world. What’s astonishing is that he’s a pure conservative who can intelligently defend Conservative philosophy — mostly conservatives rely on slogans and “you’re not rich enough to understand” type thinking; but not Curial. Anyway, count me among those who are absolutely and solidly behind Weale in this — not that I agree with exactly what he was doing but that the response is so outrageous as to warrant him a full pardon and a beer.

It doesn’t matter that he’s trying to make a point about the fact that his class size was too much. He was under contract to the university as a lecturer to provide instruction to the students and evaluate their performance by assigning a grade as per the university’s established standards (which are tied to the Cdn. assoc. of universities & colleges). If he fails to meet these standards (as he did here), then his employment gets terminated. Period. Why should other students have to sweat it out in courses to earn their mark the proper way when these slackers can take a bird course (which Prof. Weale is known for giving) and not even show up to get the credit? C’mon! Perhaps I should go and sign up for Accute Stroke Management at Dal Med and then get the credit for not showing up… only with an arts program would someone like Weale attempt this (and I’m an arts grad). Send the Yankee draft dodger and their ilk back to Nixon’s-Clinton’s-Bush’s America where he/they belong(s).

My mom was a TA for (fairly famous) philosopher Paul Feyerabend at UC Berkeley and told me once that he used to make the same offer as Weale, but with A’s. I don’t know if the lesson from that is that your university lets you do what you want if you’re famous enough, or that that was Berkeley in the ‘60’s.

“Yankee draft-doger”? June, Weale’s an Islander. Which perhaps, accounts for “Islandisms” (W.T.Wanker) and a whole lot of other annoying things that we call home. At the risk of gassing the flames, who are all you anonymous posters? Perhaps just gutless huh? Ah the grotesque certainty of youth — you’ll grow out of it.

Please note that the Journal-Pioneer editorial posted here earlier was not posted by staff from the Journal-Pioneer newspaper, but I’ve received permission from the managing editor to leave the text in place.

There’s a new low.

Do you not realize that this ‘70% deal’ damages the credibility of all professors at UPEI? It makes the school look like a joke. It’s quite disgusting that a professor who would preach academic integrity doesn’t follow his own instruction.

(I hope David doesn’t mind me doing this but I agree with what he says so much, and I know he doesn’t (at least, didn’t) go on line much) In his own words: ON OPTICS “They just want to send out this message about how strict they are about standards, when, goddammit, I was the one who was fighting in that class for standards.” ON GRACE I was saying to the students: ‘This is an act of grace and it’s a good thing in life to accept grace.’ It’s not a good thing to think that you have to earn everything, because that’s an illusion.” ON LUCK “It’s often because of good luck, the family they were born into, the genes they were born with. So when you establish a society totally of merit and credit, it just suits the privileged. And it always works against the underprivileged.” ON FAIRNESS “Fair always depends on your perspective. Is it fair for students to do nothing in a class and get a credit? No, it is not fair. I’ll admit that. Now, is it fair for students who have paid $450 and who want to learn about the content of the course to be jammed into a classroom that is greatly compromising the learning situation? Is that fair to them?” This stuff comes from LiVEJOURNAL.com (sorry if I’ve violated any copyright — someone will tell me). Livejournal, or at least the article, doesn’t seem to think any of this is a good thing, here’s what they say about David, “When asked whether what he did was wrong, he grew impatient, launching into a critique of “our so-called merit-based society,” adding it rewards the privileged.” In today’s its-ok-to-knife-someone-as-long-as-its-done-with-a-smile-world, “he grew impatient” is code for “I don’t like him” otherwise it would have been left out. Anyway, the critique he “launched into” is what produced those comments on optics, grace, luck and fairness. Would that he’d continue “launching”! Anyway, David is right about optics. So few ever speak of grace, luck is as much about arrogance as it is about anything, and I know my old friend Chris Bullman would agree with David on fairness.

Obviously, not many here have had recent reference letters for graduate school written by Weale. For those who have, I wonder what they are worth?

What about the fact that one in five UPEI students (from this subsample)accepted Weale’s offer? Perhaps the University should be concerned about the fact that in this sample of its students, 20% were all-too-happy to buy credits. Perhaps a more rigorous screening process is in order?

I think that Peter raised the issue about class size being something that should remain on the table. Can we talk about that for a bit? What happens when you are lectured at by someone who cannot mark your papers and who may not know your name? Is this quality? Is this excellence? Universities are on track to be factories. I worked at York a few years back. Many of the classes were 200-300. The prof never saw a paper and never could do more than lecture at the students. Every class had a text book and a set of harassed TA’s that were barely older and more experienced than the undergrads. As universities fight to get bums on seats - this is where they are going. Is this quality? Is this worth the money? Is any learning going on? Is this where UPEI is going? Does it have to be that? Is being a factory going to be a competitive offering? Now my age comes into the picture. When I was an undergrad - the largest class I had was 3. Each of us would read our papers to the prof out loud. We would then discuss them in a group with the prof. He would then set us a large question and send us out to the resources of the university to find our answers and to be ready next week to offer our best shot again. Now that was learning. That was excellence and that was quality - the objective was to teach us how to think and how to take charge of our own learning - not to regurgitate a text book or the views of one professor. In seeking enrollment above the student experience, universities risk offering a facade of learning. In Canada most undergrad offerings seem to me little more than high school with bigger classes So can a university have a large enrollment and offer the kind of interactive engagement that we all need to learn? Yes they can - it is called online. What will make the change? First, the Emperor’s clothes effect will kick in. There will come a time soon, when many 23 year olds with a 4 year BA and $40,000 of debt will realize that this commodity degree has no value in either the workplace or in life. Universities roll out fear stats saying that if you don’t have a degree you are done for. But who do you know is routinely getting their feet on a ladder that will take the somewhere with one of today’s sad degrees? What would it be about what they have just been through that would make them as a group attractive to you as an employer? Have they been taught to think for themselves? Have they been taught to learn? Have they been taught anything that is current? Have they gone deep into anything? In a world where more and more of us will not have jobs but have to create work - look at Peter or the SO boys etc - have you learned anything that will make you comfortable in an unstructured landscape? How will having 30-40,000 of debt affect your choices and your life on graduation? There is a small but growing group of educators who are working to create a much more interactive and valuable offer. Just as the airlines, retailers and the media are being undermined by a new offering that fits the real needs of the customer, so post secondary education needs to look out for the revolution to reach them as well. A university that will be very successful in the future will make the student experience its most important issue of quality. This experience will not be limited to how nice the campus is but will include the learning experience and the reality of the value of the degree and the association with the university in life after graduation So the fuss about David Weale has obscured the point. By focusing on David, it has missed the risk for UPEI. That a revolution is sweeping the world. This revolution is using the new technology to offer the consumer a much better deal. All the technology is in place today to offer the student a much more current, interactive and less expensive learning experience. An experience that takes the student out into the world. An experience that builds a network for the student with not only other students but with practitioners. All this for a fraction of the direct and indirect costs for the students. The opportunity for UPEI, is that these revolutions always happen from the edges in. The last place to change will be Harvard - see the resignation of the President who had offering a better undergrad experience at the top of his agenda. UPEI is well placed to take a lead. It has not grown too big and has a culture of community that is real. There is a lot at stake. The issue is a lot bigger than David.