LETTER: Student teachers receive high evaluations

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by Patricia Bixel

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To the editor:

I was disappointed to see that one of the issues in the Strategic Plan that the Thresher chose to comment upon was the proposal about graduate teaching ("Improvements?" Thresher , April 12).

I would suggest that the editors more closely examine what constitutes graduate student teaching and rethink their blanket condemnation.

The History Department currently permits graduate students to propose and offer courses after passing their comprehensive examinations. These proposals are reviewed by the department's graduate committee and approved only after careful consideration of course content, readings and requirements.

Often these courses present subject matter not available in the regular curriculum, and equally often graduate students are exceptionally up to date on the most current issues and scholarship in a given field.

If history graduate students were not permitted to teach, Rice undergraduates would have missed courses from Lynn Lyerly (assistant professor, Boston College), Anya Jabour (assistant professor, University of Montana at Missoula), and John Daly (assistant professor, Austin College). Matt Taylor began teaching at Rice as a graduate student, and Osaak Olumwullah (assitant professor, University of Miami, Ohio) frequently assisted Professor Odhiambo.

This year, in addition to a course dealing with American popular culture that I taught, Scott Dewey is teaching the first course in environmental history yet offered.

Graduate students who teach consistently receive strong teaching evaluations in a department known for high quality instruction.

Finally, undergraduates need not be forced to take courses offered by graduate students. If an undergraduate believes that having an assistant/associate/full professor is the leading indicator of academic or teaching quality, then only take courses from those purveyors.

But don't shortchange graduate students -- who pay significantly more in tuition -- in their education or discount their commitment to teaching excellence. Graduate students have insights to offer, and many have the skills to equal the high standards of undergraduate teaching established at Rice.

Patricia Bixel

Graduate Student

History Department

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the April 19, 1996 issue.

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