You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A faculty panel at the University of Colorado at Boulder has found no problems with a course on deviance at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The review found that the course and its professor -- Patricia Adler, a professor of sociology -- generally get high reviews. The review follows complaints by administrators about an in-class event in which some volunteer assistant teaching assistants dress up as various kinds of prostitutes. Administrators have suggested that the exercise may make some students feel uncomfortable, although there have never been formal complaints about the issue and the course has been popular for years. The faculty panel said that "properly conducted role-playing and skits are meritorious pedagogical techniques. If skits are used in the future, it will be appropriate for Professor Adler to document that those involved, whether students in the class, undergraduate teaching assistants (ATAs), or graduate teaching assistants (TAs), give full informed consent to participate, including to the possibility of being filmed, and can opt out of participation at any time without penalty, if, indeed, this is the standard being used throughout the university for in-class participation." The panel concluded that there was no reason the course could not continue.
Many faculty groups (at Boulder and nationally) have been calling for the university to endorse that view (the university has said that such a review was necessary) and to retract a series of statements offering different reasons for the concern about the course. Via email, a spokesman for the university said that if the executive committee of the sociology department endorses the report, Adler can continue to teach the course. But the spokesman said that the university wasn't retracting any statements. "We understand the concerns of various groups and organizations that have weighed in, but they are not privy to all the facts in the case," he said. The statements were not intended to reflect on Adler, he said, but to affirm the idea "that student welfare in the classroom is a co-equal concern for the institution alongside academic freedom."
