Abstract:
It was 5:00pm when Assistant Professor Timothy Brown finished teaching his first class for the Political Science Department at Metropolis University. He was exhausted but gratified. The graduate seminar on international political economy was a long one--three hours--which he had not interrupted with a break. Instead, he had maintained a brisk pace, asking students questions, testing their preconceptions and assumptions about the subject, and challenging their answers. Brown felt the class had been responsive; despite the length of the seminar, some students had even lingered at the end of class to continue the discussion. Brown went home believing the seminar had been a great success, and that the give and take of the discussion had sparked a lively interest among the students. But a few hours later, Brown heard otherwise. He received a call from a colleague at the school, summoning him to the department chairman's office the next morning and warning him that there had been angry rumblings from some students after his seminar.
