What You Should Know About Me
Dear Student:
In our course we will have a professional relationship.
Earlier in your education your teachers may have seemed to you like parents or camp counselors. Thinking of your college professors this way will lead to frustration and maybe anger. Discard this assumption. Think of me as a supervisor. Or -- think of me as a personal trainer who is interested not in your physical health but in your intellectual growth, now and in the future. To maintain health, you must be willing to attend to what I say and ask. We share a common goal and, if progress is to be made, you must lend me your trust.
I will assume that you are a competent adult who accepts my brief authority and that you have chosen to take on the challenges of our common interest, your education. I hope that many of you share my interest in history and critical thinking, but you can still succeed in our course if you don’t. Natural talent or interest in history is nice, but your effort and application matter more to me.
Like most professors at Los Angeles Valley College, I teach more than 300 students each year. That means that you must take the initiative if you would like to have from me more individualized attention. The best way to make this happen is to leave comments for me in our Canvas class, to ask for a phone conference, or to come see me during my office hours. I am happy to answer your questions and to clarify concepts in our material. I thoroughly enjoy working with students who are motivated, responsible, and curious. It is the chief reason I’ve been an instructor for 20 years.
I know there are tremendous pressures on students today. I too was once a student, and so some of those pressures are common ground. But if you want me to respect you, act as if learning is more important to you than a grade. I see you as a person, not a GPA.
Even if you don't pass my course because you came in with weak academic skills or because you’re distracted by problems at work or in your family, I believe you will receive value from any honest effort you make to learn in our course and that that value will serve you all your life.
In grading discussion work and formal essays, I try to be transparent in how I’ve come to your grade. Please avoid emailing me complaints about your grade unless you see an error in the online gradebook. If you doubt that I have fairly assessed your work, please contact me and we can usually resolve the problem. If that isn’t the case and if our discussion about the matter does not satisfy you, all students may contact the campus Ombudsperson (Links to an external site.).
If you are struggling in my course and become tempted to buy online tutoring services or to plagiarize from Quizlet, Wikipedia, or other sources -- think again. Think long and hard. Make sure you understand the dangers of plagiarism, which can cause you great harm even if you plagiarize unintentionally.
My aim is to offer you knowledge and skills that will serve you now and later in life. Knowing how to read, write, argue a point, and apply the past to the present will do much more than just advance your career: these skills will enrich the quality of your entire life. Having completed a general education at the college level, you will have skills and confidence that will bring you a lifetime of returns and in expected and unexpected ways.
Why am I writing this? So you can make an informed decision about whether or not to remain in my course. The genius of college is that you are here by choice, and the choices are all up to you. An education will give you precisely what you honestly put into it. I urge you to invest extravagantly.
If you choose to learn from me and then express something in your work or act in any way that makes me doubt that you understand this letter, I will reply by asking you to read this letter again.
Sincerely,
Bill Van Benschoten