Tukukkk

I recently accepted a tenure-track position at a university and will be on a 1-1 load my first year. My first course I will teach, I will get to modify and alter based on my expertise.

In my second semester, I am taking over a graduate course that was taught by a previous faculty member. This course is over a concept that I am extremely skeptical about. The prior professor, who taught the course, is a prominent supporter of the theory and has written articles and books on the subject.

So my concern is that my own biases could bleed out into the class.

My current plan is the following-

1. First half of the semester- teach the course close the the prior syllabus with some differences.


2. Midterm- present the evidence as to why I am a skeptic.


3. Second half of the semester, students either provide evidence in the form of a literature review supporting or objecting to my skepticism.

A little background, I was brought into the department for my computational strength, productive research stream, and subject expertise. The thing is, the subject expertise has nothing to do with this course where I am a skeptic. So I feel a little bit like I would be being unnecessarily disruptive to an already established department curriculum. That said, the faculty member who pushed this subject recently left and I do not know if anyone else in the department is as passionate about it as they were.

What "skepticism" means to an academic is strongly field-dependent. I am a mathematician, and I would have thought that true skepticism is almost impossible: after all, mathematical results are proved and any standard course would be on things that have been proved, reproved and combed over by the community several times over. I could however be skeptical of the future trajectory of a mathematical subfield: i.e., maybe I think it is not worth the students' time to learn it. But this is just a way of saying that I have very little interest in that subject, so...why then would I teach it? I suppose that's one of the luxuries I have as a tenured faculty member in a reasonably large department.

So I looked at your profile, and I am interested to see that your field is...statistics. So, hmm: again I wonder what you mean by "skepticism." Do you mean that the course concerns a statistical technique that is mathematically valid
but whose usefulness is vastly overstated or is typically applied outside its range of validity, or a statistical practice that is actually not grounded well in theory, or...what? I would think that "belief" has little to do with statistics, but perhaps that is a naive pure mathematician's belief.

On the face of it, if the course is in subject X, then spending some of the course covering X, then in the middle revealing that you don't believe it in X, then spending the remaining portion of the course having the students decide which is right sounds, well, weird. It is liable to leave them wondering why they took the course at all. Indeed: why is this course being given? You said that there was one "believer" faculty member who is no longer in the department, so...who wants the course now? Inertia is not a great defense for an academic position.

As a new tenure track professor in your department, in theory you should have some say in the programmatic offerings and also some responsibility. In practice, the responsibility lies much more with senior people than very junior people. I recommend that you contact faculty mentors and discuss your concerns with them in a mild way, making clear that you will do what they think is best. One idea is to propose replacing the course with a totally different course in a subject close to your own expertise and enthusiasm: other things being equal, that sounds like a much better course. If however the department is really committed to the course: well, you said you would do it, so I would suggest that you really do it, and not include skepticism of X as a main part of the course. You can rest easier at night knowing that you offered the department some alternatives. Speaking as someone who currently has an administrative role in my department: believe me, I am painfully aware that on a wide range of topics, "the buck stops with me." That is my problem; as someone who has not even started the tenure track job, it is not yet yours.

I don't see much wrong with your plan.

It does of course depend on the subject matter... Trying to be skeptical about gravity (engineer's joke: gravity is a myth, the earth sucks... :) ) is one thing - but skeptical about other "theories" which are held to be "true" until something better comes along, and it normally does, is not a crime.

If you explain your position and why, then the students can evaluate their position as per the second part of the semester.

It will be more interesting for you developing the assessments to avoid bias... But that will be part of your learning curve.

I don't think you have much to worry about - you are already considering both "sides" - if you held the position that the other side did not exist then the students would have an issue.

Best of luck.