Dartmouth's Worst

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Andrew Garrod – Education

Many unsuspecting freshmen choose Garrod's Education 20 course because it is hailed in certain circles as "the best class at Dartmouth." Others stumble into the class expecting an easy A for mastering Horton Hears a Who. You will, alas, be seriously disappointed if you anticipate either. All assignments are graded by upper-class education minors and required to be endlessly re-written with little explanation. Garrod himself does not apologize for his political biases and is wont to show them, presenting as undisputed fact arguments for his pet liberal causes.

Marysa Navarro-Aranguren – History

A dubious distinction, this professor was featured in the very first issue of The Dartmouth Review–over twenty-five years ago. She is still causing problems on the Dartmouth campus today. She is perhaps the most notoriously biased grader in Dartmouth's history and a feminist reactionary to the bone.

Richard Winters – Government

This former department chair has turned off a number of prospective government majors from even taking a second course in the department with his abysmal performances in Government 3. In one of the first professor evaluations in the Review, we wrote of unbearable "Winters in Hanover." Nearly two decades later, he's still here, and somebody forgot to tell him that Mondale lost. Winters claims to be an empiricist, but the only support for his assertions are nonsensical, indecipherable scribbles on the chalkboard. Drop his class before it's too late.

Lynda Boose – English

How Professor Boose managed to secure a position at Dartmouth is astounding. Nothing good can be said about this lady. She left her English 5 class to sit through more than four weeks of soap operas in place of class lectures. She frequently cancels class with little warning; she once missed class for a whole week because of a toothache. Avoid this nutty professor by any means necessary.

Robert Caldwell – Physics

If you're a Physics or Engineering major, Caldwell will do nothing to translate what is already a very demanding and difficult subject. He lectures with his back to the class and sidesteps questions, scribbling convoluted problems on the blackboard that he inadequately explains and can't complete without his notes or teacher's guide. He manages to make a dull subject even duller; students report that they actually know less after taking Caldwell's courses than they did going into it. Take him only if it's required for your major.

Michael Ermarth – History

Ermarth is hands-down the worst lecturer at Dartmouth–he is utterly incomprehensible. Ermarth is a fine scholar (he studies German intellectual history) but it's as though his mind unhinges when he steps into the classroom. His lectures are at once dense and rambling, combining numbing, irrelevant tangents with meaningless generalities. He's ultimately impenetrable. It doesn't help that he speaks with a thick accent and is fond of nonsensical analogies: he once claimed that the spread of the Third Reich was like "a spider web with octopus tentacles."

Brenda Silver – English

An avid feminist critic, Professor Silver reads literature with the firm belief that anything longer than it is round must be a phallus. Silver is addicted to anything anti-male and holds androgyny to be the human ideal. If you enjoy listening to the classics of Western culture being destroyed by feminist deconstruction, then you will love her lectures.

Ronald Edsforth – MALS

Professor Edsforth ranks amongst Dartmouth's most notorious professors. He's managed to teach here for over a decade without getting tenure, hanging on to a job only through the much-maligned MALS program. It's little wonder why, really, considering that Edsforth's particular brand of scholarship is light on disinterested inquiry but heavy on heavy rhetoric worthy of the Daily Worker. Students misfortunate enough to enroll in his 'War and Peace' class last spring learned little about war; some about the evils of American car companies (seriously); much about about castle-in-the-sky theories for world government.

Mathilde Sitbon – French

Madame Sitbon teaches the broadly-titled "French Language and Culture" class on the French FSP in Paris. An unapologetic socialist, as the French are wont to be, she makes no effort to leave her opinions at the door when she comes into the classroom. Always quick to criticize American politics and culture, she subscribes to the popular opinion that "the French way is the right way" and isn't afraid to share it. Needless to say, Mme. Sitbon plays favorites like it's her job; men and anyone she perceives to be privileged inevitably come out on the short end of this arrangement. Unfortunately, because Sitbon teaches on the FSP during all three terms, any student traveling to Paris must take her class.

Tanalis Padilla – History

One tasty tidbit: Padilla made her students come to an x-hour once to watch a movie extolling the virtues of the Zapatista terrorists who are fighting against the global capitalist conspiracy and the evil Mexican central government. The video featured the profound commentary of the angry bandmembers from Rage Against the Machine, countless crackpot academics, and even featured the indomitable, cop-killing Mumia Abu-Jamal. Take her classes only if you want to hear rants against US imperialism in Latin America.

Ann Bumpus – Philosophy

Bumpus is a case study on how not to use PowerPoint. Her "lecture" consists of progressing through slide after slide, each with a long quotation. At times it seems as if she hasn't prepared anything beforehand, as she pauses for minutes on end, combing through a pile of papers. She's a nice enough woman and gives very generous marks, but unless boredom is your bag, keep away.

Dartmouth's Worst Professor
Shelby Grantham – English

A self-described "recovering racist" who makes her classes into an airing of grievances rather than a study of literature because she "can't read male authors anymore," Grantham injects her Introductory Writing courses with dogmatic liberalism. Notorious for declaring Band-Aids "racist" because of their color, she terrorizes those who disagree with her and fills her class with rants that verge on insanity (the plight of the lobsters at the Co-Op apparently keeps her from sleeping at night). If you find yourself unlucky enough to be assigned to her Writing 5 section, bolt for the door.

Dartmouth's Worst

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