Angus Bigglesworth, a Huxley Dilemma
Professor Angus Bigglesworth IV has been a faculty member of the Huxley College English Department since 1966. He earned tenure in 1970 under former President Marx. At age 56, Angus is eligible to retire but has told friends that he intends to keep working until "they carry me out in a box." A self-styled eccentric, Professor Bigglesworth rarely attends faculty meetings. When he does, he is apt to play the gadfly/curmudgeon role and his colleagues are frankly grateful when he doesn't show up. Angus teaches all of his classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and is often seen fishing or golfing on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In his classes, he uses the same notes year after year and refuses to consider any instructional strategy other than lecture, arguing that he was taught that way and that he is devoted to continuing the time-honored traditions of academia in this mode. Angus meets his required office hours, but students find him argumentative and difficult to talk to. He wrote a number of articles that were published in the 60's and 70's, but for the past 18 years has done little professionally in his field. He claims to be working on a novel.
Younger colleagues are resentful of what they see as Professor Biggleworth's lack of "productivity" and would like the department chair to begin proceedings to terminate Angus. In particular, Assistant Professor Angela Rodriguez, the Department's energetic young star who was just named Huxley's Teacher of the Year, has expressed concern that her application for tenure in 2001 will be denied because the department is "top heavy" with senior tenured faculty members.
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Hole 12: The Scholarship of Teaching
