In response to “For law enforcement applicants, Facebook should be part of the interview process”

No way. From your social media page, a potential employer can easily get information about your family / marital status, sexual orientation, political views, age, disability, and other items they are not allowed to base their decision to hire you on. You’d ask the majority of potential hires to give up private and possibly damaging information so you can weed out a minority of racist creeps. Additionally, if the interviewee doesn’t get hired, they’ve exposed personal information for nothing. The employer would be better off publicly cracking down on discrimination or similar issues within their ranks. This would help to get rid of the racist creeps and show the community they have no tolerance for such employees.

—Sebastian

In response to “UA professors question possibility of ASUA senator’s syllabus preview project” (by Stew McClintic, Feb. 18):

I think this is a great idea and know other major universities have similar systems in place. I find it discouraging that the faculty is so against an idea that would benefit a majority of UofA students. To think the best solution is to take the class then drop it as the instructor indicated in the article is absurd. Why not provide as much information on the course as possible up front so students can make good, informed decisions on what class to take. I’m sure there are many alternatives to providing more information that even the most tenured professors and contract employees can handle. Most disappointing is that you have a student leader here that is trying to make positive changes for the entire student body and instead of the faculty partnering with him, they basically shoot down the idea without exploring all alternatives. I thought professors were supposed to not only instruct but encourage, motivate and foster creativity. I sincerely hope Senator Ashton continues this effort. We need future leaders that work through challenges instead of giving up when someone says “Not going to happen.”

—Daily Wildcat Reader

Great idea! I have a course where the professor doesn’t use d2l for his syllabus but rather a separate website with the course lectures, syllabus, etc. With a simple Google search I was able to preview the course and actually wanted to take it. Some may argue that this will discourage some students from the course but let’s be real- the title of a course does little to no help for a student wanting to take that course.

— Student who pays to learn

I think you’re onto something Taylor. I like transparency BEFORE our students sign-up for a particular class (so they know what they are getting into). Once the teacher consents to teaching the class, they should be able, at that point, to put together a syllabus. Nothing too elaborate, but be able to give a snapshot of what a semester would look like.

— A parent

There are two basic reasons why this won’t work: 1) You can’t force tenured professors to do this, so they won’t; and 2) Adjuncts and graduate students are contract employees who are only on the university payroll from the first to the last week of the semester. Those of us who fall into the latter category sometimes don’t even get course assignments until after registration has started. Even if we do know we are getting a class in advance, why should we be forced to prep and distribute materials early when we are not even on the university payroll yet? Is the university going to start paying me when registration for my classes begins? I doubt it. Is the university going to set up e-mail, library, and D2L accounts months in advance for new grad students and first-time adjuncts so they have access to resources to plan their courses? Again, unlikely. I’m always happy to provide prospective students with a past syllabus for my courses or to discuss what the content might look like, but students who are actually on top of their game can already get a lot of this information on their own without ever contacting an instructor.

—An instructor