With the unveiling of the syllabus bank coming up fast, two Auburn professors shared their thoughts on the project.
The syllabus bank is a database projected to be rolled out by the end of this semester where professors have the option to upload course syllabi from previous semesters which students can use for reference before signing up for their classes.
Math Professor Urich Albrecht said he did not agree with the project, and it would be detrimental to students’ education.
“It’s in theory a good idea, but in practice, it will not benefit students who want to learn, but it will be of use to students who want to find the easy way out,” Albrecht said. “We are a global economy, we are competing with other countries with much higher production and industry, and if our graduates are getting weaker and weaker, especially in a state like Alabama with a weak industrial output, we will not be able to compete.”
Albrecht said the information available in the database is mostly already available on the school website, and it will not provide anything new and useful for students.
English Professor Stewart Whittemore said the project was “a marvelous idea” and touted its benefits to faculty as well as to students.
“I was at a meeting…[where] different professors from different tracks in the English major shared our syllabi with each other, and I loved seeing what professors in other tracks were doing,” Whittemore said. “There are interesting points of coordination that I had no idea existed.”
Whittemore said students could use the database to stagger their scheduling work to avoid unnecessary stress.
“Maybe they know they’ll get really busy at the end of the semester with certain classes and they want to pick a class where the main work is completed mid-semester, or maybe with a final exam rather than a big seminar paper," Whittemore said.
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