This time I didn’t fill out voluminous stuff for the first page of questions. I just checked some pretty negative boxes, and answered only these three questions:

What was the strongest aspect of this course?

I think Mike is a tremendously talented and knowledgeable professor, whose is humor was a delight. I thought he did a brilliant job of organizing the group dynamics aspects of orientation week, during which time he seemed to be an integral part of the curriculum.

What changes, if any, would you recommend to improve the course?

After the first week, it seemed that the class became a less critical part of the coursework, and I suspected it wasn’t getting the institutional support it needed. I had been really looking forward to learning a great deal about handling myriad group dynamics issues, from role definition to conflict management, but I felt I got none of that. Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the feeling it wasn’t due to a lack on Mike’s part, but that it was very hard for him to provide continuity in a class that a) met sporadically and b) didn’t have has solid a curricular framework as other core classes. So I would suggest a major revamp of the class. I would like to see it become a central part of the coursework, and be focused not on a somewhat artificial construct of a “group” (that is, five people assembled for several sessions of this one class), but instead on scenarios, role plays, case studies and other things from which we can derive practical skills. Then the other classes could dovetail with these ideas, letting us put into practice group dynamics principles in the more realistic settings of having to do a four-week group presentation, for example.

What would you suggest that the professor continue to do or do differently?

As I said, I love Mike, and always looked forward to coming to class and seeing what he was going to come up with next. I admit that at times he seemed disorganized. I don’t know, myself, how I would teach a class of this nature if it met once a month; the idea runs contrary to the subject matter. “Group? What group?” The only potentially negative thing I have to say about Mike himself is that sometimes his communication skills seemed scattered.

But he really knows his stuff, he is quick-witted — a sense of humor that was subtle enough that many in the class seemed to miss it — and he allows freedom of ideas. So it’s not so much what I wish the professor would do differently as that I was the situation had been different. The class felt tacked onto the curriculum like a Post-It — a very small Post-It. Bring Mike back and let him do more.

The class could and should have been so much more.