There was no prepackaged system to follow. It was a pretty large academy, with I think close to 100 teachers. Teachers were grouped by the sections they taught. One group of teachers would be assigned test creation and grading for the classes of another group, that is, same subject but different section.
I see two extremes: one represented by this professor who IMHO cares too little about students --- still he deserves to keep his job. The other extreme is more dangerous and is about University professors actively accepting and facilitating immature behaviour by students. Where could a sweet spot be drawn along this gradient?
> The student petition protested that Jones’s class was too hard and that students lacked resources and help. It did not say the professor should be fired.
> “We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and wellbeing a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole,” the petition read.
I doubt either of those extremes actually exist. News stories paint a sensational picture for clicks to try to get social media ablaze with "entitled gen z students want their grades handed to them" without actually digging into any details until a few thousand pixels below the fold.
It would seem, from reading the story, that this was a professor who did not actually do the leg work to be a professor. Namely, providing students with more than just written resources and giving exams. Why pay a prestigious do-nothing professor a salary when you can just offer an online course that has the same level of engagement?
None of those things are especially newsworthy. They sound like Onion headlines on their own. But when one or more of them happen which could be framed in a way that incenses the public, it becomes a news story because that's how you make money in journalism in 2022.
I am a professor and have seen both extremes. I am worrying about how to keep high scholarly standards all the time --- also on teaching, and especially when supervising theses.
Code that writes code that writes code... my limited experience combining AWK and GAMS gave me impressively powerful feelings about my limited code. This surely belongs to the next level, I'll go for more!
Sorry, what were the impacts other than a few weeks of construction noise? The cable is buried under the beach and the seafloor until you get half a mile offshore. According to the link, they left some drilling equipment 60 feet underground, and that's a "disaster"?
This site seems to be dedicated to opposing any sort of development along the Oregon coast, so I guess it's not surprising they didn't like this.
The independent analysis [1] concluded that "there are currently no adverse environmental, scenic, recreational, or economic impacts resulting from the drill break or presence of Remaining Materials 50 to 70 feet below the sea floor, nor is there a reasonably conceived scenario (e.g. earthquake, tsunami, long-term coastal erosion) that would expose the Remaining Materials to the surrounding environment and result in future impacts."
The drilling fluid is in a borehole ~60 feet underground, and has hardened into a solid (as it's designed to do when not under the mechanical stress of drilling). It's mostly water and clay, with a few additives, all of which are below their ecotoxicity threshold concentrations, even at full concentration in the borehole. And if the drilling fluid ever entered the ocean (which it won't), it would be diluted such that "concentrations of the drilling mud additives and their chemical constituents would be orders of magnitude below ecotoxicity threshold concentrations (and therefore non-hazardous to natural resources) and undetectable".
Didn't read the article but from what I understand drilling fluid for environmentally sensitive areas tends to be water with bentonite clay and a small amount of thickener like barium sulfate or calcium carbonate (i.e. seashells) in it.
I wonder if it could be a net positive for the connection point areas.
I'm speculating that areas with undersea cables are often marked as "no anchor" zones due to the risk of damage (in areas where such practices are followed).
So the drop in damage from anchors and extended motor boat presence might eventually outweigh the initial damage from laying the cable.
The idea of net positive is flawed, as multiple local net positives from different disruptions (other than cables) might lead to deterioration of global quality thresholds for sensitive issues, e.g. chains of wetlands required for migratory birds. These global connections are most often unwisely accounted.
