For some insight about college teaching v. indoctrination, please read Mark Bauerlin’s post, “Gerald Graff, The MLA, and Radical Teachers,” found in the June 18, 2009 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

by our new yet anonymous “Points of View” professor

In the Army, you run a lot. Or at least I did. And to the Army’s credit, they start you running early in basic training. It was the Saturday of our first full week, and we’d been slowing increasing the distance we ran to prepare us for the final physical-training exercise that would help determine if we’d graduate from basic training. Once we’d formed at 5:00 am, one of our drill sergeants told us we would run five miles that day.  While many of my fellow soldiers-to-be groaned, (and Baby Belton muttered her breath, “Someone will be carrying me the last three”), I had confidence that I would finish just fine because I was a runner.

Read “Online Professors Pose as Students to Encourage Real Learning,” Marc Parry’s May 29, 2009 Chronicle of Higher Education article regarding “ghost students.” Some professors (and ethicists) argue that professors who pose as fake students is a “gray” area of online learning—of course, others argue that it’s a smart idea, and others that it’s flat-out wrong.