How well do you know the law as it applies to teaching?

This week on the podcast, I talk with Kent Kauffman, author of Navigating Choppy Waters: Key Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know. I invited him on the show because of all the stories we've seen in the last year about college and university faculty being accused by students of teaching something the student didn't the instructor should be teaching. These incidents have a lot of instructors worried about teaching controversial topics—and just about any topic can be controversial these days. Previously on the podcast, we explored pedagogical responses to this challenge, but I wanted to know more about the legal issues involved.

Kent is an associate professor of business law and ethics in the Doermer School of Business at Purdue Fort Wayne. He knows the caselaw on academic freedom, and he has a lot of insight to offer faculty who are who are making hard decisions about what to leave on or take off their syllabi. In our conversation, he argues that academic freedom is under attack and he provides practical suggestions for preventing and responding to these attacks.

However, we start the conversation on a lighter note. I invited Kent to give me a pop quiz of sorts by describing a few scenarios faculty might encounter and challenging me to identify the legal issues involved. I get quizzed on free speech, educational malpractice, student privacy, and more! You can follow along to test yourself and see how well I did.

​You can listen to my conversation with Kent Kauffman here, or search for "Intentional Teaching" in your podcast app.

Show us your unconventional syllabus!

One of my Center for Teaching Excellence colleagues, Lynn Mandeltort, is looking for examples of unconventional syllabi, particularly ones that play with the form or visuals of the genre. For example, Nick Sousanis presents his syllabus in comics form, and Julia Charles and Nicole Charles-Linen collaborated on a syllabus presented as a hip-hop magazine. Lynn and I have a colleague in architecture at the University of Virginia whose syllabus is a folded guidebook, much like a zine.

What are you favorite examples of unconventional syllabi? And if you use one yourself, would you be interested in sharing it on the UVA Teaching Hub?

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