Bogarting Peace
Nicholas Wilbur, the Ol’ Dirty’s go to guy for Brian Bogart coverage, has another fascinating piece about our first graduate student in peace studies. Apparently he’s not much for the classroom interaction:
“I don’t have to attend the classes because I’m keeping up outside of (them),” Bogart said. “What I’m doing outside the classroom is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of that course.”
Um, not exactly. For graduate students, 55 percent of the grade involves classroom participation in one form or another. One would think that Bogart’s vehement desire not to participate in class, regardless of the intentions, should result in a failing grade. Using Bogart’s odd logic, I could claim that all of the hours I’ve spent in this damn, dusty office over the years should garner me credits toward my journalism degree. Tom Bivins, I think, would disagree.
But political science windbag Jane Cramer agrees with Bogart, claiming that he has more knowledge than his classmates and therefore should be exempt from the requirements of his syllabi (as sad an indictment of the political science department as I’ve ever heard). This is according to the ODE editorial, which we should take with a grain of salt considering that it directly contradicts Wilbur’s news story by stating that Bogart is only taking one class, rather than the three implied by Wilbur’s piece.
If you think this is a strange discrepancy, maybe you should use the “Ask the Editors” feature at the ODE’s highly trafficked blog to get an answer.
Wilbur’s article continues:
“Bogart said it’s exhausting to do outreach for five hours a day discussing his three years of research and 15 years of personal experience in the defense industry.”
Yeah, he’s really overextending himself by sitting for five — that’s right, five — hours a day in a lawn chair and chatting with your standard collection of anti-war wingnuts.
