Howard De Nike

To say that this man is beyond boring is akin to saying kidney stones are somewhat painful. The sound of air being let out of a car tire is more stimulating than this. I thought for a long time that it was just me, and the room was too warm, but then I opened a window and discovered that it only made me cold.

He seems like a nice enough guy, and given his legal and military backrounds, he could be a true horse's rear-end. It's like he had coronary by-pass surgery, and while they were in there, they somehow bypassed his personality, too.

Nevertheless, if you can: avoid him; or just bring something else with you to do - you'll thank yourself later.

Oh Howard! What were you thinking?

In a school like SFSU, you gots to be down. Down with feminists, down with the people of color, down with that strange sense of history (Zinn-like) that we like to call around here post-modern-dot.com.

And you can never, never, never say that students at SFSU deserve to be treated like adults. You can never say that a grade should reflect subject matter competence. You can never say anything that could be construed as coming from a "white man's logic system." This is SFSU, baby!

Next time around, and this student hopes there is a next time, use your fieldwork to guide your lecture. Leave the reading to the students (they will do it, eventually). For the exams, don't even hint what's going to be on it. It is afterall only an examination, and the students that are serious about learning already know the importance of academic excellence. The rest, %^$# 'em.

Their intent, plainly, is to be spoon fed more of the "white man's" cookies. Give them a high score, then move on and focus on the students who want to learn.

Peace.

I had the misfortune of suffering through De Nike's class on more than one occasion. He's a pain in the neck to say the least and he knows it, probably why he makes attendance such a big part of your grade (pretty sad once you're in college).

His lectures were nothing more than monotonous regurgitaions of the text we were assigned to read. I stopped reading halfway into the semester since I knew he'd be repeating everything in class. He wasn't well informed on the subject matter and instead of providing some insight on students' questions, he would just read the material again or worse critcize opinions. He called patriarchy a "feminist rallying cry" when someone suggested that it was the basic structure in most cultures.

Everyone tanked his first midterm which, surprisingly he curved. It was worded horribly.

The class even conspired at one point to send the department chair a letter complaining about his horrid performance. We did complain enough because rumor has it, he got a speech about his performance and did try harder (of course this was well into the semester). Fortunately, the final was significantly easier (weird format though).

Like I said before, he is psychotically anal about attendance and making people suffer through his entire lecture. He was livid with anyone who left early. On exam days, he would lecture for the first half of class on material we didn't have to worry about and then give out the exam. He even did this for a final in another class!

Sadly, I had no choice but to deal with him for this class as it is a requirement for the major. If you can avoid him I strongly suggest you do so.