Gretchen LeBuhn

Gretchen is a newer teacher at state and has some problems affiliated with being new. She is a very knowledgable person who has great information to share but her lectures are not given with a lot of confidence. It really helped that the class was a very small class so we were able to have informal discussions rather than a lot of lectures. She also made use of her reasources we had several guest lecturers that came in who were great, we spent a lot of time buildingexcel models instead of reading about them. Her exams are very fair.She has you do a research project on a topic you choose from a long list of topics. I diagree with the previous review she does not ask for anything unreasonable and she is a very fair grader. Also she is open to any suggestions students have to improve class. The best thing about Gretchen though is she really cares about her students. She is available (and very approachable) to help students in any way she can, from helping students with class related issues to helping students get scholarships, experience, and jobs. So even though Gretchen has some flaws as most people do overall she is a wonderful asset to this university.

Gretchen has the best intentions of not making this class boring but fails miserably. She promised to never lecture at us and do group activities, but we never did any of that. Instead we listed to her boring lectures. The species files required are the worst. At first it sounds promising but you soon find out that she wants everything uninteresting about your species. For instance she wants statistical data backed by only published journal articles. What she does not understand is that even though she graduated from Yale and Im sure the library has everything like that, our Library has nothing for what she wants. You must do heavy duty thick research for statistics for things like fucundity and then you have to calculate the statistics if you can't find them, and still reference a journal article as to why you came to that conclution. You never get to write about the interesting facts about your species. On top of that she grades them harshly. After all, we had the same opportunities as her at YALE, right? Wrong. If your looking for boring lectures, a harsh grader, and long nights of research at an impossible library take up this class! Don't bother going to her about the lack of information because she has a friend that is an expert on every species that says there is plenty of information. My advice is to not take this class with her.