SPSCC Professors

One of my viola teacher's students is commencing Running Start this year, and asked me for a few good professors. Instead of write her a nice, long letter on who kicks ass (and who fails to), I'll just keep a list up and going here. All who were or are at SPSCC, feel free to add to this.

In particular: Jim and/or Nathan, could you give a little schpiel on DeStasio and Calculus? Thanks.

I will also keep a link to this entry on the sidebar of the main blog page, if you ever need a quick opinion on a professor you're considering.

From my experience, I reviewed:
-Alforde, Nicholas
-Born, Darrel
-Bowe, Stephanie
-Ganns, Richard (from opinions I harvested with dangerously little effort)
-Keeler, Steve
-Kellet, Lara
-Lawrenson, Lisa (I realized I left her blank on accident; she's well-evaluated now.)
-McNamara, Molly
-Murray, Michael (Arlo)
-Nelson, Harold
-Newsome, Oli
-Notenboom, Gayle
-Schneider, James
-Smith, Paul
-Swenson, Walter
-Villasana, Cesar
-Vosper, James

From the experience of others, these professors have [additional] notes:
-Carey, Pat (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Destasio, Doug (by Jim Farley, first comment)
-Dixon, Ericah (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Doss, Diane (by Jen Clark, third comment; Leah, fifth comment)
-Dragoo, Judy (by Sarah, eighth comment)
-Elliot, Clare (by Beckah, seventh comment)
-Ganns, Richard (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Gove, Sally (by Beckah, seventh comment)
-Hannon, Carol (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Johnson, Don (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Lara, Carlos (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Louie (by Jen Clark, sixth comment)
-Rushton, Lynnette (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Strong, James (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Teed, Deborah (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Welch, Don (by Beckah, seventh comment)

Angela Lee decided to post her own list of professor reviews. I'm a happier man with the source consolidated, but anywhoo, here's a quick plug to her opinions on professors.
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Note: When I say essay and give a page length, know that colleges consider pages to be double-spaced. Else, professors' eyes would implode, leaving jelly in several inconvenient locations.

Nicholas Alforde (History): Neutral
I took this guy for a Western Civilizations Telecourse, where the class met once a week, taking a test every other week--all in all, maybe a half-dozen lectures. He was a fun guy to listen to, but I know nothing of how he teaches day classes.

Darrel Born (Music): I don't think I can recommend him anymore; but I would if I could.
Darrel recently received the position as head of the music department at St. Martin's. I believe he'll still be at SPSCC to conduct the Wednesday Night choir, but I can't say I'm sure. In fact, I can't recommend him to those of you seeking music credits, since the night choir is Community Education--I'll have to point you in the direction of Molly McNamara.

Stephanie Bowe (Computer Information Systems, in databases): Recommended
The SQL class I took from her was really easy, yet not boring. She did the course really well, keeping it technically-minded and extremely applicable. You can tell she's a mom by the first example of her class: A soccer-team database. And she'll tell you she's a soccer mom, too.

Ganns, Richard (Mathematics): Not Recommended
I have not actually had this guy as a professor, but I have yet to have met anybody who didn't hate his class. From several different people, I've received the thumbs-down on this guy, and I pass it along.

Steve Keeler (Computer Information Systems): Neutral
I had the guy for UNIX, a three-credit course. The class wasn't unbearable, but the lectures did go quite slowly...I can't full-heartedly recommend him because UNIX is a fairly low number in the CIS section, and thus is geared towards people who don't have too much experience on computers. If you don't have an attention span, you will check your e-mail during his lectures, and you might end up on Yahoo! Games during lectures--I watched a few guys do that in the class, and still pull A's. I doubt they remembered the material real well after either of the two tests, though.

Lara Kellet (East-Coast Swing and Beginning Lindy Hop): Recommended
If you need a way to start your college day, and don't yet know how to dance, Lara's class is a pretty good set of East-Coast lessons. I don't disapprove of her introduction to Lindy, either, but I would recommend Idaho Dave as your teacher after East Coast.

Lisa Lawrenson (Writing): Recommended
For so generalist a teaching topic as writing, Lisa focused really well on writing elements, including easily-missed grammar notes (the 4 pluralizations, theses, explanatory depth, etc). She will remind you about the essays and their quite-rapid due dates, in a neutral yet non-evil sort of way.
My favorite part of her class was a way she ensured students got their essays at least partially done before the due date: Peer review sessions on their essays thus far, usually held a day or two before the turn-in day. Thus, your obligation to write a decent paper is not only to the professor and her pen, but also to fellow your classmates. All the more reason to sound intellectual--there's no fun in subjecting classmates to four pages of bullshit that you've called an essay.
And, on a side note, she thought my self-evaluation essay was the funniest one in the class. I, uh, poked (/stabbed) a bit of fun at a crappy high school English teacher I had, with great results.

Molly McNamara (Music): Neutral
I can't say anything about her in classes, I've only had her as a choir conductor. She can play piano, and does a fairly good job as a conductor--though I think her musical selections are a little too "gorgeous" sometimes. Strictly the opinion of an off-beat bass singer.

(Arlo) Michael Murray (History): Recommended
The bad quality of this guy is all in the first day of his 111 class (US History 1). His first lecture isn't specifically related to history, but more about challenges of college, and reminders that you're not in high school anymore. The lecture made me feel like I was in High School, Mark 2 (which some of us call SPSCC anyway). However, after day one, he is a great orator, and has a well-set lecture plan. The homework's a hefty amount of dry reading, but you should expect that signing up for a history course. His tests are also quite fair, and multiple-choice--not a single essay in the class, though there is light writing.

Harold Nelson (Microeconomics): Recommended
I wish I could say something about this man, mainly because he's my dad. However, I have not once in my life attended a lecture of his. He does a fine job of teaching (professing ideas and such) in one-on-one sessions, but he lectures on Economics. As with all Econ. professors, make sure you enjoy the material.

Oli Newsome (Psychology): Recommended
I love this man. Not only does he teach Psychology, he is the advisor for the Psychology Club (scholarly) and the Jitterbug Club (not-so-scholarly). Joining at least the Psychology Club will definitely earn you points in his book; no, he does not use favoritism at all, but he will involve you in the lectures every now and then. I was particularly prominent in class whenever eating crickets came up.
He gives three tests for each of his classes, excluding the final. If you miss a test, the final is weighed that much more into your grade; if you take all three tests, you don't take the final. Which can be pretty darn good, considering the last two sequential quarters, his final day came the day after his third test day.
His class is a fun one to get involved in; it's probably still fun if you just listen to the lectures, too, though I wouldn't know. Also, his tests are quite rewarding--they're multiple choice, and some of the answers involve spiders in his "enchanted" trousers. All I recommend is take good notes, and you'll do fine in his class.

Gayle Notenboom (History): Neutral
I just had her for a history telecourse, where I saw the professor once a week. Thus, I don't know too much about her lecture style; I do know that she is harsh with essay deadlines (harsh to the half-second).

James Schneider (Writing): Recommended*
The * is for those of you who still believe in the concept of free time.
James Schneider's Writing 102 course is, above all, immersive. You will be absorbed by the work in there, but it is all worth it. Just consider the course to be a 10-credit class (though you only get 5), and if you need a breakdown on why:
1.) Every week, you read an essay or three and write a 3-page response essay, which was posted on-line in a Yahoo! group in the class I had with him. In addition, after the first week you respond to three of the previous weeks' student essays (about a page/page and a half per essay). Writing is, after all, a social act.
2.) For the quarter, you write an (approximately) 20-page researched, persuasive essay on a Topic of Social Relevance (I chose K-12's Zero Tolerance policy, for example), broken up into four parts to make it seem like a continous series of essays: Prospectus, Contextual Background, Analysis, and Call to Action/Conclusion (one of these due every two weeks, in that order). This, as far as I can tell, is done universally in WRIT102 classes at SPSCC.
3.) The in-class work is independent of your other essays, and for my class included an outside-of-class survey and a group research presentation.
4.) The last two weeks of the quarter are devoted to student presentations on their research findings, lasting 10-12 minutes apiece. (As if writing the essay wasn't enough, eh?)
After the last class finishes, you will be left with an after-sex sensation, and probably want a nap. Take the nap; you'll deserve it. James definitely teaches one of the hardest classes at SPSCC, and he does a great job of making time be used efficiently. Besides that, his voice is enchanting to listen to for an hour or two; it has a hint of an Indian accent("Dances with Dots," not "Dances with Wolves," as someone else on this blog site said earlier).

Paul Smith (Computer Information Systems, Mathematics): Recommended
This man is a genius. WHENEVER you get the opportunity to take a course from him, be it math (Statistics and I believe College Algebra) or programming (Programming Logic or C++), carpe diem. He really knows what he's doing as a teacher.

Walter Swenson (Economics): Not Recommended
I've written a few blog entries on this guy already; if you really want to see them, you can do a search off of my main blog index. When I had the guy, he was a new professor--I learned this, of course, after I scored him low on the Professor Evaluation and filled the entire comments page on how I did not like his lecture style. To keep my (now-iterated) criticism short, this was my least favorite part of the course:
For homework, we would go home and read a chapter out of the book. This was a twice-a-week class, so that was fine by me. But...
For the lecture, he then lectured us from the book, almost paragraph for paragraph. And he wasn't a fast talker.
Those two-hour class sessions were brutal.

Cesar Villasana (Developmental and Post-Calculus Mathematics): Recommended
Cesar is a gentle man from Mexico. He puts a lot of care into the problem selection for homework, and lectures fairly well (though, if you take Linear Algebra, you probably will not pronounce the word "Echelon" English-correctly for a month after the course; I'm still not sure if I know how). His tests come from the book, in that the questions are selected exercises from the text, and he picks'em really well. If you're ever looking over my Linear Algebra notes, though, you may notice a little note:
"Cesar believes himself to have been Cleopatra in a past life. Do not question."
Past existences aside, he knows math really well, too.

James Vosper (History): Recommended (for Sociology: Neutral)
You'll always hear this about Dr. Vosper: He gives some really easy quizzes. Reason being, he has a copy of the quiz in front of him, and gives a mini-lecture for each question, sometimes reading the question in the affirmative or negative for true/false questions. What you need for day-to-day survival is a good short term memory. That is based off of a history class with him.
In any of his classes, he requires a term paper, of about ten pages in length. You can write this as a high-school level report (elongated, of course), and get an A on it. I wrote mine the night before (actually, the night after) that it was due, turned it in feeling crappy about it as a college-level writer, and got a 92%. (Another note on the term papers: In History, there aren't truly outstanding topic choices on the list. I chose the Battle of Gettysburg.)
His tests are part multiple choice, part T/F, and part essay. He definitely teaches a more involving course. (I haven't had him for Sociology, so I don't know what to say there.)