ProfessorMashek

A hum prof specializing in social psychology. Better known to her students as Deb. On the first day of Hum2 in 2006 (Building Community) she introduced herself as professor Debra Mashek and then immediately told us to call her Deb because she does not like labels. She avoids referring to us as students and instead claims that we are all part of the learning community. Despite being totally crazy and having a tendency to make students her experiments, she is awesome.

One day the class came in, sat down and quietly waited for class to start. She looked up and told us that we should go ahead and discuss our reading from the night before. After a few moments of awkard silence discussion began and she did not say another word until about 3/4 of the way through class at which point she merely reminded the class that we should make sure everyone has a chance to talk. By the end of the period she had taken 11 pages of notes on the discussion and she finished class by announcing that she loved the discussion and having the class do a brief freewriting just to help organize in our minds the massive amount of information that had been brought up.

As a further manifestation of her idea of the "learning community," she makes paper writing a "mutual inquiry". Rather than formal analysis papers she has her students write "Reflection Papers" which then go into a class binder. Over the course of the next week the students read each others papers and write response letters (in addition to her grading with a check-plus, check, check-minus system...she claims to dislike grades). Thus far the system seems to work well and appears to have the added benefit of requiring less BS because the point of the papers is to tell her (er, the class) what you honestly think. Also, she is not at all against papers that connect math/science to hum - she considers them wonderful insights that "she would never get from a class of psychology majors".

She is also known for holding class in unusual locations. So far in Hum2 this year(2006):

• two Saturday field trips
  • a community service project at ACT
  • visiting a mosque and Pilgrim Place
• the Motley (yay for the hum department paying for tea/coffee/etc)
• Parsons computer lab (but we did not use the computers...)
• Hixon Court

Quotes (Psych of Close Relationships Fall 2013)

• Yay masturbation!
• Dyadic co-farting!
• So, men are more confused by ovulating women?
• Bang With Friends. Is that as sexual as it sounds?