ANTH V3933

Brinkley Messick is not a helpful or supportive teacher, his lectures were just him speaking about his own research. He did not ask students questions, or if he did, he asked them really briefly and then continued with his own research. He would ask a question about the readings and then no one would IMMEDIATELY answer and then he'd go back to going on and on about his own research. Like two people were engaged in the lectures. It seems like his research was super interesting, but it didn't feel appropriate to the class that he just talked about it and didn't try to teach us really. He didn't facilitate discussion, he just forced people to talk randomly sometimes after not engaging them in the classroom, and then people felt embarrassed, upset, hurt, and not like students trying to learn. I really think a new professor would teach this course so much better, or an improvement needs to be made to help Professor Messick understand. I'm sure he is a kind, smart, good person, but he did not teach us well --- it felt really alienating to hear him talk only about his own research, and then to feel not comfortable asking questions. It also felt really upsetting to think that he didn't really care about us learning or struggling, he just wanted to talk at us and then tell us we didn't know enough. When we turned in our midterm project proposals, he prided himself on explaining that th…

In my first semester at Columbia University(Fall 2016), I enrolled in Professor Messick's "Arabia Imagined" class since it partially fulfilled Global Core requirements. I never ceased to be impressed by the breadth of Professor Messick's knowledge on rural Arabia. His lectures were priceless. He taught us the most intricate details about Middle Eastern societies and always shared a wealth of his personal experience while he was serving as a Peace Corp in Yemen. I have to say I was apprehensive about this 4-point course because the syllabus contained a lot of reading but Professor Messick's continued support throughout the semester helped me understand the basics of this subject. We had to write a brief proposal for the Midterm which he graded generously. He always gave me feedback on my papers and granted me appointments outside his Open office hours. I was surprised at how he gave me appointments as many times as I needed during the semester because as the head of the Department, I knew he was a very busy scholar. I not only earned my first A grade in this class but it was the most rewarding experience to learn from someone as knowledgeable and experienced as Professor Messick. Several of my classmates I met afterwards told me they also did remarkably well in his class. A number of students in Professor Messick's class received A+ in this course. Personally I would recommend…

2 pg papers on the readings (dry as dust academic papers for the most part) 5 pg mid-term proposal (with at least 5 cites) 10 pg final (with 10 cites) due the Friday after the last class, (classes were on Tuesday, so if you commute, like I do, you had to trek back to campus to drop off the paper! So annoying!) Grading? Who knows?

Well, it's Fall 2016 and not a thing has changed with Professor Messick and his droning lectures and his fascination with himself. His never read a paper, never give a straight answer modus operandi is still in effect and I think it will never go away. He simply cannot be bothered to give a coherent answer to a simple question. My "what would you like us to focus on in evaluating the readings" (2 pages every week, read and graded by the TA) was met with a blank look and an "Oh, just give me your take on it." before he moved away from me (clearly ending the not yet started conversation) to fiddle with the podium he likes to stand next to. The man continues to be super impressed with himself and most of the assigned readings are either from his oeuvre, such as it is, from someone he knows (and likes, he never once mentioned another anthropologist without acting as if they were besties) or from someone who cites him. He remains entranced with Yemen and regularly speaks of his time there, even showing slides of pics he took while there - in the 80s! By mid-semester, myself and at least two classmates were entirely disgusted with the class. Frankly, if this course wasn't satisfying a global core requirement, I'd of dropped the course and taken the W. He did read our mid-term papers, but he provided such scant feedback you don't know if you were on track or not. He didn't touch our…

2 page reading response paper due every week at the end of class (so you can't really skip unless you get someone to hand it in for you, but he doesn't take attendance or know the names of any of his students, so you can skip if someone hands in your paper for you). Terribly defined midterm proposal for the final paper. 15-20 page term paper due at the end of the semester on any topic you want, only has to relate loosely to the course.

Let me just start by saying that Professor Messick is obviously incredibly intelligent and knows a lot about Arabia. BUT....and this is a BIG but....He is incredibly pompous and unapproachable. When I did approach him for office hours, he was completely uninterested and unwilling to give any sort of guidance. He is a terribly boring lecturer and no one really pays much attention in this class, and he doesn't really care. There are people who do work out of textbooks on their desks during class right in front of him (we don't even have anything that resembles a textbook for this class) and he either doesn't notice or doesn't care enough to say anything. All he talks about is himself and his experiences in rural Arabia (which can be interesting, but not when its for two hours every single class and has nothing to do with the actual material of the course). This guy is clearly not very into teaching, since he's invested in neither his students nor the course. As previous commenters have mentioned, he doesn't read his students work and gives extremely limited and nonconstructive feedback. His grading scales are also extremely strange; he grades out of 5 for weekly papers, but when asked if that then translates into the numerical grade (i.e. 4/5 means 80, which is a B-) he said no, and that he didn't exactly know how he'd scale it in terms of our letter grade, just that a 5/5 is "v…