Carole Slade

This woman has helped me grow as a thinker, as a student, and as a person. She fosters discussion, she contributes her own thoughts on the subject, and she always tries to make sures that students are not only understanding the subject matter but are enjoying it. She is a quirky instructor and often amusing to watch, but she is just as amused by us. I especially respect and appreciate when she admits her own limitations in a subject; for example, not fully understanding a scientific concept and asking if any students are familiar and could explain better than she. She does this because we have our own limitations and it gives balance to the class. She does not penalize; she just asks for better behavior. This is not an easy class to teach because the material can be very dense and the students can often lose interest, but Carole maintains our focus and engages us and challenges us every step of the way. She manages it with such grace and I know that I am not alone in my great respect for her as a teacher and as a mentor. We were never assigned anything extra. She would add or remove items from the syllabus as needed, which could be frustrating for one's own personal schedule planning, but overall made the course much more manageable and effective. Essays were standard and exams were appropriately balanced.

I racked my brain trying to think of a nice thing to say about her and came up with, she's usually on time to class. In short, she has the unmatched skill to suck suck out the life in all of her students in the span of 2 hours. She makes the moderately interesting Lithum syllabus an insurmountable burden. She is unengaging and not very receptive of student's comments or ideas which disagree with hers. I'm not sure which Slade the reviewers before me encountered but maybe something happened between the semesters because the woman I had was not at all sweet, nor did she ever seem to be on my side (or anyone else for that matter) grade and material comprehension wise. I got a not so perfect grade on her first paper and discussed what improvements I could have made in her office hours. I then made sure for her second paper, I made every improvement she suggested (some of which were very obvious mistakes) and discussed my ideas with her before beginning it. I even changes a great deal of my thesis arguments to fit the ideas she suggested, went to the writing center and was told my paper was excellent, EXCELLENT, only to receive the same EXACT mediocre grade as on the first paper. In short AVOID HER. She's not here for you...

Prof Slade is very boring. She seems unsure of what she is going to say next. Often times she pulls her hair over her ears because she is nervous. She will plug her book on Christian Saints nearly 5 times during class. While the subject matter is interesting, the teacher is not. She grades fairly easily and there is little work involved.

I'm only one month into Prof. Slade's CC class it has officially become the worst class I've ever taken at Columbia. Yes, she's worse than FoSci. I genuinely can't fathom how she gets by as a professor (!!) at Columbia if all she does is asking the most obvious and irrelevant questions, reiterating the authors' points as they appear in the book, confusing herself in the middle of her sentences and directing class discussion to a point of pure frustration and fatigue that people who actually read the books don't bother to speak (she talks way too slowly, with way too many pauses and "um... ah..."s to deliver her information before people know what she's gonna say). Her strict adherence to the definition of terms only reveals her inadequate understanding of the more general concepts. Seriously, I don't need someone to tell me that Hume is an empiricist. I learn so much more from just reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy than the class I'm paying thousands of dollars for. She's perhaps nice, but the one time I actually talked to her and pointed out a possible mistake in her email (she wrote equity instead of equality) she got all defensive and accusatory. So here goes niceness. She and her class are the polar opposites of my first-semester CC class which was engaging, illuminating and inspired me to read extensively outside of the syllabus. In short, AVOID Prof. Slade.…

Prof. Slade is interesting, sweet, and a caring woman. She is one of those teachers who is "on your side" in terms of grades and is not out to try to make you fail. She is encouraging and very useful during office hours. She is very intelligent and adds resources outside of the normal lit hum texts to relate them back to the readings. I've enjoyed my first semester of lit hum w/ her thus far and I am looking forward to the next one.

Standard reading for each class; often full texts were expected to be completed but she was not too strict about it and class discussion bounces around the book a fair amount so you can catch on easily. 2-3 essays, 2 midterms, and a non-cumulative final. Fair grader.

Professor Slade is a very nice woman who grades fairly easily. She'll answer a question if no one answers. Also, if you go to her office hours and ask for help, she's always more than willing to do so. She knows a lot of history and has a lot of knowledge, but sometimes it's inevitable that people are going to fall asleep, given that it is an hour and fifty minutes. She grades harder on take home essays than midterms, so midterms are the chance to boost your grade. The final is also pretty easy after taking two different midterms of similar structure, so she prepares you pretty well.

Irregular postings, 2 midterms, 1 final, 2 papers on the most self-explanatory/uninteresting topics

Carol Slade is a gentle and sweet woman with a pleasant character and easy going attitude. But more than that, she's an amazing professor and resource. Some might say that she's an easy grader, but in reality she's just fair. She gave my class two exams instead of a midterm, which boosted all of our grades, and often hands out pop quizzes on which everyone gets an A, regardless of how well they really knew the material. While at times class can be slow, she's always amusing and fun, if for no reason than because she uses antiquated slang to try to fit in with the kids and always has cool sunglasses. I definitely recommend taking her for a class that's easy to look forward to, to participate in, and to enjoy.

Professor Slade is a very nice woman. She knows a lot about the different books but has trouble getting class discussion. Usually when she asks a question if no one responds she simply keeps talking. On random occasions she calls on people if you happen to be making eye contact but for the most part she just continues talking herself. Two midterms, two papers, participation and the final are each worth 25%. She is a fair grader, not too hard and not too easy. Just listen to discussion and that is basically what the tests are on (same format as the final). Overall, she is a nice woman and a fair grader, just a little boring.