Dr. Spencer
Classes taught
- America - A Historical Survey (33-155)
Style & personality
The one word to describe Dr. Spencer is "concise". He is also down-to-earth, confident, sarcastic, and punctual.
His conciseness is apparent in speech, in writing, and in dress, among other places. His Powerpoint presentations give only a skeleton of the material, making notetaking essential (unless you want to distill the information yourself: a tough task in detail-oriented subjects like history). As a study guide, he gives a simple list of terms to learn, which ends up sufficing for tests. The grading system is simple as well: three tests and a paper. This has given me a pleasant feeling of control during the entire course, a contrast to other professors who seem to bombard me with information.
His lectures consist of him stepping through a powerpoint and elaborating on the topics. Beware, his style is kind of random. He tends to scrawl ideas on the board without any structure. Often he doesn't bother to connect things to the big picture.
I haven't seen a single person ask a question in class. This could just be because no one has done it yet, and everyone thinks it would be discouraged, though!
He has an amazing memory for facts. Dates, populations, and locations - often esoteric ones - are included with confidence.
Student opinions
Ben: Dr. Spencer is simply amazing. I've never been a fan of history, but he makes the class worth it. As for some of the claims above, however, I strongly disagree. First off, Dr. Spencer is late to class every day. He is concise with notes, yes, but with actual ideas in lecture, not at all. The study guide, a mere list of terms, can also become gigantic, and his tests can cover some very specific details (aka bombardment with information), but overall the class is quite reasonable. On the other hand, with these many details, he frequently (almost always) connects his statements to a main idea of the unit. Also, his grading system is indeed nice and simple, but how it can possibly give a sense of control is beyond me, as one screw-up can be killer. I guess this means that perceptions in the class can vary widely. But, with all confidence, I can definitely say that it's worth taking history with Dr. Spencer for his passion for and great knowledge of history, as well as his humor (usually in sarcasm).
