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On 7 August 2017, the conservative college news site Campus Reform posted a story reporting that a University of Georgia business professor had instituted a stress reduction policy that allowed students to select their own grades: No reporters have been able to reach Watson to clarify the content of the syllabus, but the stress reduction policy allowing students to write their own grades was likely written in jest. A person who knows Watson and asked to remain anonymous told us the policy was probably satire meant to inspire discussion about fairness on the first day of class. The person described Watson, who has taught at UGA for nearly 30 years, as a tough professor that doesn’t put up with nonsense and holds his students to a high standard. The syllabus that contains the stress reduction policy was found on Watson's personal page at UGA's Terry School of Business for a class called Data Management. Campus Reform reports that the same policy was written on a syllabus for a second class, Energy Informatics, but was altered before it was archived. The syllabi for Watson's classes can also be viewed and downloaded from the university's business school page as well. These versions do not contain the stress reduction policy. The archived syllabus, which was dated 4 August 2017, has a section that reads: The university seemed to confirm that Watson did indeed write the policy with a statement distributed to reporters, in which business school dean Ben Ayers said it did not comport with university policy: We asked follow-up questions about the incident, but got no response from the university spokesman. Because the story went viral, numerous outlets published stories about the syllabus. Some simply reported that the policy had been nixed thanks to Internet outrage, while others opined that it proved the popular idea among some politically-partisan blogs that college students are coddled and overly-sensitive. But none of the reporters who wrote about the incident spoke to Watson. We have tried to reach him and have received no response. Maureen Downey, long-time education columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, told us she has also been unable to reach Watson directly — but she has spoken to multiple people who know him, some of whom believe Watson's stress reduction policy was a dig at Georgia's new campus carry policy. In an e-mail, she told us: Based on her interviews, Downey said there are two working theories about Watson's supposed policy: Aside from the stress reduction policy, nothing about Watson's syllabi or information about him online suggests that the professor is soft on his students. Three students who were enrolled in his Energy Informatics course wrote on the web site RateMyProfessor that the class was difficult and described Watson as a challenging instructor. No mention was made of a policy that allowed them to pick their own grades. Two of the students took his class in Spring 2016 and wrote: A third student wrote in 2014: In other parts of Watson's syllabi, he seems fairly demanding — if students wish to use a laptop in class they can only do so for classwork and note-taking, and have to send their notes to him after class so that he can verify that's what they were doing. Students are not allowed to miss more than four classes without being automatically dropped or withdrawn. He has a freeloader policy to ensure each student is pulling their own weight in group work, and allows the group to fire a student who isn't chipping in: Watson's biography on his personal page at the university suggests he has a dry sense of humor. He was born and raised in Australia but now teaches in Athens, Georgia, and he joked: Watson has authored two text books on his subject matter and has taught at universities all over the world, from Sweden to Ethiopia. He founded the Department of Information Systems at Edith Cowan University in Australia and was described by Downey as a nationally-respected professor. Although it is apparent that Watson did write the stress reduction policy into a syllabus on his web site, it seems extremely likely that he did not intend to actually allow students to select their own grades; rather, the policy was written as a sarcastic response to the state's new campus carry law, or — as one theory suggested — to spark a discussion in class about academic rigor and responsibility.
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