[Themaintainers] The Chronicle of Higher Education: "Dead Man Teaching"

[Richard Wheeler]

https://community.chronicle.com/news/2479-dead-man-teaching

"During one of those recent lectures, a question occurred to Ansuini that
he wanted to follow-up on with the professor. He was eager to learn more
about a particular example the professor had used. So he paused the video
on his laptop and Googled the professor’s name in order to find his email —
that seemed quicker than hunting around for the syllabus on his desktop.
What he found instead was an obituary. At first he assumed it must be for
someone else with the same name. In fact, no: François-Marc Gagnon, an
art-history professor at Montreal’s Concordia University, had passed away
in 2019 at age 83. Turns out Ansuini’s favorite new professor was dead."

"As an academic himself, Yakir did wonder about the intellectual-property
implications. Now that his father is gone, who owns the rights to that
work? The university wasn’t quick to provide information on that score. A
spokeswoman said professors are compensated for recording their lectures
but didn’t offer further details (she also said that Gagnon’s biography in
the course description would be “updated”). For instance, are they
compensated every time the course is offered?"

What a perfect "maintenance-free" setup for academic administrators: use
lectures from dead professors without compensation to their estate, run the
class with lowly-paid instructors and TAs who don't even realize that they
are supporting a dead lead professor, and charge students full tuition.

Richard Wheeler
richarduwheeler at gmail.com
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