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What makes a good teacher? Many schools today would argue that it is test scores or pass/fail ratios. Some students might argue that the amount of homework assigned plays a large part. In the end, the answer is simple. The marks of good teachers are the impacts they have on the students under their tutelage and how much they care. Admittedly, this is the hardest element to gauge, but occasionally students step forward and explain the ways in which their lives have been affected.
Currently one teacher, assistant fine arts professor Karen Britt, is fighting to be awarded tenure. She is not alone in this fight. On Thursday, April 8 the Board of Trustees for the University of Louisville was greeted at the door to their boardroom by a group of student protestors, all petitioning for Britt’s tenure.
Realistically speaking, this is a rare event. Each school year another group of professors will leave, only to be replaced other educators. Rarely do students get involved. In this instance, the small group of students organized a protest, a petition and a series of letters pleading Britt’s case.
Details concerning the case are confidential due to the personal nature of the situation, so it is hard to say whether the university made the right decision when it turned down Britt for tenure. There are undoubtedly a large number of variables that are not outwardly clear yet. However, the testimony of these faithful students must not fall upon deaf ears inside of the boardroom.
These students have been touched and influenced by Britt to a point in which they would go out of their way to defend her. This kind of devotion and fervor would not be instilled by anything less than a teacher who truly cares about her students. This is the kind of educator that this university needs to keep.
