By Don McHoull
Congratulations to Gene Allen, Thomas Barcsay, Cyndy Baskin, George Bielmeier, Mark Bulgutch, Mike Burke, Ben Carniol, Julia Chen, John Cook, Linda Cooper, Peter Duck, Bruce Elder, Alex Ferworn, Don Gibb, Mike Inglis, Hugh Innis, Hersch Jacobs, Sandra Kalb, Suanne Kelman, Diane Kennedy, Arne Kislenko, Cecilia Kong, Nina-Marie Lister, Jacques Lorioz, Anastase Mastoras, Tom McKaig, John Morgan, Roy Morley, joanne Naiman, Nadia Potts, John Shields, Myer Siemiatycki, Don Snyder, Ron Stagg, Neil Thomlinson, Elizabeth Trott, Monique Tscofen, Eric Wright, Kenny Yum and Baruch Zone.
According to the Maclean’s Guide to Canadian Universities 2004 that came out last week, they are all officially “popular profs.”
How did they earn this lofty distinction, setting them apart from their unpopular co-workers?
According to Maclean’s, they were selected by current students. Actually, most of them were selected by me.
Maclean’s athers most of the info for its “campus confidential” by having the editors of campus newspapers fill out a form.
That’s why, as you may notice, so many newspapers are listed in the What’s Hot section.
Sadly none of Ryerson’s newspapers make the cut for hotness. Instead, Ryerson students come across as a bit whiny. For example, listed under What’s Hot: “Campus development: $200 million being spent on construction, including the new Student Campus Centre, scheduled to open next year.”
And then in the What’s Not section: “Construction — on campus and on nearby streets: loud and annoying.”
But really, these listings are even more arbitrary than Maclean’s actual university rankings, which at least are based on some king od mathematical formula.
There’s no real way you can quantify something like popularity, so when I made my list of profs, I didn’t even try.
Instead I picked profs at random. Well, not entirely.
I picked one prof because he gave me a 57 per cent in French class, even though I probably should have failed. Another because I thought the university was unfairly persecuting him, and I thought it might treat him better if he was a popular prof. a certain prof made the cut because of his helpful suggestions on how to improve our newspaper, which he described as “trashy.” Then, just for the heck of it, I tossed in a mid-wifery prof because I thought that mid-wifery never gets the props it deserves.
Sorry to all those profs I didn’t pick, but teaching university shouldn’t be a popularity contest anyway.
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