argument 140 【0710G Victors互助小组】第4次作业 by puzilong

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Argument140 The following appeared in a report of the Committee on Faculty Promotions and Salaries at Elm City University.

"During her seventeen years as a professor of botany, Professor Thomas has proved herself to be well worth her annual salary of $50,000. Her classes are among the largest at the university, demonstrating her popularity among students. Moreover, the money she has brought to the university in research grants has exceeded her salary in each of the last two years. Therefore, in consideration of Professor Thomas' demonstrated teaching and research abilities, we recommend that she receive a $10,000 raise and a promotion to Department Chairperson; without such a raise and promotion, we fear that Professor Thomas will leave Elm City University for another college."

        I really disagree with views of the report, which are that because professor Thomas’s largest class at university demonstrate that she is popular among students, she could brought to more research grants than her wage, and the fear to her departure, the college should raise her wage and promote her the Department Chairperson.
        Firstly, the committee make an analog fallacy.It is true that professor Thomas’ class is one of the largest classes at the college, but how does the committee prove that she is popular? Just because her class is large? Absurd ! What if professor Thomas teaches a popular curriculum many students interest? What if her class is the most leading class? Or other reasons bring about this situation. For example, Jack is one of the tallest guy in class, so the coach thinks that Jack must be a good choice for basketball team. Obviously it is fallacious.
         Secondly, because professor Thomas can brought to the college more research grands in each of the last two years, the committee consider giving her a $ 10,000 raise. Seemingly, she deserves it, but think about it deeply. The information just can represent the feat of her in the last two years, can not prove that she did well in the past 17 years and will do well in the futurePerhaps it is just an occasional situation.
       Finally, the committee’s measure to promote professor Thomas the Department Chairman is no persuasion. One hand, due to above reasons I mentioned, those can not explain that she is competent on a Chairman’s position. Even if she is elite of teaching, and have a big achievement on research, a department leader need not only those abilities, which is equal to handle kinds of official events and make decision for important emergency and plan of department development. In addition, the committee who make a mistake in causality wrongly thinks that professor Thomas will leave because money and power. She maybe care the environment of college while choose stay here. Just like Micheal Jordan, it was a certainty that many teams wanted him coming, but he choosed stay at Chicago Bulls, because it was more fit for him.
        In sum, the committee’s doing is questionable. More and longer assessment should be done, and then make a right decision.



[ 本帖最后由 puzilong 于 2007-5-25 09:47 编辑 ]