Argument140 Savior小组第4次作业

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题目：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."
字数：424          用时：01:07:17          日期：2008-3-6 0:28:12

   In this report, the committee recommend Professor Thomas a $10000 raise and a promotion to Department Chairperson in order to keep such a good professor . To support the recommendation, the committee points out that popularity of Professor Thomas's classes and the money she has brouht to the university in research grants. However these evidences cannot lend a strong support to the recommendation for several problems discussed below.
   Firstly, the report regards Professor Thomas's teaching ability in such a logic chaim: That her classes are among the largest at the university demostrates her popularity , which is an evidence of teaching ability. The largest class does not neccessarily imply popularity because we do not know how many rights the students have on choosing their classes from the report.  As we know, many university students cannot choose their classes at will, or just follow their curriculum schedule. So a largest class propably only means a lot of students have to take this class .With little information given in the report, we do not know whther they are forced or not .
    Secondly, the fact that Professor Thomas brought more money to university in research grants than her salary has nothing to do in justifing her teaching or researching abilities. The report only tells us that she brought many money, but there is no exact number of the money. At the sametime ,there is no contrast between Professor Thomas and other professors. Perharps other professors brought much more money than her. Furthermore, last year she brought so much money, how about the year before? Maybe she did not brought any money until last year. If these my two assumptions come into exsistence, Professor Thomas should be punished instead of rewarded.
    Last but not the least, the report says the university must give Professor Thomas the raise otherwise she will leave Elm City University. The report fails to prove this conclusion. From the report, we have no evidence suggesting refusing the recommendation will cause Professor Thomas's leaving. Maybe Professor Thomas is very satisfactied with her present promotion and salary.
   In sum, this report is not well supported. If the Committee on Faculty Promotions and Salaries does want to persuade us to accept the salary raise and the promotion given to Professor Thomas , they should list more evidence proving Professor Thomas's abilities and neccessarity of rewarding. In order to better evaluate the argument, we must know more imformation. For example ,a suvery on populary of her classes, achievement that Professor Thomas gained recent years and so on.