Join this club, get extra credit. (a question of ethics)

[Case Closed]

noah,

I am not up in arms about this situation at all. It just feels wrong to me. The way she stresses dues payments every class feels a little weird. Combined with her being an awful teacher. The points are not a problem in this class...it's about food and American culture. It's would be the best blow off class ever if I did not have to remember things that are factually incorrect to pass exams.

[Cornell Fiji]

It seems that going to the club meetings would increase your knowledge of the course material. It is totally acceptable for the teacher to award extra credit for those who do extra things to learn about the subject matter.

Would you find it unethical if the club had no dues?

The club needs $5 a person dues for it to exist. This does not strike me as a scam by the teacher to get more dues for her club (I she really going to go through this trouble to scam 25 students out of a total of $125?) I think that the fact that the club charges dues is irrelvant to the teachers actions. This is a question of degree (so I guess Kantian philosophers would disagree) because if club dues were $10,000 I would have more of a problem with the situation but as the situation stands I can not imagine a single college student who can not afford the fee and I have no ethical objection to your teacher actions.

[ilya]

LOL that's grossly inappropriate. report her to the dean, then sign up for her club just in case.

[_TKO_]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that going to the club meetings would increase your knowledge of the course material. It is totally acceptable for the teacher to award extra credit for those who do extra things to learn about the subject matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

While it may have something to do with this course, joining the club should manifest additional marks if the student is enthusiastic (ie "Join this club, and you should do better in the course."). It doesn't sound as if the teacher is concerned with increasing students' knowledge about the course; even worse, the fact that she is a *bad* teacher makes it more likely that she is giving some students an easy way out of actually learning the course material. I think her interests here are 1) to increase registration in her club and 2) to increase marks in her class. She's essentially bribing her students to accomplish those ends via a shortcut, such that students joining her club are not genuinely interested, and students performing well in her well are not well-educated in the subject matter.

The fact that there are dues is irrelevent.

[Case Closed]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that going to the club meetings would increase your knowledge of the course material. It is totally acceptable for the teacher to award extra credit for those who do extra things to learn about the subject matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a reasonable conclusion. Although I am not sure about this. Since this teacher in particular has weird parameters for a her class. But that is probably her intention.

[ QUOTE ]

Would you find it unethical if the club had no dues?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would not mind it as much. Although it would still be a little fishy.

[ QUOTE ]
The club needs $5 a person dues for it to exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have mentioned this in the OP. If you have a campus group with more than 10 members and are not politically centered you can get a thousand dollars for your club. I know of some clubs that get much more. So her club is not going to die off without these dues. Also she is known by others on the campus for being extremely cheap when dealing with people to coordinate her events. Asking for services for free and stuff. I do understand that these $5 dues are essentially irrelevant to a tenured(I assumed) professor. Which is what makes it weird and confusing.

Also I know she has at least two classes with a total of approximately 150-200 students combined.

I have a meeting(for scheduling not related to this) with my history adviser today and I think I will bring this up.