Another Watson with gender issues

[Red Celt]

This was just posted to my university's student-led opinion page:-

St Andrews: Elitist, sexist and racist?

If, having read the article, you find yourself in agreement with the person who wrote it, or (more importantly) Professor Ali Watson, who made the claim... you might want to read the comments section, in which it is explained exactly why so many students walked out of the lecture. Watson was reading from a PowerPoint presentation (which are available for download) adding no additional comment. Watson, however, linked the walk-out to gender issues.

Meh.

[Bella Fortuna]

The article seemed heavily lacking in basic information about the incident. You can't get a real sense of what went on from it at all. Pretty shoddy 'reporting'.

[Red Celt]

The article seemed heavily lacking in basic information about the incident. You can't get a real sense of what went on from it at all. Pretty shoddy 'reporting'.

From what I've seen of other "articles" they tend to be conversation-starters, with the comments section providing the real value. Which is also true for this one.

At St Andrews, all of the material used in lectures are also available for download. This is useful if (for whatever reason) you missed the lecture. It isn't a replacement for lectures, however, as you're only seeing the bullet-pointed information without the much more valuable additions given by the lecturer. Unless (which is the case for Prof Watson) all the lecturer is doing is reading the notes on display... with zero extra comments. In which case, you have no good reason for being in the lecture when a quick download will give you the same information.

You can argue about how "rude" it is to walk out of a lecture part way through... but you can also argue about how useless it is to just read the text that you're projecting onto the screen.