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In the not too distant future
In 2020
There was a prof named Robin
Rather different from you or me
She worked in the House of Reps (U.S.)
Just another face wearing fancy dress
She did a crap job voting for the right
But her constituents were angry and she fucked off in the ni-ight…
We’ll put her in the classroom
The wost we can find (that mural!)
She’ll have to stand and lecture them
And we’ll blow all of their minds
Now mind you Robin can’t control
If her antics hit the skids
Because she used this bullshit stunt
To shake up all these kids
STUDENT ROLL CALL
Joyce Brown (drift left!)
Becky! (likes girls!)
Dot Keener (hi Ms. Prez!)
Roooooooz (I’m the progressive!)
If you’re wondering how she has the stuff
To teach poli-sci facts (la la la)
Then repeat to yourself it’s webcomics
I should really just relax
It’s a reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000. You can see the newer version on Netflix or some of the older episodes on its YouTube channel or on their Twitch channel.
When I was in school, the last line was “Those who can’t teach, teach PE”. I’ve also heard “Those who can’t teach become school administrators”, which in my experience isn’t far from the truth.
I agree with the sentiment in theory, but (at least in STEM classes and outside of private unis) teachers aren’t paid nearly enough, so every professor is either retired and slowly going senile or was too incompetent or too much of a jackass to keep a job in the field. I don’t think it’s universal (and I don’t even know if it applies in this specific case), but it’s not 100% unfounded
(forgot the important part of that “but” – for most fields, including basically every STEM and especially at public uni, teaching is literally the least paying job in the entire field)
Likely also the most portable. If you want to be a geologist, you probably need to live where the mines and oilfields are. If you want to be a geology teacher, there are lots of schools to choose from.
True enough, though that’s not as relevant outside of physical sciences and anything anthropology-adjacent.
(Personally, I’m in a computer-focused field less than half an hour from a tech-heavy city, and I’ve never had a professor I’d rate above a 4/10 on Being A Teacher. I can’t actually prove proximity correlates inversely with competence, but it wouldn’t surprise me!)
Eh, that depends. Oil consumes most geologists, sure. Physicists have national lab options, also Wall Street if they want to take their math/experiment skills there, physicists and chemists have a bunch of corporate options. Software had a fair range of options and even now after covid.
Meanwhile professorships may have a range of options but a lot less choice, unless you’re a superstar that multiple places bid on. You go whereever offers you a chance at tenure, and if you get tenure you *stay there*. Making married couples of academics really fun, the “two body problem” of finding a college or city where both of you can find suitable jobs.
Or maybe they aren’t motivated solely by money. (This might not apply if teaching doesn’t even pay a living wage, but in many countries, people become teacher not because they can’t get higher paying jobs, but because teaching is their vocation.)
There is a teaching demand for STEM professors, at least in natural sciences. If you want the title, and want to be a leader of your own research group, you need to teach.
If you are done having your own research group you can still teach until your retirement, which is nicer. Academia is stressful, at least in natural sciences (it is the only place I have experiences)
But had there not been a particle of truth in it, it hadn’t caught on.
Or should I have said, “wouldn’t have caught on?” I guess the “if” clause sets up a condition, so I should use the conditional.
I enjoy talking shit about Robin, she usually deserves it, but I’m kinda with you on that. I don’t know what disgruntled peaked-in-high-school former football player came up with that, but have you ever tried to learn something from a person who cannot execute that thing? Try learning how to make pancakes from someone who can’t make pancakes, I dare you.
Anyone who’s suffered through a math class taught by the gym teacher knows that sometimes, people who can’t do the thing *do* end up teaching the thing. There’s the ideal world, and then there’s real school systems.
There’s also that for a bunch of technical subjects, if you’re good at doing it then you can make a lot more money for less aggravation by doing it than by being a public school teacher.
Of course in college you have professors who supposed to be good at doing it, and teaching… whether they’re any good at teaching is an entirely different matter.
Agreed. There’s a gradient of majors that goes from “there’s basically no applicable jobs with the major, so teaching is competitive because it’s the only reliable paycheck that’s not retail” on one end to “every single job that’s even slightly degree-relevant pays more than a public uni adjunct professor position, so only the people who can’t get or keep a job literally anywhere else take it”, with an extra heaping helping of “they don’t teach professors how to teach, so almost no one outside the education major knows how to actually do it” spread across the entire spectrum.
There’s also “I spent my life doing this, now I’m retired and can teach”. But they won’t have gone through education school for elementary/high school teach, by default.
*Of course in college you have professors who supposed to be good at doing it, and teaching *
Where in the world did you get that idea? In college you have professors who are supposed to be good at research, getting published, and getting grants. Teaching is kind of an afterthought, essential but not something you want to let get in the way of the important stuff.
But considering how many lies American students end up “knowing” about history, and the fact that at least in my rural school, an unqualified PE teacher could become a science teacher, I can see how people would lose their faith in teachers actually knowing what they’re talking about.
It has truth to it. It doesn’t mean all teachers are shit. It means if you are not good enough for a competitive job you can usually find a teaching job instead.
As someone who works part-time in academia, I see that most academic personnel view it as an easy gig that pays good money. Sure it’s easy if you don’t spend any effort. And it’s good money if you aren’t actually qualified for a competitive job.
I know many teachers who work hard and do it because they love it. Those are not the people we are talking about here.
Also there is a notion of respect towards professors amongst students. Like “oh wow he’s a professor, he must be an expert on the field”. No, people become professors by coauthoring a bunch of abstract papers for 10 years while detaching themselves from the industry. Their title says nothing about their knowledge of the course they are teaching you. Chances are.
I’m not trying to offend teachers or anybody. I was just kind of noting that it’s the cliche that’s happening here. Robin can no longer be a politician so she’s teaching a political science class. I thought it was a decent observation to make. My apologies.
I honestly didn’t think my comment would be so negatively recieved especially since it’s a common saying. I thought it applied to this situation but now I regret typing it and would delete it if I could.
I am a retired teacher. My wife has been a teacher for 20 years. I have tons of friends who are teachers. Believe me, Sirksome, you did nothing wrong. It’s a very common saying. It was completely appropriate to today’s strip. I took zero offense, and, frankly, I doubt many other teachers would feel much differently. We’ve all heard plenty of actually offensive comments over our time teaching. I feel like this comment section takes offense to some pretty innocuous statements sometimes when they should save their ire for the comments that are intentionally over the line. I fully expect for people to respond about how offensive my statements just were.
It was just a shock. It’s like if I typed “All’s well that ends well” and then someone replied “Well my father died falling into a well! Not everything actually ends well!”. I’d feel kind of bad about that. Like I did for this. But I’m not putting that on you or anyone else. It was just a mistake on my end.
World War II ended well. Unless your loved one died on the beaches of Normandy or you lived in Hiroshima. There’s being a decent human being who respects others and there’s “screw em if they can’t take a joke.” And there’s also a reasonable course to be laid between the two. There will always people who will take offense at anything you say. There will always be some good people who are hurt be anything you say. Saying nothing is a terrible solution. So accept the fact that you can’t win and move on.
Robin was a successful politician because she was incompetent. Her supporters were able to prop her up and make her an exciting mouthpiece for their goals. She’s out because she started to care about something other than pleasing her party. She could have continued being bad at politics.
She’s not out because she lost. She’s out because she wanted to vote for her opponent for Becky’s sake.
The flip side to that old phrase is that even if you can do it, doesn’t mean you can teach it. I’ve had classes taught by top research professors who obviously knew their shit, but had no idea how to convey even the basics to undergrads.
Some go into university academia because they can’t cut in the real world, I suppose. Some because they do love the teaching side. But for others they’re there for the pure research and teaching is just something they have to do to keep the research position.
The bubbles are in the form of pink elephants. On parade.
Also, it’s a bubble pipe, but Robin put Double Bubble, or maybe Bazooka, in it instead of soapy water. The reason we’re not seeing bubbles, is she doesn’t have the lung strength to blow that bubble through that stem.
That would actually be hilarious. Robin being their teacher is just swept under the rug after the initial shock and it just becomes a background detail.
Oh yeah Called it! also please tell me she is an adjunct and not a assistant or associate proffesor beacuse I really want that karmic justice panel were she opens up her paycheck,and realizes what her salary is.
Robin and Becky have a lot of similarities. In the same way Becky fell bass-ackwards into a job as a campaign manager without trying (outraging Dorothy), Robin just sort of showed up and got tenure (outraging Leslie).
If Robin was offered tenure track Leslie and all other assistant adjunct and clinical proffesors is within their rights throw Robin local river and lake! seriously the amount of PhD graduates who would probably kill for tenure track position at IU political science department. Myself included (well maybe not kill but definitely participate in a battle Royale scenario and at any school at this point)
I doubt Robin is that naïve about academia. She’s like a lot of famous people who supposedly teach a class, but most of the grunt work is done by teaching assistants and grad students. The university gets the gravitas and the professor gets to boost their profile or genuinely mentor the next generation.
Robin would starve in the real world and she knows it. So she opts for politics and when that falls through finds refuge in academia.
She wouldn’t be the first politician to take that path.
I’d say that’s probably what she knows it from, but honestly Robin watching Masterpiece Theater is only slightly less farfetched than her just knowing classical music.
I thought for a second I saw a dot on the stem, which would make it an expensive brier (Dunhill), but it’s just Robin’s thumb. The more important point is she doesn’t know any better than to hold it upside down.
This reminds me of a time I enrolled in a class with a professor I had never had, got there on the first day, and found the class was now to be taught by a professor I absolutely wanted to avoid.
We HAVE not seen the guy for a while. I imagine he’s still bar tending or working at Galasso’s, but that seems to be amongst the many lines of thread that kinda faded away.
I’m pretty sure Roz actually cares. She’s in the obnoxious, performative, ‘better than you’ stage a lot of activists go through early on, especially when they’re young, but we’ve seen her doing activist work even when it didn’t reflect on her sister. First week of university, she was in her dorm wing doing volunteer work for Planned Parenthood, literally cheerleading for condoms. By week two she was either volunteering for or familiar enough with local sexual assault help centres that she had a card on hand when she suspected something happened to Joyce.
I do wish we saw more of that from Roz, rather than (or at least in addition to) the performative more leftist than thou stuff we’ve seen lately.
That causes conflict and humor and it’s fine, but it would be nice to see glimpses of her actual activism again.
Seems to me it was shoved aside long before then. Maybe since the start of Robin and Leslie’s arc. To be fair, she’s a tertiary character at most, so she’s likely still doing it, it’s just not touching any main character’s lives.
Yeah, she’s been out of focus, and maybe I’m wrong – maybe the other characters being involved with politics will lead to more of Roz’s activist work. Y’never know with Willis.
And at the same time, feeling a little bad for Roz and also Becky. As baits and switches go, this one is a bad one for them. More so for Roz, because the bratty-little-sister hijinks she pulled with a congresswoman sister may not fly so well with a professor in charge of her course grade.
And people were asking how it was okay for Leslie to teach Becky, since she’d taken her in for a couple of weeks.
Now Robin’s teaching her own sister.
Of course this does answer how Joyce (and most of the others) got in to the class. Robin picked the names she recognized. (Don’t tell me it doesn’t work that way. It does for Robin.)
I had to work through a selective process that questioned things I hadn’t seen from my first graduation class, then an interview with three professors to see if I was fit to be a substitute for one year at the university I did my graduation and master’s degree…
And then Robin… I mean, professor DeSanto gets the job in a couple months?!
Well, that or he suddenly had a good reason to quickly and quietly resign in a totally non-suspicious manner, and Robin was asked to fill in since she has experience in the field and is recently unemployed…
From the way everyone expected to see a Nicholson, I’m guessing that’s the name that appeared for this session in the registration system. If the teacher was changed at the last second then they might not have gotten a syllabus yet (or they got a now outdated one).
FWIW, I don’t think I ever got a syllabus before classes began, just a book list.
I meant class registration and I did miss Nicholson was the assigned professor
And my PoliSci classes regularly had the syllabus up online before the first class because after the 1000 levels, we had assignments queued up to be due after the first week. My 4000 ConLaw course had our first practice case two weeks into the course.
Robin is saying this is a 9000 level course. No way is that true. I took some grad level math courses as an undergrad, but that was as a senior, not a freshman.
I’m not saying it’s confirmed that she’s unqualified. But there’s no way she actually wrote a Master’s Thesis or did a whole bunch of research. BECAUSE IT’S ROBIN.
Sometimes universities will over look having a degree if you have “provable work experience”. In this case, Robin was a famous politician. Does that actually make her qualified to teach a PoliSci class to a university class? Probably not. Especially if you remember that this is Robin we’re talking about.
The guy who wrote about Dr. Biden taught at University of Chicago with a B.A. Sean Spicer is a fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard. https://iop.harvard.edu/fellows/sean-spicer
Honestly surprised Palin isn’t a professor somewhere, but she probably would want too much money for it. Failed politicians fail up.
Why would Becky be upset to see Robin? Robin made a big sacrifice play for Becky leaving Becky with all the upside of their deal and none of the guilt. Robin then looked for a new job and found employment teaching poli-sci at the state university. She’s not doing this to force herself into Roz’s life. We don’t know that Leslie was central to the job application either, though it probably at least occurred to Robin that she’d be around Leslie. But until Robin does something actually creepy or disrespectful, there’s nothing to be angry about. And you don’t need a doctorate to teach at a university. Certainly especially if you have a lot of relevant real-world experience.
Becky might or might not be upset by having Robin there. But I can still be upset about the conflict-of-interest issues. Same where Roz is concerned.
And no, she hasn’t crossed a line with Leslie as a coworker. Yet. Unless we count “you broke into my apartment and squatted there for days while I kept telling you to leave just get out of my life and stay out” line, which I’m halfway tempted to count. I’m more upset that she’s GOING to cross lines, because it’s Robin, and getting a job at Leslie’s workplace multiplies her opportunity to cross lines by a thousand.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I expected when she dropped her reelection bid. She’s an ex-congressperson, she knows the dean personally, and she has a huge crush on one of the professors here, plus her baby lesbian daughter is attending this school. Where else was she gonna go?
But yeah Roz’s head is exploding and I’m here for it.
She knows the dean and the dean knows her, but I didn’t get the impression that the dean actually LIKED her.
One has to wonder how she got selected under those circumstances. I don’t think the dean is the type to pull a Gallaso “Now you work for ME. KNEEL BEFORE ME and recognize my superiority over you!”
There must have been others involved in the selection process, or perhaps adjunct hiring happens at a level or two below the dean of the school. Another possibility is they’re not paying her, she’s paying them, with a hefty bribe in the form of a charitable donation, but I doubt she has enough money to just do that, at least for very long.
The campaign jet would argue that she’s not very frugal.
That the class is still listed as being taught by Nicholson suggests something happened at the last minute. She may have been brought in at the last moment because she was available.
Ironically I think Robin might actually have a lot to offer here. She was a very successful politician who would’ve been re-elected if she hadn’t chosen to step down. Especiallg to someone like Dorothy because succeeding in politics is cleary about more than booksmarts or being the most qualified on paper.
This is Robin. Whatever magic she had she’s not going to be able to teach.
And apparently, for reasons I don’t understand at all, it was Becky who was getting her reelected. How does her success at getting reelected qualify her to teach her campaign manager?
I guess she could teach them to arrange a last minute kidnapping of a staff member to sweep into Congress on a sympathy vote?
I think Robin might deserve more credit here. I admit I don’t have much confidence in her teaching ability, but she did get elected the first time on her own merit (possibly reelected multiple times too since I’m not sure we don’t know how long she’s actually been in office) And until her campaign was sabotaged by that leaked photo with Leslie and her public breakdown from it she was most likely gonna win her reelection bid anyway. That’s why Roz was working so hard to sabotage her. Like it or not Robin does have legitimate knowledge of our political system and how to work it to her advantage. I doubt she’ll be a great teacher but it’s possible the group might learn something here.
Again, have you paid attention to Robin? There has been nothing in any of her appearances that even hinted at political competence. Or even awareness.
Yeah, I’ve got no idea how she got elected the first time (and I’m pretty sure we know from one of her first appearances that she was a first term Congresswoman.) My guess would be that she was a sacrificial candidate whose opponent self-destructed in a scandal or something like that.
In a way this is the kind of point I’m trying to make though. Somehow Robin won her first bid for congresswoman and was even slated to win re-election. Even if was very likely a fluke victory and she kept support by not rocking the boat those are techniques worth at least acknowledging and learning. Cause unfortunately a lot of people get into politics for the wrong reasons or get in and sort of jack around, go with the flow, vote on policies they don’t believe in to pacify their constituents, grift to get people to by their shitty books or used cars ect. And those are the people Dorothy and Becky and Sarah and Roz or even Joyce who is supposedly only here “just cuz” will be working with more often then not. You don’t have to be competent to be a politician and I think that’s a lesson worth learning because at the very least the competition will use it against them.
My guess at a more realistic version: Professor Nicholson is still the teacher, but he’s acquired a live teaching prop, and as a cable news talking head he knows how to use Robin for dramatic effect.
Robin could be the TA, in big schools they often end up doing most of the teaching anyway. That would also explain how she got the position with no teaching experience.
Yeah. To transfer, there first has to be an opening.
Shoulders packed at the door frame to rush to the registrar’s office, only to learn that someone on the back row, without ever leaving class, beat her to the last slot with a different professor, using the browser on his phone.
On the flip side, Douglas Hofstadter got his PhD in physics, then wandered into cognitive science and was lured to IU with basically his own personal department because of _Goedel Escher Bach_, I guess?
In college I knew someone who had a college teaching job somewhere in botany; he’d never finished college, let alone gotten a PhD, but had somehow established he was a total badass at botany anyway.
Like I said: Short notice. They’re probably looking for someone better than Robin to be the new permanent Professor of Political Science; she’s just a placeholder. I wonder, when the time comes, whether her students will be willing to let her go?
Aaannnd here comes Roz’s total meltdown! I figure that she will have quit the class by the end of this scene and will have attempted to start a political protest movement to bring back the ‘real’ teacher by the end of the chapter!
I totally did not expect this but it does kind of make sense. Academia is one of the typical jobs that ex-politicians go to if they lack the connections to get a job in the higher executive regions of the corporate world!
Now, I’m expecting Robin to turn out to actually be a very rough-around-the-edges but entertaining and knowledgable. I’m expecting Becky to decline appointment as her TA and instead tap Dorothy for the job. It will be Dorothy’s advice that turns this into a *class* rather than Robin deSanto’s one-woman show/spoken memoir.
Frankly, couldn’t blame Roz if she did. Even ignoring all the years of bad blood between those two, Robin has absolutely no educational credentials we know of that would qualify her to teach (be they for education or politics) and her practical experience was one term where she was totally incompetent and the Dean KNOWS THAT. The best thing she ever did in that job was step down.
Honestly given the fact Leslie threw her in as a sub with little warning when she decided to get Robin out of her place, ROZ HERSELF might have more teaching experience than Robin. Terrifying.
I do NOT envy Roz in this situation. And honestly even when the sibling relationship is good or even just neutral having them be your teacher seems so hideously awkward to me.
It’s hard to show a teacher the proper respect when one of your strongest memories of them is fighting over the last pancake at the breakfast table whilst you’re laughingly critiquing each other’s make-up choices.
Becky’s probably fine. She’s in this to satisfy a scholarship requirement, but she’s expressed a desire to become a “real” scientist.
Also, she doesn’t have animosity for Robin, just her politics.
I would be BEYOND pissed if this happened to me in college. Get-up-and-walk-out pisses. And I’d be walking straight to my counselor to figure out what class I am replacing it with or what section is taught by a competent teacher. If the teacher was changing and they knew it then the registration should have had TBA as the teacher.
Sorry but shit like this IRL pisses me off. In a comic world, fine, but it poked the bear
Ya know I had been thinking about quiting this comic, so much had happened, mike died, joyce became an athiest, billie left ruth, I wondered if I should even keep reading anymore.(It became very depressing for me) Then comes in Robin saving the comic for me with her usual antics giving me a laugh out loud! I hope she stays forever!
Robin looks so much like Roz here that I first considered this to be time travel before I considered it being Robin. I looked back and forth between the two a few times to make sure Roz was still seated lol
There’s something about her legs that makes me feel like she’s not actually walking, but rather standing on a hoverboard. Am I just crazy, or does anyone else get that?
I would think a former Congresswoman would be a bit of a catch for the department. The actual drama around that person might be unknown to the search committee.
as a college lecturer I’m really self concious about robin managing to be better dressed on her first five seconds of the job than I will be during my entire career
Hmm. “Reaming” semester. Sounds about right. Which one is that? First semester, when all the ones who breezed through high school find out they can’t do that any more? Third semester, after they’ve done all the Gen Ed requirements, because they were “undeclared”, and find they can’t fit everything they still need, for whatever it was they finally settled on, in four semesters? Or the presentation of a Masters, or Doctoral thesis?
Roz has to go. She can’t attend a course where the teacher is her sister! And if Robin really smoke tobacco with the pipe, I will have a little more respect for her.
Is it, or is it not, the biggest nerd flag that Dorothy actually knows the NAME of that obscure but familiar sounding piece of music? I grant, nearly everyone has HEARD it used before, but most would know it only as “the theme music for Masterpiece Theatre” if they even know that source.
(This is it, BTW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZukLuZQeNHo&t=19 )
Be honest, Dave; you had to look it up, didn’t you?
isn’t “professor” a title you have to earn? I had college educators correct me as a student when I called them “professor” because it wasn’t accurate for their actual title.
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In the not too distant future
In 2020
There was a prof named Robin
Rather different from you or me
She worked in the House of Reps (U.S.)
Just another face wearing fancy dress
She did a crap job voting for the right
But her constituents were angry and she fucked off in the ni-ight…
We’ll put her in the classroom
The wost we can find (that mural!)
She’ll have to stand and lecture them
And we’ll blow all of their minds
Now mind you Robin can’t control
If her antics hit the skids
Because she used this bullshit stunt
To shake up all these kids
STUDENT ROLL CALL
Joyce Brown (drift left!)
Becky! (likes girls!)
Dot Keener (hi Ms. Prez!)
Roooooooz (I’m the progressive!)
If you’re wondering how she has the stuff
To teach poli-sci facts (la la la)
Then repeat to yourself it’s webcomics
I should really just relax
For Political Science 9000…
*slow clap*
brilliant!
It st- actually that was fantastic.
**falls to my knees**
I’m not worthy!
I’m not worthy!
Further Wanes World References!
ok this and the strip itself gave me a much needed laugh, thanks 🥺
LOl! I was just going to post “We’ve got DRAMA SIGN!” but yours is MUCH better. Same ref, but yours is a direct hit.
And came up with the entire jingle in 5 minutes, you are my new god (minor, household. Enjoy the sacrificial chocolate.)
Actually, if you’re a Patreon follower of the All-Powerful Willis, you too could have 24 hours to come up with the perfect comment!
Best part is today’s Word of God confirmation that her pipe is a silly pipe.
Needs bubbles.
*furious applause* citizenkane.gif
that was mighty…….
I don’t even know what that is supposed to be a reference to, and I think it was incredible. You have my admiration.
It’s a reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000. You can see the newer version on Netflix or some of the older episodes on its YouTube channel or on their Twitch channel.
I love their “Every Country has a Monster” rap.
I fucking love you.
I sang this to myself and loved it
(Wipes away a tear)
That was bee-yoo-tiful…
that was loverly
YES! YES! YES!
(Read that in either M. Bison’s voice, or Mr. Regular’s voice.)
That. Was. Amazing.
Of course, I love parodies, so I may be biased.
You left a word out, though, at the end.
Political Science Theater 9000!
Cuz it’s gonna be Theater, no doubt.
She said Political Science 9000!
This warrants an impressed nod with the corners of my mouth down and my eyebrows up. Several nods, even.
I’m late to the party, but hokey smokes that rocked great big rocks.
Brilliant work. Take a Grammy out of petty cash.
Superb. Perfect for this theater (webcomic) of a theater (classroom) of theaters of war (among other topics).
I thought that lady who showed up at my last garage sale looked familiar.
Pfftahahahahahahahahahahaha
Those who can’t do teach I guess.
But what do those who can’t do, and who can’t teach, do?
They teach too which actually brings us to Robin’s first lesson plan. “Grifting 101”
Administration.
teach gym
Punditry and talk radio.
The original gas goes something like this:
Those as can do.
Those as can’t teach.
Those as can’t teach teach teachers.
When I was in school, the last line was “Those who can’t teach, teach PE”. I’ve also heard “Those who can’t teach become school administrators”, which in my experience isn’t far from the truth.
Matt Goerning has the best answer do.
Okay, that doesn’t seem to have worked. The link is https://emy2.tripod.com/Humor/cando.html
God I hate this cliché
THANK YOU!
Likewise.
It both devalues teachers and implies that you can’t both “do” and “teach” at the same time which is entirely absurd.
I agree with the sentiment in theory, but (at least in STEM classes and outside of private unis) teachers aren’t paid nearly enough, so every professor is either retired and slowly going senile or was too incompetent or too much of a jackass to keep a job in the field. I don’t think it’s universal (and I don’t even know if it applies in this specific case), but it’s not 100% unfounded
(forgot the important part of that “but” – for most fields, including basically every STEM and especially at public uni, teaching is literally the least paying job in the entire field)
Likely also the most portable. If you want to be a geologist, you probably need to live where the mines and oilfields are. If you want to be a geology teacher, there are lots of schools to choose from.
True enough, though that’s not as relevant outside of physical sciences and anything anthropology-adjacent.
(Personally, I’m in a computer-focused field less than half an hour from a tech-heavy city, and I’ve never had a professor I’d rate above a 4/10 on Being A Teacher. I can’t actually prove proximity correlates inversely with competence, but it wouldn’t surprise me!)
Eh, that depends. Oil consumes most geologists, sure. Physicists have national lab options, also Wall Street if they want to take their math/experiment skills there, physicists and chemists have a bunch of corporate options. Software had a fair range of options and even now after covid.
Meanwhile professorships may have a range of options but a lot less choice, unless you’re a superstar that multiple places bid on. You go whereever offers you a chance at tenure, and if you get tenure you *stay there*. Making married couples of academics really fun, the “two body problem” of finding a college or city where both of you can find suitable jobs.
Or maybe they aren’t motivated solely by money. (This might not apply if teaching doesn’t even pay a living wage, but in many countries, people become teacher not because they can’t get higher paying jobs, but because teaching is their vocation.)
There is a teaching demand for STEM professors, at least in natural sciences. If you want the title, and want to be a leader of your own research group, you need to teach.
If you are done having your own research group you can still teach until your retirement, which is nicer. Academia is stressful, at least in natural sciences (it is the only place I have experiences)
But had there not been a particle of truth in it, it hadn’t caught on.
Or should I have said, “wouldn’t have caught on?” I guess the “if” clause sets up a condition, so I should use the conditional.
I enjoy talking shit about Robin, she usually deserves it, but I’m kinda with you on that. I don’t know what disgruntled peaked-in-high-school former football player came up with that, but have you ever tried to learn something from a person who cannot execute that thing? Try learning how to make pancakes from someone who can’t make pancakes, I dare you.
Anyone who’s suffered through a math class taught by the gym teacher knows that sometimes, people who can’t do the thing *do* end up teaching the thing. There’s the ideal world, and then there’s real school systems.
There’s also that for a bunch of technical subjects, if you’re good at doing it then you can make a lot more money for less aggravation by doing it than by being a public school teacher.
Of course in college you have professors who supposed to be good at doing it, and teaching… whether they’re any good at teaching is an entirely different matter.
Agreed. There’s a gradient of majors that goes from “there’s basically no applicable jobs with the major, so teaching is competitive because it’s the only reliable paycheck that’s not retail” on one end to “every single job that’s even slightly degree-relevant pays more than a public uni adjunct professor position, so only the people who can’t get or keep a job literally anywhere else take it”, with an extra heaping helping of “they don’t teach professors how to teach, so almost no one outside the education major knows how to actually do it” spread across the entire spectrum.
There’s also “I spent my life doing this, now I’m retired and can teach”. But they won’t have gone through education school for elementary/high school teach, by default.
Plus, you wanna guess the overlap between “old and slowly going senile retirees” and “extremely competitive teaching position”?
*Of course in college you have professors who supposed to be good at doing it, and teaching *
Where in the world did you get that idea? In college you have professors who are supposed to be good at research, getting published, and getting grants. Teaching is kind of an afterthought, essential but not something you want to let get in the way of the important stuff.
But considering how many lies American students end up “knowing” about history, and the fact that at least in my rural school, an unqualified PE teacher could become a science teacher, I can see how people would lose their faith in teachers actually knowing what they’re talking about.
It comes from George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 play Man and Superman.
I to hate this phrase
It has truth to it. It doesn’t mean all teachers are shit. It means if you are not good enough for a competitive job you can usually find a teaching job instead.
As someone who works part-time in academia, I see that most academic personnel view it as an easy gig that pays good money. Sure it’s easy if you don’t spend any effort. And it’s good money if you aren’t actually qualified for a competitive job.
I know many teachers who work hard and do it because they love it. Those are not the people we are talking about here.
Also there is a notion of respect towards professors amongst students. Like “oh wow he’s a professor, he must be an expert on the field”. No, people become professors by coauthoring a bunch of abstract papers for 10 years while detaching themselves from the industry. Their title says nothing about their knowledge of the course they are teaching you. Chances are.
same
I find this expression so offensive. Teachers are a pillar of the community and this just undermines everything they do.
I’m not trying to offend teachers or anybody. I was just kind of noting that it’s the cliche that’s happening here. Robin can no longer be a politician so she’s teaching a political science class. I thought it was a decent observation to make. My apologies.
It’s made worse beacuse most people who teach political science have no desire to become politicians.
I honestly didn’t think my comment would be so negatively recieved especially since it’s a common saying. I thought it applied to this situation but now I regret typing it and would delete it if I could.
I am a retired teacher. My wife has been a teacher for 20 years. I have tons of friends who are teachers. Believe me, Sirksome, you did nothing wrong. It’s a very common saying. It was completely appropriate to today’s strip. I took zero offense, and, frankly, I doubt many other teachers would feel much differently. We’ve all heard plenty of actually offensive comments over our time teaching. I feel like this comment section takes offense to some pretty innocuous statements sometimes when they should save their ire for the comments that are intentionally over the line. I fully expect for people to respond about how offensive my statements just were.
I’m not sure whether people are offended that Sirksome said this, or just saw an opportunity to talk about a long-held pet peeve of theirs.
I’m offended you would take back the comment.
Well, not really. It’s one of those comments that isn’t really true, but contains enough truth to hurt.
I am sorry if made you feel bad about it. Its not a big deal so don’t feel to bad about it. There doesn’t appear to be any malicious intent here.
It was just a shock. It’s like if I typed “All’s well that ends well” and then someone replied “Well my father died falling into a well! Not everything actually ends well!”. I’d feel kind of bad about that. Like I did for this. But I’m not putting that on you or anyone else. It was just a mistake on my end.
World War II ended well. Unless your loved one died on the beaches of Normandy or you lived in Hiroshima. There’s being a decent human being who respects others and there’s “screw em if they can’t take a joke.” And there’s also a reasonable course to be laid between the two. There will always people who will take offense at anything you say. There will always be some good people who are hurt be anything you say. Saying nothing is a terrible solution. So accept the fact that you can’t win and move on.
Robin was a successful politician because she was incompetent. Her supporters were able to prop her up and make her an exciting mouthpiece for their goals. She’s out because she started to care about something other than pleasing her party. She could have continued being bad at politics.
She’s not out because she lost. She’s out because she wanted to vote for her opponent for Becky’s sake.
Teaching *is* doing.
“Those who know do, those who understand teach”
Aristotle
The flip side to that old phrase is that even if you can do it, doesn’t mean you can teach it. I’ve had classes taught by top research professors who obviously knew their shit, but had no idea how to convey even the basics to undergrads.
Some go into university academia because they can’t cut in the real world, I suppose. Some because they do love the teaching side. But for others they’re there for the pure research and teaching is just something they have to do to keep the research position.
I understand a lot of things, but the connections I have to make to understand it myself are impenetrable to anyone else
Teaching is the worst for me, ESPECIALLY bc anxiety
but also bc I hate repeating myself and I want to move on to something else
The pipe really brings it all together
True.
In my mind, that pipe blows bubbles.
But Robin’s not a romance detective!
The bubbles are in the form of pink elephants. On parade.
Also, it’s a bubble pipe, but Robin put Double Bubble, or maybe Bazooka, in it instead of soapy water. The reason we’re not seeing bubbles, is she doesn’t have the lung strength to blow that bubble through that stem.
I wasn’t thinking of Jamie McJack. I was thinking of Jon Arbuckle.
Okay, let’s see where this goes.
It never goes anywhere. This storyline will inexplicably never be mentioned again.
That would actually be hilarious. Robin being their teacher is just swept under the rug after the initial shock and it just becomes a background detail.
To the blackboard, of course.
Okay, I love this.
Oh yeah Called it! also please tell me she is an adjunct and not a assistant or associate proffesor beacuse I really want that karmic justice panel were she opens up her paycheck,and realizes what her salary is.
Robin and Becky have a lot of similarities. In the same way Becky fell bass-ackwards into a job as a campaign manager without trying (outraging Dorothy), Robin just sort of showed up and got tenure (outraging Leslie).
If Robin was offered tenure track Leslie and all other assistant adjunct and clinical proffesors is within their rights throw Robin local river and lake! seriously the amount of PhD graduates who would probably kill for tenure track position at IU political science department. Myself included (well maybe not kill but definitely participate in a battle Royale scenario and at any school at this point)
Did you mean “river OR lake” or “river AND lake” as in “Pull her out of the river then hop a bus to go toss her in the nearest lake, too.”
Yup river and lake.
I mean, that’s how she got the Congress job, so…
You called it and I believed it. It was obvious after you said it.
I doubt Robin is that naïve about academia. She’s like a lot of famous people who supposedly teach a class, but most of the grunt work is done by teaching assistants and grad students. The university gets the gravitas and the professor gets to boost their profile or genuinely mentor the next generation.
She is just gatecrashing. Prof. Nicholson was thrown into a locker, tied with duct tape.
Can’t keep a good (okay not really but she’s kind of trying… sort of?) girl down, I guess.
Robin would starve in the real world and she knows it. So she opts for politics and when that falls through finds refuge in academia.
She wouldn’t be the first politician to take that path.
holy shit, this is incredible, I can’t stop laughing
Joyce: “What the Fffffrench baguette?”
Though if this was the thing that finally got her to drop the f-bomb – in front of dozens of witnesses no less – that would be pretty hilarious.
I’m guessing it’s Roz saying it, since she would be the most outraged by Robin being a teacher.
My head canon is it’s the entire class saying it as one
I guess now I know what the name of that piece is.
Yeah, always wondered.
How did Sarah know? Lol
If you don’t recognize the name, it’s this piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krEEDeErJHc
Damn got ninja’d!
AKA the Masterpiece Theater theme song.
I’d say that’s probably what she knows it from, but honestly Robin watching Masterpiece Theater is only slightly less farfetched than her just knowing classical music.
I’m more impressed that Dorothy knows it by its real name.
Even though it’s the wrong piece, the first thing that crossed my mind was:
“Hello. Me Alistair Cookie.”
Probably caught it from an ad, pointed her phone at it, and did a song search that way.
Maybe she saw the ad after watching “Antiques Roadshow”.
OK, show of hands — how many people immediately ran off to Google to see just what piece of music the “Sinfonie de Fanfares” was?
My hand is up…..
Ditto!
I haven’t heard it in forever so it was nice hearing it again.
I checked the comments to see if someone had linked it.
Yuuuup, same here.
I knew the piece the moment I heard the first notes, but I never knew it’s name before
I recognize it now! Listening to it with the comic makes it funnier.
Finally I know the name of that song.
I’ll assume the pipe is made out of chocolate.
No, it’s a bubble pipe.
It’s both. Robin’s just that dense.
I expect her to inhale through that thing and start a coughing fit when she gets a throat full of bubble soap any second now.
I thought for a second I saw a dot on the stem, which would make it an expensive brier (Dunhill), but it’s just Robin’s thumb. The more important point is she doesn’t know any better than to hold it upside down.
What does it matter? There’s never going to be tobacco in it.
No, but after a week of corralling undegrads, there may be some other substance in it.
Methamphetamine, perhaps?
Hope not. That stuff is all kinds of nasty. I was thinking of a different Federally illicit substance.
This reminds me of a time I enrolled in a class with a professor I had never had, got there on the first day, and found the class was now to be taught by a professor I absolutely wanted to avoid.
Only I’ll probably enjoy this more.
The same happenned to me, they changed the professors last second and I was stuck with the man whom I hated for a whole semester…
Robin and Leslie working in the same building.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Maybe. Or, you can replace those S’s with L’s.
Whichever it is, there will be drama.
…with Robin as her senior in the pecking order.
so this is where washed up former politicians go
No, that would be corporate.
Sadly, she’s burned her bridges there.
“Welp, enjoy the private sector.”
“NOOOOOO, I’LL DIE OUT THERE” (alt text: they expect results)
A professor job on a university? Yeah I guess, but Hey atleast she got to avoid the private sector.
Usually they become corporate lobbyists, but i guess Robin didn’t want to do that.
The hell, her last name isn’t Nicholson.
Oh no, what did Robin do with Professor Nicholson?!?!
Married him to get his name, obviously.
But is her first name Geoffrey?
If anybody else is curious…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQG-DZy7uY
Holy fuck that’s a great joke
Ohhh, the Alistair Cookie song.
Monsterpiece Theater!
the Masterpiece song!
Funny how Sarah orders everyone to sit down. She may end up teaching the course before this is done.
It’s as if she thinks she’s in an anime. “Stand. Bow. Sit.”
NGL, Sarah would make for a non-traditional and amazing class rep.
Nah. She’s Disciplinary committee material. License to carry a bokken at all times.
Correction: bokken are made of hardwoods, generally oak. If it’s made of a softer wood or bamboo, it’s a shinai.
This is a good way of resolving how to get Robin in the strips more but, honestly, I don’t know if I wanted her in the strips more?
Kind of? Would have preferred some more Evil British TA.
Penny, Jason, Ken, Sierra…the list goes on and on.
What if Jason’s Father turns out to be a professor?!?
We HAVE not seen the guy for a while. I imagine he’s still bar tending or working at Galasso’s, but that seems to be amongst the many lines of thread that kinda faded away.
Oh man, I’ve been waiting to do this:
NON HACKED, FUNCTIONING PROPERLY MUZAK-
https://youtu.be/WZQG-DZy7uY&t=18s
Ah crap. Double beat-to-it.
thanks for the timestamp though
*Muzak runs perfectly for about a minute, then shorts out and starts playing Eminem’s Substitute Teacher*
I wonder if this will show whether Roz really cared about politics or was just sticking it to her sister.
Well, she can do both but the latter might have been a much bigger part of it.
I’m pretty sure Roz actually cares. She’s in the obnoxious, performative, ‘better than you’ stage a lot of activists go through early on, especially when they’re young, but we’ve seen her doing activist work even when it didn’t reflect on her sister. First week of university, she was in her dorm wing doing volunteer work for Planned Parenthood, literally cheerleading for condoms. By week two she was either volunteering for or familiar enough with local sexual assault help centres that she had a card on hand when she suspected something happened to Joyce.
I do wish we saw more of that from Roz, rather than (or at least in addition to) the performative more leftist than thou stuff we’ve seen lately.
That causes conflict and humor and it’s fine, but it would be nice to see glimpses of her actual activism again.
Agreed. I feel like as Becky became more involved with politics (and of course, Dorothy), Roz’s genuine work has been getting shoved aside.
Seems to me it was shoved aside long before then. Maybe since the start of Robin and Leslie’s arc. To be fair, she’s a tertiary character at most, so she’s likely still doing it, it’s just not touching any main character’s lives.
Yeah, she’s been out of focus, and maybe I’m wrong – maybe the other characters being involved with politics will lead to more of Roz’s activist work. Y’never know with Willis.
Everything feels rather British in today’s strip, so it’s entirely possible that their original professor regenerated into Robin.
(Also bowties are cool)
I kinda hope Jason will run into her
Never give the Doctor as much sugar as she wants.
I’m gonna assume Robin’s faking a British accent while wearing that outfit until proven otherwise.
Oh, I am loving this
FUCK YEAH!
I am so gods damned onboard for this.
Roz,
You should know by now your sister is a *clown.*
So not surprising. Definitely wouldn’t want to be Roz, now…
I am legit laughing!
And at the same time, feeling a little bad for Roz and also Becky. As baits and switches go, this one is a bad one for them. More so for Roz, because the bratty-little-sister hijinks she pulled with a congresswoman sister may not fly so well with a professor in charge of her course grade.
I’m feeling bad for Dorothy. She could have waited and taken this class at Yale.
This will give her funny stories to tell, though, which helps with networking.
Why? Does Prof. De Santo also teach at Yale?
No, but Sean Spicer has a fellowship at Harvard.
https://iop.harvard.edu/fellows/sean-spicer
And people were asking how it was okay for Leslie to teach Becky, since she’d taken her in for a couple of weeks.
Now Robin’s teaching her own sister.
Of course this does answer how Joyce (and most of the others) got in to the class. Robin picked the names she recognized. (Don’t tell me it doesn’t work that way. It does for Robin.)
I…love it. I love this.
How do you become a professor in 3 months?
With panache.
You dress the part … the pipe, the sweater with the leather elbow patches, the bow tie — and then channel John Houseman from “The Paper Chase”.
Connections.
D’oy.
I had to work through a selective process that questioned things I hadn’t seen from my first graduation class, then an interview with three professors to see if I was fit to be a substitute for one year at the university I did my graduation and master’s degree…
And then Robin… I mean, professor DeSanto gets the job in a couple months?!
This school is corrupt as buck. We already saw it with Pudding Head. Maybe she donated to build the DeSanto Library.
I’d also assume she “accidentaly” got rid of Professor Nicholson in the process
Well, that or he suddenly had a good reason to quickly and quietly resign in a totally non-suspicious manner, and Robin was asked to fill in since she has experience in the field and is recently unemployed…
There were certainly shenanigans.
Da hell is Pudding Head?
I assume they meant Chloe.
Were you ever a US Congressional House Rep?
That was my mistake!
You became a Representative by mistake?
The torch has been passed to a new generation of Muzaks…
Why am I getting strong Gog-Agog vibes from this?
Oh, sure, YOU call it “Sinfonie de Fanfares” but there’s an entire generation of us who know it as “The intro music to Masterpiece Theatre.”
This is Dorothy. She’d know it’s proper name.
Please ignore the second apostrophe that has no business being in that last sentence. I shall castigate myself in shame now.
Were no’t lett’ing you forget’.
Did…did nobody check their syallabus?
From the way everyone expected to see a Nicholson, I’m guessing that’s the name that appeared for this session in the registration system. If the teacher was changed at the last second then they might not have gotten a syllabus yet (or they got a now outdated one).
FWIW, I don’t think I ever got a syllabus before classes began, just a book list.
I meant class registration and I did miss Nicholson was the assigned professor
And my PoliSci classes regularly had the syllabus up online before the first class because after the 1000 levels, we had assignments queued up to be due after the first week. My 4000 ConLaw course had our first practice case two weeks into the course.
Robin is saying this is a 9000 level course. No way is that true. I took some grad level math courses as an undergrad, but that was as a senior, not a freshman.
IU course numbers are only 3 digits.
I think Robin is referencing an amalgam of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and “it’s over 9000”.
Okay, so should I be upset about the way that Robin is inserting herself back into Becky’s life?
Or the way that she’s forcing herself back into a position of power over Roz?
Or how she responded to Leslie’s rejection by getting a job at her workplace?
Or how we damn well know she never actually earned a doctorate?
You don’t have to have a doctorate to teach at university.
The correct answer, of course, is “All of the above.”
You can have an MA or be ABD sometimes you may just need a bachelor’s depending on the program and school.
Okay, sure, but we all know that Robin didn’t earn MA or ABD either.
Nnno we don’t?
I’m not saying it’s confirmed that she’s unqualified. But there’s no way she actually wrote a Master’s Thesis or did a whole bunch of research. BECAUSE IT’S ROBIN.
There are these people called “Ghost Writers”…
…
Okay. Yeah. That’s not any better.
We’ll find out she ran for office as a Thesis project and accidentally won.
Sometimes universities will over look having a degree if you have “provable work experience”. In this case, Robin was a famous politician. Does that actually make her qualified to teach a PoliSci class to a university class? Probably not. Especially if you remember that this is Robin we’re talking about.
At least she didn’t become a lobbyist
The guy who wrote about Dr. Biden taught at University of Chicago with a B.A. Sean Spicer is a fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard. https://iop.harvard.edu/fellows/sean-spicer
Honestly surprised Palin isn’t a professor somewhere, but she probably would want too much money for it. Failed politicians fail up.
She would have to work. Work is not something Palin is remotely interested in.
Also, some students might ask her questions and she’d get all flustered.
Why would Becky be upset to see Robin? Robin made a big sacrifice play for Becky leaving Becky with all the upside of their deal and none of the guilt. Robin then looked for a new job and found employment teaching poli-sci at the state university. She’s not doing this to force herself into Roz’s life. We don’t know that Leslie was central to the job application either, though it probably at least occurred to Robin that she’d be around Leslie. But until Robin does something actually creepy or disrespectful, there’s nothing to be angry about. And you don’t need a doctorate to teach at a university. Certainly especially if you have a lot of relevant real-world experience.
Why? Because she knows Robin and now she’s going to have to take a class from her?
Becky might or might not be upset by having Robin there. But I can still be upset about the conflict-of-interest issues. Same where Roz is concerned.
And no, she hasn’t crossed a line with Leslie as a coworker. Yet. Unless we count “you broke into my apartment and squatted there for days while I kept telling you to leave just get out of my life and stay out” line, which I’m halfway tempted to count. I’m more upset that she’s GOING to cross lines, because it’s Robin, and getting a job at Leslie’s workplace multiplies her opportunity to cross lines by a thousand.
Also, all these students signed up for a top-notch famous professor. What’s with the bait and switch?
Just gotta say after the initial shock chuckle, Robin is rocking that look!
I don’t care for the pipe, but in general, yes, it’s a look that reminds me that I’m very queer.
Give the bubble pipe a chance.
She looks very good in that outfit.
Oh fork.
Well, this is gonna be a fun semester, for Roz in particular.
…She has a degree?
She has the equivalent in workplace experience?
Yeah, this is pretty much what I expected when she dropped her reelection bid. She’s an ex-congressperson, she knows the dean personally, and she has a huge crush on one of the professors here, plus her baby lesbian daughter is attending this school. Where else was she gonna go?
But yeah Roz’s head is exploding and I’m here for it.
Although the dean didn’t vote for her….
All the more reason to give her a harmless[1] sinecure that keeps her out of politics.
[1] You think the dean cares deeply about the education of one class of students?
She knows the dean and the dean knows her, but I didn’t get the impression that the dean actually LIKED her.
One has to wonder how she got selected under those circumstances. I don’t think the dean is the type to pull a Gallaso “Now you work for ME. KNEEL BEFORE ME and recognize my superiority over you!”
There must have been others involved in the selection process, or perhaps adjunct hiring happens at a level or two below the dean of the school. Another possibility is they’re not paying her, she’s paying them, with a hefty bribe in the form of a charitable donation, but I doubt she has enough money to just do that, at least for very long.
The campaign jet would argue that she’s not very frugal.
The answer is shenanigans.
That the class is still listed as being taught by Nicholson suggests something happened at the last minute. She may have been brought in at the last moment because she was available.
Has anybody said yet that this is a super hot look for her?? Because I love it
No that Leslie will notice or anything…
I suspect that this is Robin’s idea of dressing as a “serious and respectable professional educator”.
Not disagreeing here. My first thought was: “Has Leslie seen her like this yet? Because, well…”
Ironically I think Robin might actually have a lot to offer here. She was a very successful politician who would’ve been re-elected if she hadn’t chosen to step down. Especiallg to someone like Dorothy because succeeding in politics is cleary about more than booksmarts or being the most qualified on paper.
This is Robin. Whatever magic she had she’s not going to be able to teach.
And apparently, for reasons I don’t understand at all, it was Becky who was getting her reelected. How does her success at getting reelected qualify her to teach her campaign manager?
I guess she could teach them to arrange a last minute kidnapping of a staff member to sweep into Congress on a sympathy vote?
I think Robin might deserve more credit here. I admit I don’t have much confidence in her teaching ability, but she did get elected the first time on her own merit (possibly reelected multiple times too since I’m not sure we don’t know how long she’s actually been in office) And until her campaign was sabotaged by that leaked photo with Leslie and her public breakdown from it she was most likely gonna win her reelection bid anyway. That’s why Roz was working so hard to sabotage her. Like it or not Robin does have legitimate knowledge of our political system and how to work it to her advantage. I doubt she’ll be a great teacher but it’s possible the group might learn something here.
Again, have you paid attention to Robin? There has been nothing in any of her appearances that even hinted at political competence. Or even awareness.
Yeah, I’ve got no idea how she got elected the first time (and I’m pretty sure we know from one of her first appearances that she was a first term Congresswoman.) My guess would be that she was a sacrificial candidate whose opponent self-destructed in a scandal or something like that.
In a way this is the kind of point I’m trying to make though. Somehow Robin won her first bid for congresswoman and was even slated to win re-election. Even if was very likely a fluke victory and she kept support by not rocking the boat those are techniques worth at least acknowledging and learning. Cause unfortunately a lot of people get into politics for the wrong reasons or get in and sort of jack around, go with the flow, vote on policies they don’t believe in to pacify their constituents, grift to get people to by their shitty books or used cars ect. And those are the people Dorothy and Becky and Sarah and Roz or even Joyce who is supposedly only here “just cuz” will be working with more often then not. You don’t have to be competent to be a politician and I think that’s a lesson worth learning because at the very least the competition will use it against them.
My guess at a more realistic version: Professor Nicholson is still the teacher, but he’s acquired a live teaching prop, and as a cable news talking head he knows how to use Robin for dramatic effect.
In ten seconds, the class has become something these kids will never forget.
Robin could be the TA, in big schools they often end up doing most of the teaching anyway. That would also explain how she got the position with no teaching experience.
Hah! Everyone who called it – you totally called it.
I love the upside down pipe in the final panel
I like the designs of these other classmates! I want to see more of them!
Second.
As soon as I saw Robin, I instinctively knew which song that was without even having to look it up.
I would have guessed “Hail to the Chief”.
Roz is gonna transfer to a different section
That would be a reasonable solution. Which is why I’m betting it’s not what she does.
Yeah. To transfer, there first has to be an opening.
Shoulders packed at the door frame to rush to the registrar’s office, only to learn that someone on the back row, without ever leaving class, beat her to the last slot with a different professor, using the browser on his phone.
Oh lord. Between living with Mary and now this, I think we’re seeing the origin story for Roz snapping and stabbing EVERYONE.
Somehow she looks even more like Roz than she did in her previous glasses.
On the flip side, Douglas Hofstadter got his PhD in physics, then wandered into cognitive science and was lured to IU with basically his own personal department because of _Goedel Escher Bach_, I guess?
In college I knew someone who had a college teaching job somewhere in botany; he’d never finished college, let alone gotten a PhD, but had somehow established he was a total badass at botany anyway.
I’m expecting the next strip to be Roz walking out of the classroom
Fists clenched and fuming.
So I guess that’s her play-on music? Like a WWE entrance?
Did Robin somehow replace Professor Nicholson or did the actual professor let her pretend to be the teacher just for fun?
I’m guessing that Nicholson got poached by a richer institution and Robin was the only person they could get to replace him on short notice.
Sounds strange, I though getting a job as a lecturer was very competitive?
Poor Leslie…
Like I said: Short notice. They’re probably looking for someone better than Robin to be the new permanent Professor of Political Science; she’s just a placeholder. I wonder, when the time comes, whether her students will be willing to let her go?
Aaannnd here comes Roz’s total meltdown! I figure that she will have quit the class by the end of this scene and will have attempted to start a political protest movement to bring back the ‘real’ teacher by the end of the chapter!
I totally did not expect this but it does kind of make sense. Academia is one of the typical jobs that ex-politicians go to if they lack the connections to get a job in the higher executive regions of the corporate world!
Now, I’m expecting Robin to turn out to actually be a very rough-around-the-edges but entertaining and knowledgable. I’m expecting Becky to decline appointment as her TA and instead tap Dorothy for the job. It will be Dorothy’s advice that turns this into a *class* rather than Robin deSanto’s one-woman show/spoken memoir.
Frankly, couldn’t blame Roz if she did. Even ignoring all the years of bad blood between those two, Robin has absolutely no educational credentials we know of that would qualify her to teach (be they for education or politics) and her practical experience was one term where she was totally incompetent and the Dean KNOWS THAT. The best thing she ever did in that job was step down.
Honestly given the fact Leslie threw her in as a sub with little warning when she decided to get Robin out of her place, ROZ HERSELF might have more teaching experience than Robin. Terrifying.
If this was a Phoenix Wright game, Robin would have 100% been the perp.
I do NOT envy Roz in this situation. And honestly even when the sibling relationship is good or even just neutral having them be your teacher seems so hideously awkward to me.
It’s hard to show a teacher the proper respect when one of your strongest memories of them is fighting over the last pancake at the breakfast table whilst you’re laughingly critiquing each other’s make-up choices.
I love that she is the teacher lol.
I wonder who’s angrier right now, Becky or Roz.
Becky’s probably fine. She’s in this to satisfy a scholarship requirement, but she’s expressed a desire to become a “real” scientist.
Also, she doesn’t have animosity for Robin, just her politics.
I think the children these days call this sort of thing “Dis gon b gud”.
Remember that moment from The Good Place when Chidi reacts to Jason with the most horrified “Oh no” ever?
Well, I couldn’t find a clip of that, so here’s Krillin saying it instead: https://youtu.be/xgIQqr3E40g
Don’t get me wrong, this is hilarious, but I also feel bad for everyone in that room.
A TFS quote for nearly everything.
This is somehow so wrong and yet so right?
HOLY FUK!!!!
I feel like panel 2 contains cameos, but I don’t see any familiar faces like Joel or Cholma.
Being a RWBY fanboy of long standing, I look at the redheaded woman in the front row and hear a man saying: “Ruby Rose… you have silver eyes…“
Really? She looks more like Nora Valkyrie than Ruby Rose, to me at least.
I would be BEYOND pissed if this happened to me in college. Get-up-and-walk-out pisses. And I’d be walking straight to my counselor to figure out what class I am replacing it with or what section is taught by a competent teacher. If the teacher was changing and they knew it then the registration should have had TBA as the teacher.
Sorry but shit like this IRL pisses me off. In a comic world, fine, but it poked the bear
Ya know I had been thinking about quiting this comic, so much had happened, mike died, joyce became an athiest, billie left ruth, I wondered if I should even keep reading anymore.(It became very depressing for me) Then comes in Robin saving the comic for me with her usual antics giving me a laugh out loud! I hope she stays forever!
Aaaaaaaaaaand there’s the ball.
Robin looks so much like Roz here that I first considered this to be time travel before I considered it being Robin. I looked back and forth between the two a few times to make sure Roz was still seated lol
There’s something about her legs that makes me feel like she’s not actually walking, but rather standing on a hoverboard. Am I just crazy, or does anyone else get that?
I would think a former Congresswoman would be a bit of a catch for the department. The actual drama around that person might be unknown to the search committee.
The Dean didn’t seem impressed in her first appearance.
And some level of credentials beyond one term Congressman might be wanted.
“Evening”?
Did I oversleep?
Can some of the filler characters in panel 2 get promoted to recurring extra status?
I’m calling it, not the actual professor. Just a guest.
Also, Dorothy identifying by name a piece of classical music is both surprising and not even at all.
And most likely she does know it from MST3K, but looked up the real name.
Bah. Crossed references. Meant just watching Masterpiece Theater and looking it up.
Nice fake, Dorothy. It’s actually the Cortège du sage: Le Sage from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
You were certain nobody was going to call you on it, weren’t you?
For Dotty, this would probably have been a massive burn.
I just know that Deborah and Jeremiah refer to it as “The William Tell Overture” and don’t say Hi-yo, Silver! at the end.
Wow Robin looks hot in a bow tie. Took me a while to actually read the comic.
Mmm, yes, quite.
Looks up song:
Me: Oh, it’s Masterpiece Theater.
NOW the outfit makes sense!
as a college lecturer I’m really self concious about robin managing to be better dressed on her first five seconds of the job than I will be during my entire career
Generally when I teach my first two classes I dress up real nice to scare the students then I switch over to business casual the reaming semester.
Hmm. “Reaming” semester. Sounds about right. Which one is that? First semester, when all the ones who breezed through high school find out they can’t do that any more? Third semester, after they’ve done all the Gen Ed requirements, because they were “undeclared”, and find they can’t fit everything they still need, for whatever it was they finally settled on, in four semesters? Or the presentation of a Masters, or Doctoral thesis?
You don’t dress like Mr Chips? or Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr? for shame
I know, right!
But remember, she’s dressing up because it’s a performance for her. She’s put on her “college professor” persona along with the costume and props.
You’re the real thing. You don’t need a costume.
Bow tie (for a man or woman professor) is a power move, though. Can we all agree on that?
She looks like she belongs behind a bar in a cheap pizza place.
Roz has to go. She can’t attend a course where the teacher is her sister! And if Robin really smoke tobacco with the pipe, I will have a little more respect for her.
It’s bubbles, you know it.
What the F indeed
God.
I just Love Robin SO much! <3
Always brings a smile to my face
Needs a fake white beard
Is it, or is it not, the biggest nerd flag that Dorothy actually knows the NAME of that obscure but familiar sounding piece of music? I grant, nearly everyone has HEARD it used before, but most would know it only as “the theme music for Masterpiece Theatre” if they even know that source.
(This is it, BTW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZukLuZQeNHo&t=19 )
Be honest, Dave; you had to look it up, didn’t you?
That is the appropriate reaction, yes
Me, the instant I realized Robin and Leslie are now coworkers: “Enemies-to-lovers slowburn is now also Teacher AU. 52K words.”
Actually add some more zeroes
isn’t “professor” a title you have to earn? I had college educators correct me as a student when I called them “professor” because it wasn’t accurate for their actual title.
Of course she’s a professor. Look at that outfit!