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I am not amused by a professor who keeps students artifically at arm's length, glowering at people; running hot & cold; addressing people by title & last name; cold-calling and making students squirm for 10-15 minutes who obviously are not prepared; falling behind in the syllabus (we covered maybe 3/4 of what Abrams's class covered) but leaving plenty of time for his own oh-so-amusing anecdotes...
If I hear someone mangle "excetera, excetera" one more time this year I may haul off & slap them. (It wasn't so much the mispronunciation that sent me up a wall; it was the attempt to express an idea without the commitment to complete it.)
What a singularly chilly, pretentious, ungenerous, and, frankly, unskilled teacher this is. He knows his subject, no doubt about that. But as easy as it is to teach Torts, he manages to teach very little.
I think he is knowledgable and a great professor, a little rough on evaluations but fair. I feel I really know the stuff. However, I don't like the idea of a professor who shows a disliking to you when you go toe-toe with him on a subject, a great professor should want his students to be able to do that...lets hear it for arrogance
Whoa! Its interesting to hear these impressions. I think Hackney is the bomb and I sat in the front row smack in the middle- he couldn't even pronounce my name right. I got called on but mostly I raised my hand. No, I'm not some over achiever--haha- far from it. But I felt that Hackney kept me alive and awake for his class. Maybe it was just my class but whenever the exact minute arrived for our class to begin everyone quieted. I don't think that was out of fear but respect. His stories added flavor to the subject and helped in conceptualizing the materials in real time. I attended extra help and got it- he even tried to change his hair appointment when I thought I might need more help. I don't know to each his own- but I don't need a professor to smile warmly in my face. I need him to explain his concepts- Hackney is a brainiac. He's beyond intelligent and I think that leads to his distant, absent-minded professor demeanor- but he's golden. He can take someone's confused question and make it concise- a dummy can't go that. And yes he does not do the 2 pages of evaluations. He gets to the point. So maybe its about students either having it or not for him to put down on the evaluations.
Cold calling is the the only reason I kept up with the reading and it proved to be excellent motivation for me. Students have the opportunity before class to let Hackney know you're unprepared and if you're stupid enough to gamble you should suffer the consequences. I liked when he harassed students who refused to just say "I don't know" because it's a lesson they'll need in court. I didn't like the extra work loaded up at the end, but I do think his stories are great. Excellent professor. He doesn't seem very amused by the kiss ups that line up after class to have a chat, but really don't have nothing to say. He's not here to be your buddy.
I have to say, Hackney's outlines are legendary, if you write what he put up on the board on a daily basis, you would have an outline fit to take the bar with (at least for torts).