Professor Invents New Group Project, Divides Each Group into Individuals

by Sasha Voth

Above:  student Edwin Dale enjoys the creative freedom of Dr. Keeble’s group projects

Dr. Dan Keeble of the Anthropology department is paving roads with his new form of group projects.  “It just came to me as a stroke of genius in the middle of the night.  I realized that the best way to have group projects is to break the groups into smaller subgroups of one person each.”

This innovative policy gives each group a set of four essay topics with each of the four members responsible for one essay.  The relatively straightforward policy has been met with mixed responses.

Edwin Dale, a junior at the Viterbi School of Engineering taking Dr. Keeble’s class for his GE VI, was enthusiastic about the policy.  “I just really know what I like, and um, I just, um.  I don’t really have to work with other people.  So this is nice.”

When asked if he was aware that this project was exactly the same thing as giving individual grades for student’s individual academic performance, Keeble rejected that idea, asserting that the goal of the project was to increase overall productivity, “or something like that.” The requirement for group work as a portion of GE credit no doubt had some influence on the wording of his decision.

Brittney Kardashian, a Communications major lamented at the new policy.  “It totally sucks. Like, I’m a people person, and I love group projects ‘cause I get to meet people and the work totally does itself!