LPPL 3210

This was one of -- scratch that -- THE worst class I have ever taken at UVA. Professor Dobson is a unique blend of incompetent and unfocused. His grading is arbitrary, his lectures are meandering, and, let's just say, he has a bad choice in GTAs. This class is meant to teach behavioral science, and we did not learn behavioral science. We learned nothing, in fact. Seriously, ask anyone who has taken this class what they learned, and they will not be able to answer. If I had known how terrible this class was, I would not have chose Batten. The bright side of all of this is that if you are reading this, you did not take this class in its first iteration (Fall 2024), as this was Prof. Dobson's first time teaching (it shows!). I expect that he will endure such a thorough talking to from Dean Solomon, that he will either be fired or that this class will completely change.

Dobson seems like a nice guy, but this class is an utter waste of time and we learned absolutely nothing. It was clearly his first experience teaching, as he was extremely disorganized and would change the syllabus almost every week. The 2.5 hour lecture period was unnecessary since we would cover maybe three slides of actual content. The rest of the time was spent doing busy work and engaging in surface level group conversations. The assignments themselves aren’t difficult and there aren’t very many of them, but the final exam was terribly designed. If you have the option, don’t take this class. It will only annoy you.

Though Professor Dobson is a very kind man with clear ambitions to do the best for his students, these characteristics fail to make up for his poor aptitude as a professor. I could not tell you one concrete piece of information I learned from this semester. The lectures are made up of long winded commentary on student experiences (which are only volunteered to meet a hefty and unclear participation grade in a 60 person lecture) and inane activities that do not provide any clear insights on policy leadership. The two and a half hour period was a weekly waste of time, and every class concept linked back to his research in police community relations, which while at times was interesting, is not supposed to be the focus of the class. There is very little actionable behavioral science knowledge connected to the course, instead linking topics back to broad concepts of “ethical and authentic leadership.” Assignments were provided with very little explanation and graded with very limited feedback, marking down a disproportionate number of points for minor or unclear mistakes; whether this was a fault of Dobson or his TAs, I’m unsure. The final was completely open ended and suggested the open use of personal experience or insights, yet was graded harshly using metrics unbeknownst to students. For a semester of wasted time, you’d at least hope this class would be a guaranteed A, yet Dobson has manufactured a course that is absent of any curricula but continues to grade arbitrarily.