Legal Commentary

I'm writing this post from my seat at the front of a classroom where half of my 140 first-year Constitutional Law students are taking their final exam (the other half is in the next room over). And other than trying to pass the time, sitting here also got me to thinking -- how common is it to proctor your own exam?

I have two reasons why I do it here at WCL: First, I save money. WCL has a policy pursuant to which professors must pay out of their own pockets to have someone else proctor their exam. Leaving aside the merits of this policy (which gives you one free proctor for every 70 students over 70, so someone else is proctoring the other room), for a relatively un-well-paid junior prawf like me, I'd rather keep the $100 ($20/hour, including set-up and collection time), and use this time to do work...

Second, I like being here. I'm always paranoid about something "going wrong" on the exam, either administratively or substantively, and feel like I can "do more" (or at least be less paranoid) if I'm in the room... of course, that leads to inevitable awkwardness, but better that than a panicked phone call, or a note from a student (or 20) who wasn't able to clarify something I could've clarified on the spot in 10 seconds.

But it leads me to wonder where others come down on proctoring your exams. Do you like to? Do you not like to? Does your school require you to choose between paying an outside proctor and doing it yourself?

The really sad part is that, come 5:30, they'll all be very happy to be done, and I'll have a pile of 140 exams to grade. Stairs, here I come!