Historical instructor
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Professor Calhoun is passionate for his work and it shows. His class is work-heavy, but he's fairly kind on grading and his assignments enhance your learning experience. He was prone to slightly passive aggressive comments, though, and at times felt elitist.Rate My Professors ↗
cares about what he doesRate My Professors ↗
The lectures in this class don't feel like they have a lot of value, but are mandatory. Also, the grading system is very unclear, and the only way to get an A is to get an "exceptional" on your assignments, but the grading is way too subjective and unclear. I'm sure Prof. Calhoun is a great professor, but I think this course could be run better.Rate My Professors ↗
Prof. Calhoun is very nice and inspirational. But this class is SO MUCH work for a 100-level literature breadth class. Assignments are deliberately designed to eat up your time. You also have to go to libraries/museums quite a lot simply for participation.Rate My Professors ↗
Very, very easy if you're looking to get an AB, but it's frustrating because you never get any feedback on your assignments on canvas. He doesn't give us a reason why we're docked points and that we're supposed to “find out for ourselves.” I will say that he's actually a super nice and chill professor but his teaching style just seems unorthodox.
Professor Calhoun gives captivating lectures and is good at getting to the point of each lecture. The issue is that he assigns a crazy amount of mandatory note-taking that will have you spending more hours writing quotes and summaries than actually doing work for your major-specific classes.Rate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.
No courses match this selection. Try the full catalog or another term.
| Term | Course | Title |
|---|
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
{
"instructor_uid": "instructor_830bbd5aaa1bc37ecd758ae5",
"source": "legacy",
"source_instructor_id": null,
"identity_basis": "name_only",
"identity_status": "unresolved",
"name": "Joshua Calhoun",
"email": "JOSHUA.CALHOUN@WISC.EDU",
"first_observed_at": "2025-12-03 12:33:41.418072+00:00",
"last_observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
"ratings": {
"review_count": 74,
"quality": 4.15,
"difficulty": 2.5,
"quality_count": 74,
"difficulty_count": 74,
"profile_id": "rmp:1792269",
"source_url": "https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/1792269",
"match_basis": "exact_name",
"observed_at": "2026-09-07 16:30:08.553122+00:00",
"courses": {
"course_9a5a5105a30e4752bff193b1": {
"review_count": 7,
"quality": 2.43,
"difficulty": 2.43,
"quality_count": 7,
"difficulty_count": 7
},
"course_25f49f9b7c9e3d7c59222141": {
"review_count": 3,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 2,
"quality_count": 3,
"difficulty_count": 3
},
"course_3c7043e25530bc3ad1e1bef8": {
"review_count": 2,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3,
"quality_count": 2,
"difficulty_count": 2
},
"course_72c28e54431c484a952cb178": {
"review_count": 1,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 4,
"quality_count": 1,
"difficulty_count": 1
}
},
"bayesian_quality": 4.04567782628651,
"prior_mean": 3.6596857835465957,
"prior_weight": 20
},
"current": false,
"courses": [],
"revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
"instructor_url": "/instructors/JOSHUA_CALHOUN--instructor_830bbd5aaa1bc37ecd758ae5"
}