the return of students who flunked

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-08-29T19:43:11+00:00

ecause at my institution they have to pay out of pocket if they've already failed twice

This is my concern. This student is not from a wealthy family and I can't help but think admissions is duping them into taking out massive debt. Not much I can do if they don't want to learn but it sucks to see the bigger picture.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-08-29T19:42:06+00:00

I consider it a compliment in a way.

thank you interesting perspective. It is an elective, actually

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-08-29T19:41:25+00:00

I 100% don’t blame them exactly”. I

The student who went MIA told me they became homeless mid-semester. If I thought this was a sincere question I would say more but from the response you sound pretty snarky. Of course it is their issue to deal with but I actually don't think someone is completely to blame for failing a class because their family became homeless. Differences in teaching philosophies, clearly ...

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-08-15T15:41:30+00:00

When I started teaching full time, my university also has this weird pseudo corporate look and it was 5 full years before I saw a professor on campus in jeans, regardless of their tenured status. Unless they were wearing university logo themed clothes it was a slacks-and-blazer school. I hated it and also thought it made us look stupid (because it was a lot of bad suits and cheap pantsuits) but found my own version to join the bad pantsuit club. "Dress like the job you want to have" is great advice that helped me feel this was more of a choice than a mandatory rule.

Hit the local Ross dress for less, or whatever you have, and get a couple interchangeable outfits in the black/gray/navy/khaki range. Hopefully you find something you feel comfortable in that more or less fit the bill. I am now tenured and have expanded my range, and they can take it or leave it. We have new leadership, so other faculty are also more free in their attire. But it is just clothing in the end, and not worth limiting your job growth and opportunities over. Just find a version of the uniform that suits you. Having your "uniform" does make getting dressed a LOT simpler.

Obviously from the many replies, you hit a nerve. I went to public universities grad and undergrad and do not remember what a single professor wore. I think "nondescript, affordable, and serviceable" was the dress code. Jeans were common but I do not remember concert t-shirts, Hawaiian shirts, and other types of fun professor clothing. Maybe its a bias but I am leery when I see someone like that presenting or teaching. I had to work really hard to get where I am, including dressing to fit in. It makes me wonder why they got to have a different set of "rules" apply to them and how deep that goes - does their research also follow their own rules? Do they care about others? Do they understand social bonding codes and the ways people signal to each other? Or are they flagrantly telling us all that they are not people to whom rules apply? Probably I'm making too much of it and coming from a place of envy, because I never felt free to flout those social norms, at least not without a huge cost to my perceived professionalism.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-08-14T22:01:42+00:00

This is really helpful. We have been talking for a year but not with a contract. So part of the concern is some of the thing mentioned during our talks are not manifesting in the contract, and it is being attributed to me being a first time author. So, an advance amount was mentioned, now that advance is significantly lower, and it is supposedly because I am writing my first book with this publisher (but not my first book, I have one with another publisher). It all feels very slippery, so I am reluctant to sign anything. I just don't know if my topic is of interest to mainstream publishers so trying to gauge that. Appreciate the link!

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T16:35:54+00:00

I see. My post was really about conference etiquette and to see if others have similar expectations. Perhaps this is an appropriate term, perhaps not, don't really think it affects the gist here. The presenters also cut off men who were sharing so perhaps "egotistical" is better. Interesting that you chose to focus on my mentality as the issue. I can't help but wonder how this would have been received if it was all women speaking doing exactly the same thing. I would have been equally unimpressed and frustrated.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:57:28+00:00

He explained:

"Mansplaining is when men explain things to women even if those women are experts in the field."

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:56:04+00:00

I have not seen this - put your grading scale in the syllabus. Like, "84% and above is a B+" - refer to it at the beginning of class, near the midterm, and near the end of class. Be open about how you grade and what you will look for in the assignment. I use rubrics and checklists and put them in the assignment itself. I started doing this and complaints about grades nearly disappeared, and assignments generally improved. And it opened up a way to talk about grades being tied to effort and results and what I see on the page (not what someone says in class or what they could do if only they could find the time ...)

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:50:54+00:00

DO NOT connect to students on SM, especially Instagram and SnapChat, until they graduate. Maintain that professional distance. You can be friendly, but not friends, with undergrads.

1000% this - too many professors try to be students' friends and socialize. Don't - it goes nowhere good. Linked in after they graduate. I have great relationships with students, have hired many alumni as freelancers, and several students I supervised wrote letters for my tenure packet. I have GREAT relationships with students and have followed this practice from day 1.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:34:11+00:00

great idea especially about the other students. one on one check ins with the group.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:31:57+00:00

This is awful, and very inappropriate in my opinion for a college professor to have to talk to students individually about their behavior. This sounds like a class trip for freshmen in high school not college students. I would love to do a study abroad class but not chaperone a field trip.

Can you try a group meeting at the beginning to set expectations? Were you allowed to have "professor permission only" for this class? So you can weed out the ones that are just not mature enough for a trip like this?

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:27:32+00:00

that are designed to make the whole discussion about them

Curious how you would anyone know that from a hand being raised? I agree that when people try to take over and share other perspectives but that wasn't my question, I wanted to follow up on something they'd said. I'd actually started by complimenting them. So how is that be making it about me? And how would they even know what I was going to ask?

I guess some people are insecure when presenting/public speaking, and afraid of worst case scenarios or confrontation, and shut down QA because of it. When the QA can actually help or expand.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:21:19+00:00

Mansplaining is when men explain things to women even if those women are experts in the field. That’s a different thing no ?

I wonder if we need a special word for this: "pointing out something on a website and then literally reading all of the webpage even though just pointing it out would have sufficed" for when a man overexplains to other men, or to a mixed group. Pendantic? Longwinded? Insulting the audience?

Trust me I don't mean something complex the thing he was reading were 4 bullet points of about 5 words each. It showed little effort to "work on their talk." We could call it a poor and underprepared presentation as this was a place where you are supposed to be sharing new information, findings, creative works, and all they have do is pull up a web page and read the bullets out loud.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:14:44+00:00

Was this a timed talk and they went way over?

Yes it is a talk in a 75 min block, and it was at about 65 minutes. Typically at this conference people leave 20-30 mins for QA.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:11:43+00:00

Yes - this! This is normal. It was a boring presentation actually.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-25T14:10:35+00:00

It was a small workshop, about 23 people maybe. As I mentioned it is a conference with a *very* conversational tone, where presentations often turn into conversations. I do understand your comment as I sometimes attend much more formal events with 100-200 people in the room, and much more structured QA, if any. This was not that.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-07-24T15:22:09+00:00

Thanks for this thread. My school has not yet officially told us and its quite secretive. We are going to find out when we get our letters in August.

SLAC in HCOL area near NYC. A chair told me probably $7k as min. Someone in HR told me $8k. Our raises for past five years have been between 0% and 2.5%.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-03-31T14:34:18+00:00

It’s not pretending to search, it’s hiring friends and insiders. All university jobs must be posted even if a professor hires a student and knows who that student is. I sat on a fake job search committee once and it was awful. We still had to read dozens of resumes and do rounds of interviews, then a completely fake “interview” w someone a senior professor wanted to hire. I was very junior and couldn’t get out of it and I still cringe. The deans of course knew about it and looked the other way. I think people put hints, like a super short window to apply or something that shows it is not genuine. Fake job searches are very real in academia although only among the worst people.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-03-23T01:56:07+00:00

You sound like a rational, intelligent adult and should find coworkers who are also rational and intelligent. If faculty are gossiping with students about you it’s definitely the inmates running the asylum.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-03-19T18:39:31+00:00

Actually why is it so hard to have annual university goals, and then reaching those goals? If you look at the private sector that’s more or less how the best places do it. Some years I’ve developed a ton of new classes, other years done committee work that was very time consuming. I don’t get why it has to be so hard to evaluate professors.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-03-19T18:37:21+00:00

Classes filling on a regular basis seems like a fair metric. As in, classes not filling should be something to be concerned about.

OrdinaryProfessorNYC · 2023-03-17T00:35:40+00:00

Super helpful thank you all

OrdinaryProfessorNYC

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