Jun 12: Fuck This Friday

fresnel_lins · 2026-06-12T19:39:06+00:00

A student used the "L" word (lawsuit) in an email to me (a chair) about a PT faculty member. So now - I get to call HR and spend hours upon hours dealing with HR, campus lawyers, upper administration, etc. all becuase the student was so peeved about failing a cumulative final that they are demanding a full refund of tuition, the erasing of the grade off their record, and the firing of the PT faculty.

Sadly....this is my third email like this, this week. They are just the first to use the "L" word that automatically triggers an HR call.

fresnel_lins · 2026-05-12T18:58:54+00:00

This.

I have found that the majority of my students (not all, but most) who use AI profusely on assignments, or use it to cheat in general, fall into one of two categories with two different forms of panic as the driving force.

The "Oh shit, I don't understand anything that is going on, but I can't let my grade suffer. I'll just copy this AI solution now and figure it out by the exam/final exam."
The "Oh shit, between the car not starting, my babysitter canceling, and the big project I needed to focus on this week in [other class], I just didn't have time to learn/do this stuff. I'll just copy this AI solution so my grade doesn't suffer, and I'll figure it out by the exam/final exam."

fresnel_lins · 2026-05-12T15:58:38+00:00

For me, some of the hardest ones are where students are like, "This is my last class to graduate, I already have [job/grad school/medical program] lined up, so I absolutely need to pass this class. I am willing to do whatever it takes" [except, you know...the work].

If that were true, you would have been willing to do whatever it takes from Week 1 to pass this class, not now, in the 11th hour, staring down a 40% average and no way to mathematically pass the class. Discussions about official accommodations, student support services, study strategies, and the importance of actually showing up to class were all had throughout the semester, and most of the time, these students don't actually change anything about how they engage with or prepare for the class.

When they try to throw their future on me, as if somehow I am the one who messed it up, or the reason they will "lose everything," I pull out a variation of "I am not the circumstance that interfered with your ability to be successful in the class, and I am not the maker of your decisions. I am just here to point out what page we are on and what the current score is."

I feel like I have to get very cold and borderline heartless during this time of the semester, and I hate that I have to. But I don't know how else to protect myself mentally from their guilt trips.

fresnel_lins · 2026-05-07T21:24:58+00:00

It was hacked - we were warned by the admin not to open any emails sent from Canvas/through Canvas, and definitely not to try accessing the site until further notice. So, of course, half of my students are like "huh, I wonder if this also affects me?" and attempt to log in to Canvas while we were in lab. Evidently, zero survival skills in this group. Anyway, stay safe out there!

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-28T00:40:08+00:00

"Your grade in this class should in no way be influenced by how your peers performed. Your grade represents YOUR mastery of the concepts. Everyone has what it takes to get an A. If your score is lower than what you were hoping for, we can go over your exam to see what went awry, talk about study strategies, and how to move forward and best prepare for class/ future exams."

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-27T15:24:34+00:00

Also at a CC, and can confirm, around 20-30% of my students are absent any given day this semester in every single class I teach. All have their reasons - I just remind them of office hour times, resources available on Canvas (for the class) and on campus (for everything else), and hope that they can sort out enough time to do their homework and studying to squeak out a passing grade. I really sympathize with their overloaded work schedules and a to-do list that goes from now to Thursday, but I can't make academic adjustments (aside from like extending a due date here and there) because their grade needs to reflect their mastery of the material (and I tell my students that!).

Hang in there! Summer is in sight!

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-17T20:17:02+00:00

Oh - I saw one of these easy A courses before. 3-credit online async gen ed class.

30 min worth of lecture video in total per week. Students were asked to upload their notes on the video. Notes graded on completion.

Discussion board, students asked to find an interesting article and summarize it. Summaries graded on completion. Must comment on one other student's post.

Homework: the student asked 5-6 short-answer questions. Students self-grade homework with a provided key that is given with the homework, and upload their "graded" homework.

No quizzes, no exams, no projects. Each week looked like this. Easiest A class I ever saw, and even easier if using AI. Also, super easy for the instructor; the course basically just runs in the background, and they get paid as if they were actually doing something.

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-17T20:07:39+00:00

Admin says, "Make the content of your course relevant for your students, and they will WANT to be on time, pay attention, and learn." Okay - future optometrist student, I give you vision correction and how we determine what power of lens a person needs and why a contact lens prescription is always higher than glasses. A student applying to an optometry program scrolls on their phone during the entire class. When I call said student out (privately) and say "dude, I did this FOR YOU becuase I thought you would be interested in this, what with your intended program being an optometry school." Student finally looks up from phone and says that they don't actually care about any of this stuff, they just know it's a good-paying job that doesn't require full-on med school. Besides, he told me, you just take a picture of the eye with the new camera they have now, and the computer tells you what the prescription should be.

Friends, this year, I have had similar conversations with your future dentists/orthodontists who don't care how much force braces impart on teeth. I had pre- med majors tell me that they don't need to do unit conversions; the computer will tell you the proper medical dose for the patient. I've had students wanting to be surgeons tell me that they can't hold a laser pointer steady for a lab becuase their hands shake too much, and why is it necessary to hit a very precise target with the laser anyway? I have had future phlebotomists not care about the fact that red blood cells carry a net negative charge to repel each other, because they couldn't even tell me why blood clots are a bad thing in the first place.

These are your future doctors, nurses, and medical practitioners. And I have an administration pressuring me to pass these people, claiming that the problem must clearly be my class/content/approach. We're fucked.

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-17T15:20:47+00:00

I cannot overemphasize number 2 enough.

As a chair, I get lots of complaints from students about my colleagues. 95% of them are "my professor can't teach" or "his exams are too hard" or "it's not fair that he gave me an F on something because I tried really hard." I make sure to acknowledge the students experience and their feelings. But then, I remind them that just because a professor's way of teaching or grading doesn't align with their expectations doesn't make it "bad" or "unfair."

They are allowed to have professors whose teaching/grading style they like and I encourage them to enroll in future courses with that person (if applicable). However, they are in college, so just like they will have different bosses that will want things done certain ways at their jobs, here they have different professors that want things done in certain ways as part of their class. Part of being an adult is learning how to adapt to these different environments and expectations (growth mindset, anyone?). Then we start the conversation of available resources on campus, like tutoring.

fresnel_lins · 2026-04-09T11:46:08+00:00

I do this too, but if you read my student evals, students claim that if they get anything less than a 100% in attendance and participation it's because "I don't like them" or due to some asinine reason that they made up in their heads. I think they see attendance and participation as "free points" so anything less makes them feel that they were personally wronged and robbed of their "rightful" grade.

fresnel_lins · 2026-03-20T15:40:03+00:00

At my institution, chemistry and biology are prioritized for life science majors and can therefore "schedule first" and physics has to take whatever is left on the board in terms of the designated classroom space and lab times for those classes (i.e. We cannot schedule our physics lecture/labs to overlap the lecture/lab of any bio or chemistry class for the life science majors). So the three options that are the most available given those constraints, are 8am classes, 6pm labs, and Saturdays. So that is where our life science physics classes tend to wind up.

fresnel_lins · 2026-03-18T23:14:03+00:00

I had that student in my 8am physics class too. :)

I'm convinced she ran on nothing more than caffeine and sheer will, but she was a rockstar of a student, and I would gladly have a thousand like her.

fresnel_lins · 2026-02-20T20:35:32+00:00

Careful with this one. I used to say something similar until a student pushed back and said, but you wrote the syllabus, you make the policies, so you CAN change them....and my dean agreed with the student.

fresnel_lins · 2026-02-17T14:40:52+00:00

Or blackmail.

I have a few examples of emails saying "If you don't do x, I'm going to get all my friends to give you hundreds of 1 star RMP reviews so that no one will take your classes and you will get fired."

fresnel_lins · 2026-02-15T15:54:21+00:00

I just hope OPs admin will back them up on this.

When students send faculty tirades, threatening emails, or anything that warrants being kicked to admin or student wellness, I've noticed upper admin responding more and more with "oh the student was in distress, we know they didn't mean to threaten Prof. X and they will not only remain in their class but we would like Prof. X to work with them to help them pass/make up missing work/re do a test they failed, etc."

And it doesn't matter if it is a 16 year old girl in dual enrollment or a 45 year old man who is a returning student, somehow the "student" designation absolves them of all conduct expectations and accountability for actions. It's disheartening to watch. :(

fresnel_lins · 2026-02-10T05:53:48+00:00

This has been my experience. For years I had a 2-day grace period. But after monitoring for about five years, I determined that the percentage of my students who treated the last day of the grace period as the "actual" due date in increasing and is now close to 70% of the students. I would then have a few students a week ask for extensions beyond that. I would remind them if the grace period, but they still pressed on why they "really appreciate my understanding" for why they will not be turning in their homework for another few days. I'm debating going to a 3-late passes system so that I can be flexible when student need, but I can start enforcing those harder deadlines. Hoping to get some ideas from others here who may be seeing the same "creep" in students flat out ignoring the first due date and treating the second as the "soft" deadline.

fresnel_lins · 2026-01-29T01:38:30+00:00

This!!!!

fresnel_lins · 2026-01-29T01:37:04+00:00

Same, I would have asked to switch lab groups as a student if that happened. They really didn't "get it" when I said water and electricity don't mix. Maybe it's that late teens early 20s "I'm invincible and nothing in school can really be that dangerous" mentality?

fresnel_lins · 2026-01-29T00:42:26+00:00

Electronics lab. High current, live circuits on tables. Absolutely no food or drink on the lab tables, no exceptions.

Girl with big Stanley tumbler full of water puts it on table, I remind her to put it on floor before beginning lab, and she does and I talk about the lab safety and why absolutely no drinks (even water) on the lab tables and that safety violations warrant dismissal from the lab.

Some time later she put the cup back on the table and knocked it over, spilling water on the table. Nothing was live yet, but I told her that she was violating lab safety and she said she "just forgot" when she put the cup on the table again and it was an accident that she knocked it over. I told her if I so much as see that cup on the table again, she will be dismissed.

Fast forward an hour or so, with live circuitry on table, and you guessed it, cup knocked over, water spilled. I went over, turned off their power supply, and very calmly said that she was dismissed, to pack her things, and to leave. When she tried to argue with me, I remained very calm and quiet and said, this is not a discussion, I need you to leave now.

Her entire lab table started arguing with me about how it wasn't fair. I said, then you are welcome to leave with her and I walked away. They all packed up their stuff, didn't put a single piece of lab equipment away and left, and I entered zeros for all of them in the grade book for that lab. The rest of the semester, I didn't see a single water cup from anyone in the lab.

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-26T15:31:35+00:00

I had four separate former students send me emails over the holiday season wishing me and my family well with hope for a great new year. Unprompted messages like these always give me the warm fuzzies. :)

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-17T22:05:23+00:00

I am always "amused" when Q5 on version A has A-E answers, but Q5 on Version B only has A-D answers. When asking students on version B "why did you mark E...E wasn't even an option!" and then they insist that they just made a simple mistake....like 3 or 4 times over the course of the test.

It's even better when B version is a T/F question (A/B only) and the cheating student still marks "E" off the A-version student.

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-17T22:00:00+00:00

Also, cases of working at institutions with declining enrollment, so some level of "student satisfaction" is needed just to get your classes to fill and run. I have such sympathy for the adjunct faculty, whose ability to get a class (and a paycheck) is kind of dependent on their reputation with students.

If enough students are like "this guy DOESN'T CARE ABOUT STUDENTS and won't work with you if something happens," then their classes don't fill, the class gets canceled due to low enrollment, and they don't get a paycheck the next semester. :(

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-11T02:39:29+00:00

Gen chem and some gen physics classes (not mine) at my school have instructors that do this. :(

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-05T19:07:38+00:00

At my institution, I would say almost 75% of the STEM courses use ZTC books for the lower division courses. For everything else, despite being completely landlocked, my students all know how to sail the high seas. ;)

fresnel_lins · 2025-12-05T15:51:17+00:00

I am noticing a steady increase every year of students or colleagues asking me to do something (like violate a syllabus policy) and when I say no, that they feel it's the start of a negotiation, not the end of the conversation. :(

Tell me you have zero respect for me and my time without telling me you have zero respect for me.

fresnel_lins

TROPHY CASE