Is There No End To The Madness of Students?

I recently found you guys and RYS provides a fantastic catharsis. I have been teaching college for several years and landed the "coveted" full-time gig a year ago at a mid-sized community college in Southern California.

I require a several page research paper in order to pass one of my classes. One student turned in a title page with one page attached that read:

"I was going to write about (some subject) but decided not to because if you can't teach it, then why should I have to write about it? Doing a research paper is ludicrous to the learning process."

Now I know I haven't been around all that long, but I have never seen anything like this! It's truly amazing how this student's opinion on instructor evaluations is taken just as seriously as the student who is busting his/her butt and getting an A in the same class.

RYS Hot Links - Where We Break Out The Most Visited Posts

We haven't done this for quite a while, but it's always a big, big hit. Here are some links to past posts that have generated hits, comments, rants, and fluffy, fluffy love.

• Anti-Feel-Good
• Help A Sister Out
• Needs a Sabbatical
• Future of America
• Evaluation Instructions
• Ass-Kicking
• Excuses
• Quitter

Go Easy On The Schadenfreude - The Roman Trip Is Off

After turning in a particularly depressing semester’s grades of an equal number of A’s and F’s, I darn near danced out of the Student Records office with visions of a summer of tequila shots over the fence with my (also professor) arborist neighbor and the impending Italy trip in the fall.

My future was rosy, golden, tinged with the self-satisfaction of having survived a semester of intense hand-holding and numerous threats to members of the volleyball team who thought they could pass my class on stunning smiles alone. They didn’t.

Alas, my Chair called a few days ago with a rare offer for an adjunct: a summer school class. Of Freshman Composition. My luxurious world, ladies and gentlemen -- summer of photography and fireworks and intellectual freedom, has fizzled out like a sparkler extinguished in a cold beer.

Remembering that I need Euros to buy those artichokes in that ancient piazza I spoke so loving about before, I took the class.

A Newly Tenured Prof Takes The Power Out For a Test Drive - And Maybe Runs Over a Few Toes!

I'd just like to offer encouragement to those of you who are on the tenure track. Once you have tenure, you'll be able to say things like this:

• I'm sorry, but I'm not going to make any exceptions, because I really must not. Running around after students because they won't follow directions that they were repeatedly told wastes excessive amounts of my time. I need that time to make opportunities for good students, who want to know what I can tell them.
• (In response to a variation of "Will you be doing anything important in Friday's class, since I won't be there"): I'm sorry, but I think this question is inappropriate. I like to think that everything in my classes is important. If I didn't, I'd do something else.
• (In response to a variation of "We are having a family vacation and my parents won't let me come to class to turn in my paper"): I would also be remiss in my duty as an educator if I didn't comment that I find this whole situation a bit off-putting, particularly with the way your family appears to give your education such a low priority. It's your education, and your life, after all.

A New Correspondent for RYS Checks In With Some Summer Advice

Call me Professor Patrice from Pennsylvania, though 2 parts of that are phony! Allow me to offer some advice for professors over the summer:

1. Don't read your email. In fact, compose a little vacation reply so that you'll be spared the endless questions about grades. There's no sense in you worrying over it. I know you did a good job with grades, and letting the students stew over their Cs and Ds for the summer will do them some good. Most of them will have forgotten your injustices to them by September, so why get involved in it now.
2. Resist the administration's pleas for summer "help" in registration, advising, and the rest. I know this is a delicate thing. But once you become a 'go-to girl' for problems in June and July, you will be hounded forever for 'extra' duty. Disappear from campus - and from town if possible.
3. Prepare a LITTLE bit for next Fall. This is probably not your FIRST summer break as an academic, so don't spend a great deal of time worrying about Fall 2006. It'll come. You'll be fine that first day. You know what to do in a class. If you have a brand new offering, then by all means do some reading for it. But a sure recipe for burnout is to worry away summer while thinking about Fall.
4. Keep in contact with a few grad school friends, especially the ones who have good jobs at good schools. It's always good to see how the 'other half' lives, and it's even better to stay connected to a little network of other profs who can be useful to you for future job searches, setting up of seminars, etc.
5. Do something mindless. Do a lot of things mindless, in fact. You've chosen a career of the mind for some nutty reason, but the job has a built-in 'recuperation' period. This is it, baby. Go bowling. Put on a floppy hat and go get some margaritas. Drive to the ocean and put your toes in the sand. Let your brain have a break.

The Results Are In For Our Summer Plans - Frankly, We're Still Baffled As To What To Do

We were overwhelmed last night with 246 emails from you, our valiant readers. We each did an independent count of the responses, and here's how it broke down. (Since we're all humanities professors, we came up with slightly different numbers.)

Keep it going all summer: 65 or 66 votes
Go ahead, take the summer off: 81 or 80 votes
Various encouragements to decide for ourselves: 47
Various angry emails about why we should shut down for good: 8
Please buy this new stock or a pill for erectile dysfunction: 44

Here's some of the flava of the mail:

• Please, please, please keep this up in the summer! You've been a proverbial lifeline for me this year. I love reading this site, checking it daily (if not a couple of times a day) to see the pain and suffering others have gone through too.
  
• I've faithfully followed RYS since it came on-line, and many times it's helped restore a wee bit of my sanity by permitting to indulge in the thought, "you mean it's not just me?" Take the summer off -- you've earned it -- but please promise us to return in September.
  
• 0nly oNe t@blet will m@ke you luff her allnight!
  
• You only post one message a day; how hard can it be?
  
• You are the greatest. I love your blog and I could not stand a summer without it! Why not show more of the Hall of Fame posts from the early version of RYS on those days you can't deal with new topics?
  
• Have you considered letting some of us take it over for the summer? We won't break it.
  
• PLEASE JUST GO AWAY. PROFESSOR'S HAVE IT SO EASY ALL READY!!!

Stay tuned!

Hall of Fame Post #13: Professor Tiny From Texas Sends In Some Ratings

M
Hotness 1
Intelligence 1
Diligence 2
Don't let M take your class. She's dumb as a polecat and works only hard enough so as to not drop off to sleep in class.

S
Hotness 5
Intelligence 0
Diligence 5
Get out there to the faculty fair and line up S (S for S-E-X-X-X-Y) for your next teaching adventure. She loves the bible, so you can be sure she's innocent. She tries hard, and her sweetness and lipliner make up for a brain the size of an acorn. She'll bring you cookies if you just say the word "cookie" during class. Just drop it in. "Think of these interest rates increases in terms of cookies." I did it once and her eyes lit right up. The next time she came to my office she smelled like a sexy beach tiki hut and she had a plate of steaming oatmeal raisin cookies that we took turns chewing through.

H
Hotness 2
Intelligence 4
Diligence 0
H is not my speed, though he has a hot girlfriend who has a class across the hall from us. He's my least favorite student because he's smart and doesn't give a damn about it. If you see him coming to your class, be prepared for heartbreak all year. He gets by even reading just half the material, but it's just a waste of time. He's a typical rich kid who has been entitled since day zero, and he'll likely inherit some paper manufacturing company or something and rule some small and lazy universe some day.

Post #100 Of the Rebirth: RYS and Its Summer Plans

A lot of mail has been querying us about our own summer plans for the site.

As most of the academic world takes a huge sigh of relief in May, we've been considering doing the same. The moderators of the forum all have rather involved summer plans and keeping the site up may not be a priority.

We solicit your opinions on the matter. Let us know what you think about us: 1) taking the summer off; b) keeping the site going in a limited way; or iii) following up that idea we had to join the circus.

Also, since this site was reborn in late February, this is our 100th post.

Finally, while we're still operational, remember to keep sending in your submissions for possible use.

Someone Got An Extension And Didn't Screw It Up

As a recent Ivy League graduate, I've been reading this blog with a healthy dose of skepticism. Lately, though, I've had a sneaking suspicion that some of my professors had just about had it with some of the spoiled-rich-kid-who-will-rule-the-world-someday antics of my fellow denizens of the ivory tower. After all, why care about a lecture when your father is about to hand over the reins of a multimillion dollar company?

I tried not to be that kid. I read every page of the reading for every class. I hardly ever skipped a class. I turned in every assignment on time, properly formatted, spellchecked, and executed to the best of my somewhat limited ability. I studied for all my finals and showed up to take them at the appropriate times.

During my last semester I was the president of a student dance company, and during the week of our show, I was in the theater from 5 p.m. until 2 a.m. every night. Then I would go home, work on the programs, multimedia fillers, and logistics for the show, and try to do the reading for my classes. There was a paper due in my American West class that Friday afternoon, and I kept trying to start it, but I was so drained every night that I kept putting it off. I really loved the class. The professor was young, enthusiastic, and highly respected. I was lucky enough to have him for my instructor, and wished on many occasions that I could find a way to show him.

But, in a desperate e-mail sent at 4 a.m. the day the paper was due, I asked for an extension on the paper. He never commented or complained, but just gave me the extension. That Saturday, after I slept for an ungodly length of time, I wrote the paper. When I got it back I'd earned an A-!

I'm sure that to him I was just another one of the spoiled kids who thought they deserved a break anytime they wanted it, and I'm sure he'll never read this, but I have always wanted to thank him. Because he bent therules just a little bit, he let me keep my sanity.

And our show was a hit, too!

A Variation of the "Did I Miss Anything" Dynamic, And An Object Lesson Of Being Aware Of One's Surroundings

I taught an English Literature class last semester. The class met once a week for a three hour session of lecture and discussion.

One night, a little over half-way through the term, a student who I did not recognize approached me during a break in the session. She asked me if I was, indeed, Professor XXXX and then stated: "I think I'm in your class. I've been going to the class across the hall all semester by mistake. They were talking about poetry and stuff too, so I thought I was in the right class. Did I miss anything?"

A Pleasant Tonic To the Sometimes Dreary Tone Of These Pages - Actually It Reads A Bit Like It Might Have Resulted From Too Much Gin & Tonic

I want to give my advanced seminar perfect scores, chili peppers, cookies and every other accolade I can bestow upon them.

Your papers are wonderful. Your lack of grade-grubbing is refreshing. The memory of cramming three or four of you at a time into my office so that we can talk about the class (and life in general) will stay with me for a long time. The stories of your dinners, meetings and other escapades involving our class will always make me smile. The way in which you embraced the class truly moved me, and I am fortunate to have had the chance to work with you.

I have only two regrets. The first is that I was blessed with a once-in-a-lifetime group of students in only my second class as an instructor. Your standard will be difficult for others to surpass. The second is that I had to teach you guys in a temporary building. It makes me very sad to know that I will not be able to come back to this place in 10 years, and just sit in that classroom for a moment and remember.

Two Quick Stories About Students And Their Silly Grades

An intro to literature student asked me to doublecheck his grade on the final. He said he only remembered missing one question, not four. He said he didn't have time to walk to my office to pick up the graded exam and double check it himself, but could I please doublecheck it? He's really close to getting an A, he said.

A senior creative writing major turned in seven pages of poetry for her senior thesis, which was supposed to consist of a fifteen to twenty page sequence of poems. I gave her a D, and she argued that the grade should be raised because there were no grammatical errors in her poems. She argued that I was grading her on quantity rather than quality. I invited her to complete the rest of her pages by joining a group of independent study students over the summer. I told her I'd raise the grade after she completed the five week workshop and turned her seven pages into at least fifteen pages of good poems. No reply.

I find that usually students want their grades raised, but not if it means doing extra work - or walking.

Our Favorite Student Email Of The Week - Where We Get The Chance To Be A Personal Assistant & Copy-Editor

Here is my paper. Thank you so much for the extension. I do not have the time or the expertise to format it properly. You may want to paste the text into a blank document, set the margins and spacing as you wish them to be, and review/correct the endnotes, before you print and grade the paper.

A Common Tale With the Usual Results

I decided that I was going to offer a final review session for my class. Since I wanted everyone who wanted to attend to be able to come, I sent around a notice with the time, 6:30, a time when classes aren't in session, when I was pretty sure most folks could come.

Person X wrote me to tell me that 6:30 wouldn't work, and could I offer a review session at 4:30, too. Person X is pretty reliable, and usually comes to these things, so I wondered if maybe 4:30 might work for more people. Well, of course, Person Y wrote to say that there was no way she could come at 4:30. She could only come at 6:30.

So now, I'd gotten myself backed into a corner of having to offer 2 review sessions over a 4 hour period.

Guess what happened? Neither Person X nor Y showed up for either session! Person X showed up at the end of the session I had scheduled just for her to tell me she couldn't stay because she was burned out from her other classes. I am sorry, what? Did this matter at all? And then she had the nerve to ask me, while standing in the doorway, poised to make her getaway, if I was free the next day to offer ANOTHER review session.

Is this really what the world is coming to?

Gradegrubbing Season Is In Full Swing, And This Guy Is Immune to The Pressure

After avoiding my office for several days since the end of finals, I stopped in to find a torrent of gradegrubbing emails. Grades are in here. I'm not changing grades at this point. I don't grade things when I'm drunk or half-asleep. I really grade things right, give the grades the students deserve, and I check my work before turning it in.

So why is it that students think that emails like these two below will work on me?

I've just checked my grades and I can't believe you only gave me a B. I'm pretty sure I'm an A student, and I know I worked harder than anyone else in class. I know I didn't take part in many discussions, but that's because someone else always said something I thought too. I worked harder in your class than in any of my other classes and that should be worth an A.

and --

Dr. Xxxxx. I apologize in advance but I think you've made a mistake in my grading. I'd like you to look at my final exam and the midterm again to make sure you haven't missed any points. If you could bump up my grade to a B, I'd be more happy. I need that grade to keep my scholarship, so you can tell how sincere I am. I think if you would look at my work again you would tell how hard I worked in your class. Could you let me know this afternoon when you can do this because I need my grade to be higher as soon as possible. I am going to be at my dad's house all day, and I can check email here. Just email me what my new grade is. Thanks.

Effort certainly is important. Effort can help a student get better. But the effort isn't worth nearly as much as the actual results of what the student turns in. Maybe other disciplines vary, but for me, I look at hard numbers on finals and midterms. I can't make a 78 into an 80 because someone says they worked hard. Not hard enough, is what I might reply.

The second email is just insane. It minimizes what I've already done. It suggests I'm incompetent and presumes that my only job is to make sure students get the grade they think they deserve. Oh, and step lively while doing it.

And, in case anyone's wondering. I deleted both emails and didn't even put down my Pepsi.

Where We Begin to Wonder if Maybe All Hope Is Lost

Every so often, I receive an email from a student, an email that shocks me out of my stupor and reminds me why I do what I do, why I teach a 4/3 load for far less than $45K a year, why I bother to memorize the names of my 250 students every semester, why I put thought into my syllabi and attendance policies. Yesterday, I received one of those emails:

well i will still appeal the grade because i PAY YOU TO TEACH ME AND NOT TO PENALIZE ME FOR BEING LATE also whether i was late or not i still earned a B in your class and that is BULL SHIT that i am not recieving the grade i EARNED.

Sigh.

Quit

I cleaned out my office over the past two days. No more teaching. Today's the first day that I'm not a college professor. I've been teaching a dozen years, the last 6 at a medium sized state university in the northeast.

I tell my friends outside the academy that I just got tired of babysitting, and that's as close as I can come to explaining it to anyone.

When I was in college, it never occurred to me that I was there to be placated and entertained. I wasn't brought up in a time when every spelling bee contestant got a ribbon, and where every soccer team went home at the end of the year with a 4 foot high trophy. College was tough, and it was worth something.

But something happened - or so it seems - between the end of college and the end of grad school. As soon as I started teaching I was pressured in minor and major ways to ease the students through the big educational machine. Low student evaluations - always a result of tough classes or "honest" grading - resulted in ominous visits to the chair's office or the Dean's office.

And so I slacked off like my colleagues had done, became popular, and taught less and less. I won a teaching award 2 years ago. We have 350 faculty members and I was chosen professor of the year. I'm glad I didn't have to make a speech because I would have choked. I knew I wasn't a good teacher. I had become an entertaining facilitator and that was all. That I was good at that brings me nothing but unhappiness.

And so I got sicker and sicker of it. Sicker of the entitlement and the low expectations of everyone around me. My colleagues have drunk up the Kool-Aid and they look at me like I have two heads when I say I can't do it anymore.

I don't have a job, but thankfully my wife has worked a long time in the bio-tech world and I can probably have a year to figure out a new career. But it won't be teaching. At least not in a traditional college or university. Those places are now - by and large - jokes. So little is expected that drunk and horny students make the Dean's list, and we all smile and pat ourselves on the back for making it so.

I guess I shouldn't say "we" anymore. It's your problem now. I quit.

Someone Sends in Some Open Letters

To the full-figured female vixens: Do not think that because you’re pretty and forthcoming I am going to reconsider your grade. I don’t need a conversation with you to feel intelligent or successful. I do not object to you peddling your charms elsewhere, but I already have a girlfriend, and unlike you, she can do long division and write a lab report. Bless her little soul.

To the male jocks, nerds and anything quirky in between: I will fail you even if your jokes are funny and your Family Guy references astute. We may laugh together, but I’m paid to train, not entertain.

To the sob stories, disheveled dilettantes and wounded newly single geniuses: I don’t care why something isn’t on time. No one does. I’ve been lazy before, yelled at before, and fired before. I know the signs and I know the cure. Tragedy should be a motivator for you, not an excuse for poor performance. Either way, you have to deal with it.

Where Someone Wonders if There's a Point - And Then Someone Else Answers

The Post:
I watched a number of favorite students walk across the graduation gauntlet on Saturday. As always, it made me think a lot about our job, what it is we do. What we try to do.

Afterwards, standing in the hot sun with some students and parents, I was unsurprised to hear one student say, "I am SO glad college is over with. I can't wait to get on with my life." And everyone slapped him on the back, and the parents all cheered, and I stood there like a dolt.

Why have I even bothered? What is it that I've been doing? Am I just a cog in some kind of machine that spits them out. Are we just an obstacle to the real world? A hurdle to get over?

If that's it, then I don't see the point anymore.

I wanted to be happy for my students, but how they viewed college just minimized my whole life's work. I can't believe I let them make me feel so small.

-----

The Reply:
I think what you're seeing is the effect of a kind of tunnel vision these seniors are experiencing - most of them have never been anything other than students, and after sixteen (or seventeen) years of it, they're ready to be something else. Personally, I can't blame them for that.

One other thing you should consider is that most graduating college seniors think their lives are about to become a whole lot easier and more exciting. They *think* they are about to start jobs that pay more money than they'll be able to spend - certainly more than they imagine they'll need for a comfortable, middle-class existence.

Of course, most of them are wrong about this. Almost none of them understand what it really means to hold down a regular, full-time job, or the pressures of life outside college's protective bubble - if they did, I imagine you'd hear much less of the "thank god college is over" claptrap.

Someone Wants to Use "Reason" During Final Grading, While We Still Like Using Modified "Boggle" Rules, Rolling Out A's, B's, and C's

I find this to be good advice for anyone who is conflicted about borderline grades at semester end.

Do you still have student work on hand when you calculate your final grades? I usually still have a final paper or annotated bib and an exam in my possession, so when I come on a borderline case, I look over that work and see if I can find a legitimate place to award the extra half-point or whatever it is. If not, I stick with the lower grade.

Then if a student complains, I can explain how I reached the decision. I'm not sure if the explanation actually convinces them that the grade is fair, but it convinces me, so they can't pick up signals that I'm wavering.

Another Student Who Passes When He Shouldn't, And It's Only Us Profs Who Feel The Pain Of It

Hey you, my student in the required for English majors course, a senior. Yes, I'm talking to you. Couldn't really do that in class, since you missed most of the class, for which your big excuse is "I'm a senior." Just so you know, I've got one student in my other class driving home every weekend to help take care of a parent with a serious illness and another who is undergoing rounds of medical treatments in a hospital and is in constant pain and they've missed (much) less class than you have, and also handed all their written work in.

But I wouldn't expect you to respect this maturity on the part of your peers since you've demonstrated complete disregard for everyone in our class. You didn't contribute to any one else's workshops of their papers, and yet, because it's 10% of your grade to turn in a paper and get it workshopped you emerged from whatever senioritis ward you've been confined in to get them to put in work for you. And then, on the day itself, you left them sitting there waiting for you for 20 minutes. That was the last day of class and the only reason they had to be there was for you. I wish I had let them go just five minutes before you arrived. I would hope you felt shamed by their generosity, but I fear you did not even notice it.

Also, yes, I did notice that you never did the reading. The big tip off wasn't that you never had a book in class (I understand that some students can't afford all the books and go to the reserve desk) but that the things you said were utterly stupid and ignorant and would never have been said by someone who did the reading. Here's a tip for the work world: Sometimes bullshit works, but not if your boss knows the subject better than you do. Here's another one. Leaving your phone on the table in a class of 10 people and tapping messages out on it or checking messages on it when you're supposed to be paying attention is not subtle. Doing it after you're asked not to is even less so.

But I will thank you for one thing. You might be thinking that your argument that you should get a D because you are a senior impressed me with its depths of passion and insight. Nope. I had to give you a D because of the way I set up the equations on my grade book program. You should have failed, but mathematically you made it past the breakpoint by about 2 points. Now I know how to reword the requirements and mathematical percentage information on the syllabus to make sure that someone like you can't take advantage of my predilection for treating students like people who want to learn something rather than just purchase their degrees.

On Grading, Its Inherent Futility, Wavering Borderlines, And the Inevitable Resignation

As a previous poster pointed out, it's grading season. I hate the grading, mostly because nobody who gets below an A is ever happy, but also because of how conflicted I feel about it.

What particularly bugs me are the borderline cases -- the ones who get the "B plus" but are a half a point away from the "A minus." Of course they send their e-mails and complain, almost always with sob stories about scholarships or minimum GPA requirements. There is no winning: I have the choice of feeling like a heartless bastard for saying no, or a chump for saying yes. I tell them: If over the course of the entire semester, you couldn't find a couple of marks to push you over the bar, then whose fault is that?

But whose fault is it really? Let's be honest: grading is not an exact science. Plugging a dozen marks into a spreadsheet and coming up with 79.4 as opposed to 80.0 implies about the same level of mastery in a course. Yet at my institution, the former is a "B plus" and the latter is an "A minus." It's such a trivial distinction for such a large quantum jump in grade that I am bothered by the thought: If I had gotten another ten minutes of sleep, or had a second cup of coffee, or hadn't just had to pay for an expensive car repair, or any one of a million other things just before marking the assignments, or the exam, or anything, maybe I would have been a little more lenient, and that would have made the difference for this student. And that's not really their fault, even though the "A minus" as opposed to the "B plus" could make some tangible difference in a student's life.

But there are borderline cases who do not complain, and I see no reason to reward a student simply for being annoying. Neither do I see a reason for bumping up all the grades that are anywhere close to a grading boundary. And the boundary has to be set somewhere. If I set the bar for "A minus" at 79.4, then why not set it to 79.0? Or 78? There will always be someone just short of the limit.

So I've decided to be a hardass, but it does not fill me with any particular sense of joy.

Someone Uses Google For Good Instead of Evil. And We Thought It Was Just For Dating!

Two students in my undergrad course sat together every week and spent the entire class whispering, giggling and rolling their eyes. Very disruptive. They continued despite my diplomatic requests that they stop. I fumed.

I get their final papers. My, what excellent writers they are (or seem to be), what mature prose styles for two who seem so childish.

I google a particularly erudite sentence from one paper. Of course the whole damn thing was copied off of a website. Next, I google a particularly erudite sentence from the other student's paper. Different website but also completely plagiarized.

It was thrilling to give both students Fs on the final paper and even more thrilling to compute their final grades: D

The "Flashing The Belly" Post

Number one on my summer plans is buying some decent maternity clothes before summer school starts. A staff member recently asked me if the rumors were true and mentioned that the students said I was "flashing my belly" in class.

So you all don't think I'm a total professor-slut, I have to defend myself here. I can't help it if the remote control for the ceiling-mounted projector never works, and of course I never had time to shop in the frantic last month of the semester.

I don't really have a defense for the amount of skin I flashed at graduation, except to point out that its been a few years since I've been in a graduation robe, and I really thought those things covered you all the way up. Note to self: no more shorts shorts under the academic regalia.

Grading Season is Upon Us, and It Makes Us All A Bit Tense

Perhaps the one issue that gets under my skin the most about teaching undergraduate courses is their absurd sense of entitlement. I don't know where this comes from, but I constantly get the feeling that many students are under the impression that everyone (particularly the professor) is here to serve them and to make sure that they get a good grade and eventually graduate with a good GPA, irrespective of whether they've actually done any work or not. This morning I got the following note:

Hi Doctor Xxxxxxx. I was in your XXXX course this term and I am not really content with the grades on my assignments. I think I deserve more thatn [sic] I got. I'm a freshman, and I dont [sic] really know what to do about it. Thank you.

Of course the first thoughts that cross my mind are: (1) you got what you deserve, (2) you could of course have studied to raise your grades, and (3) why don't you hold on to this note and take a gander at it again when you matured a bit.

Maybe then you will realize what a whiner you are.

Who Knew Hanging On To Grade Books Would Bring Such an Evil Fantasy - Yet, We Are Strangely Fascinated By It, And Hope To Use It Ourselves

Personally, I don't throw away those old grade books because I figure someday one of the students who didn't pass my class will file intent to graduate, find out that s/he can't graduate without passing freshman English, and come to me to complain.

When that happens, I'd like to be able to whip out the ol' grade book and say, "Well, since you came to class 6 times out of 32, only turned in half the papers, and flunked every quiz you were present for, there really isn't much I can do. But cheer up--if you've learned, in the 10 years that you've been working on your two-year degree, that turning in papers and occasionally coming to class is a good idea, taking the class and passing it over the summer should be super easy for you. Uh, I hear 's section is supposed to be good."

It's the little things like this that sustain me.

Another RYS Call For Posts

Since the call for summer plans has gone so well (more than 200 replies), we thought we'd ask for more themed replies. As always, if you'd like to submit posts for RYS, all you do is email us. We do get around 100 pieces of email each day, but many are just of the "We think you have a nice butt," variety. (And some are of the "We think you ARE a butt" variety.) We try to print a representative sample or two each day, unless we're playing tennis, or plunking our banjo, or shooting fish in a barrel at a carny nearby.

So, for the next couple of weeks, would anyone care to post on these topics?

• Why, oh, why, do they make us go to graduation? (Or, Is there anything hotter than wearing a black robe in Arizona in May?)
• Why can't I bring myself to throw away these old grade books?
• If I could rub a genie's belly (or bottle?), what single change would I make at my institution so next semester would be sweeter?

And of course we always welcome your own nutty ratings, your vents, your spleens, your dynamic ripostes about all things student and all things professor!

More Summer Plans, These Involving Books & Sweating, A Combination Sure to Cause Misery & Dampness

Contrary to popular belief, professors - especially assistant professors like me - do work in the summer. This summer I will make headway on a substantial article that I hope to send to one of the important journals in my field by next year. I will also continue with the research of a new book project (my second) that I have only just begun, and at the end of the summer, I will write a grant proposal to go to England next summer to study the archives and manuscripts involved in that project. And as I have two articles under submission and a book under contract and with the copy editor now, I imagine I might be getting back work to revise or edit this summer.

But, like your previous greasy-fingernailed correspondent, I will also use the more flexible time of summer to get back in racing form. I don’t race cars, however. Vehicles are for wimps. I race my own body over long distances. I run marathons. Last year I qualified for Boston, but didn’t have time to train for it. But I’m going to use the summer to get back in shape for a fall marathon and then keep it up until Spring and Boston 2007.

And I won’t think about students all summer long, just as I doubt they’ll be thinking about classes.

My Bitter Summer

Having jumped straight from defending my thesis to a full-time job (4-4; please, hold your applause), summer time means returning to my double life as a scholar and thinker.

The pleasures and demands of the life of the mind shall once again be mine -- as I continue to look for another full-time, dispiriting, soul numbing one-year position for 2006-07.

We Don't Pretend to Understand All Professors, We Just Offer a Place Where They Can Let It All Out - Even When It's Disturbing

summer = research!!

woot!

no students

no administration

just sweet sweet mathematics

It's Okay to Hate This Reader. We Hate Her, Too. Hate the Roman Vacation. Hate the Luxurious Italian Words. Hate Ourselves for Not Going Along!

Summer beckons, an oasis from the desert of empty minds and bureaucratic wrangling we endure daily. My students are panting, glazed-over, parched from the long haul of the 16 week semester, and I am the driver, switching the whip over them to keep forging ahead until the last essays are turned in and we can rest.

What drives me at this point is the anticipation of a wide-open expanse of time. My tenured husband is up for a sabbatical and we are going to Rome for the fall. The last week of classes at our college is fast arriving, and I have the distinct pleasure of knowing that I will not be required to return to the classroom until next January. Everyone is jealous until I admit that I won't be seeing a paycheck until then, either.

Still, I am heartened. Instead of staring back at empty-fish-faces-in-an-over-air conditioned-classroom I will be gesticulating wildly and passionately over the price of fresh artichokes in an ancient piazza. Instead of lamenting over the lack of basic sentence skills of today's students I will be twisting the words doppio macchiato, per favore into the weave of a fine Roman morning. Instead of anguishing over why the assigned reading wasn't done (again) by 3/4 of the class, I will take my toddler's hand and splash in the fountains of a vibrant city, a la La Dolce Vita.

I will be back in the classroom in January: coffee stained, jet lagged, simultaneously frazzled and refreshed, and as always, impatient with the current generation's trend of pathological ennui.

Where Our Question Unfortunately Leads One Reader to Have Pleasant and Wondrous Dreams, Until Cruel Reality Arrives At Her Door, Promising Drudgery

When I read the post about summer plans, it caused me to pause. It caused me to daydream. I thought, "What will I be doing this summer?"

A montage of beautiful images set to calypso music flipped through my mind: Me, lounging on a white-sand beach, finally, blissfully reading Devil in the White City. Me, sitting by a bonfire, drinking beer and laughing with far-away friends in Kansas. Me, sleeping in until 9:00, and luxuriating over an expensive breakfast at an over-priced pseudo-French cafe. Me, finally re-painting the kitchen and putting up those shelves. Me, in the National Archives, finally finishing that research.

Alas, reality set in.

My summer plans? I'm teaching summer school.

Another Flare Up of the Student Email Variety. Or, Why Can't They Come In the Office So We Can Throw Things At Them?

I'm teaching an online course this term, and one of my students constantly complained about everything in the course. The final straw to me was when she complained about an "A-" grade she received on a paper, citing her Stanford degree as proof she knew what she was doing. If that wasn't good enough for her to get an "A" on this paper, then she said I clearly didn't know what I was doing, etc. Since the paper had several minor flaws in it (including the lack of proper APA/MLA styling - I guess they don't teach that at Stanford?), I wrote her back within a day asking her to point out what she felt I missed in evaluating her paper. She never wrote me back.

Instead, she emailed me today - while copying the division dean, mind you - another rant about the "B" she got on the next assignment (which was well deserved), etc., personally insulting me, the course and everything else under the sun. She also announced her intention to drop the class.

While I say good riddance to another malcontent, I just wonder what has happened to the education profession to the point I have to tolerate such abuse from students. In my college days - which was less than 15 years ago, mind you - I wouldn't DREAM of speaking to an instructor like this. My parents raised me better than that, and the academic world demanded a little more respect perhaps. Maybe the convenience of email makes it easier for students to rant like this at professors, but when is enough enough? Why should I have to tolerate that kind of nonsense from any adult in an academic/professional environment? I just don't understand these kids today, and I'm only 34. Help!

Someone Shatters Many Preconceived Notions About Profs: Speed, Gasoline, Greasy Fingernails?!?

In summer, glorious, brief (in the Midwest) summer, I become a mixed metaphor: English professor with greasy fingernails, smelling of solvents, gasoline, and horsepower. I race time trials and gambol on race tracks of the upper Midwest, with a sports car I have modified, repaired, indeed, sustained with my own hand—my crowning achievement.

While there is a subtle intellectual oomph that comes from the witty riposte, the perfectly parsed phrase, or the subtle nuances of a spoken sonnet, that ain’t nothin’ compared to the high-octane rush that comes with 125 m.p.h. down Road America’s Thunder Valley.

If Milton had horsepower, he’d say, “‘Tis better to rule on the asphalt than to serve on the chalkboard.” Paradise has no speed limits.

Call For Posts From RYS: Summer, Delicious Summer

Let us request your posts concerning your summer plans. Delicious and delightful summer looms for most of us. We, for example, are planning on more tennis than Tennyson, but we're open to whatever you will be doing over the summer.

Should you choose to relate these events to how they'll make you a better professor, that will be great. But if your plans are really about getting tan and attracting that hot neighbor, that's cool, too.

As always, submit right to us here at the RYS mini-compound. We're waiting, after all. We're just dreaming of what you'll say!

Someone Appears to Be In the Throes of Doing That Last Minute Grading, and Essays are Piled Up, and Tolerance is at an All Time Low

T: The full page of comments stapled to the back of your assignment when I hand it back is (among other things) an explanation of why you got the grade that you got. Please take a few minutes to read and digest it before raising your hand and saying "Professor Xxxxxxx, why did I get 87 out of 100? My friend said that this was perfect." And, going into the hallway after class and yelling "Professor Xxxxxxx is an asshole," does not make me feel more sympathetic to your needs.

D: Misspelling "activities" as "activates" every single time that you used it in your paper (10+ times) strongly suggests to me that you are either extremely careless or borderline illiterate. Also, a very important part of writing is making sure that what you said can be understood by a reader. If a given sentence looks like you took a bunch of words, threw them in a blender, and poured the result onto your assignment, you should probably go back and fix it. Also, it's best if all or nearly all of the semantic units in your paper are actual English words, as opposed to ones that you made up yourself.

E, N, P, & R: If you sit in the back and giggle through my entire class, it is not my fault if you miss things. The purpose of coming to class is to learn things. If you're not going to pay the slightest bit of attention to what's going on, you might as well not come.

N: For your latest assignment, you were supposed to use at least two books. I emphasized in class that these are to be actual physical books that you can hold in your hands, and that they can be obtained free of charge in the campus library. So why is it that when the class was in the library, you raised your hand, pointed to a New York Times article on your computer screen, and said, "Does this count as a book?" Books are those rectangular objects made out of many sheets of paper stuck together. Are you just an idiot? Or is there something I'm missing?