We Are All About the Bittersweet

It is bittersweet to read RYS, to know that I am not alone in my complaints, but also to be saddened by the increasing number of students who think learning is only accomplished by process of osmosis. However, during this week of the same student fervor of begging for unearned grades and more time, I want to thank those students in my class who conducted themselves in the manner that one should while enrolled in a major top-ranking university. Students who:

1. came to my office only at times when they were truly stumped on a problem after working diligently on their own to find a solution.
2. thanked me for telling them to study their homework problems and class notes in order to do well on tests; and they were not surprised at the test problems.
3. whined only about themselves and asked me for advice when they were not reaching their potential.
4. showed an exuberance for doing well in class; even if they had problems at home or at their employment, they mentioned how being in class and being involved for that 2 hours was a form of escape.
5. were courteous and polite.
6. recognized that I am their professor and didn’t call me by my first name; that is reserved for my family and friends.
7. brought up good questions during class; any questions about the material, but never “is this going to be on the test?”
8. made me feel a joy of teaching again.

Some More End of the Semester Flava - Small Bites, But Big Fun

• Your heartfelt "I'm graduating and I'll miss all of you - you're like my family" speech at the end of the year banquet last night was truly moving. And since you haven't turned in your final project that was due four days ago, you'll get to give the same speech again next Spring.
• Why are you lurking directly outside my office door while I am clearly meeting with someone else? Do you think that lurking, pacing, and standing just outside my door frame 'reading' the empty bulletin board will make me speed up? Do you think your tactic will push me into finishing my meeting faster, because no other students matter, only you? Guess what? I see you.
• "I just wanted to write you because I have not attended class for a while and I wanted to let you know why. First of all, I was very sick for about a week with a bad virus that had me completely bedridden and although I tried to still go to class, my girlfriend wouldnt let me. Second of all, once I finally started feeling better, I was working on my laptop on a paper for class and my laptop physcially exploded! I had to go to the nurses office where I was treated for Fiberglass burns and had to have all of the shards of fiberglass pulled out of my arms and chest, I was put on heavy pain killers and thats why I havnt been able to attend the last few weeks cause the medicine has almost the same effect as being drunk. I am doing much better and am off of the painkillers as of now. However, I still do not have a laptop because I cannot afford to get a new one, but I will have my girlfriends here for the rest of the day. So if you could please respond ASAP it would be much appreciated. Can I still earn an "A" in this class?"
• I am sorry for not making it to class today. I for some reason kept hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock, and then I pulled one of those numbers where I jumped out of bed to find out what time it was and gave myself whiplash. If I can turn my head, I will be in class on Monday.
• You know, I should've seen it coming when you came up to me early in the semester and said this research methods "stuff" was like Greek to you. That's understandable, it's difficult for even myself; and I even offered to give you extra help twice a week outside of class. Still, you chose to cancel often, and the few times you came, you came late...that's unacceptable. So you work three jobs, so what...be responsible! You still can't grasp the simplest of concepts in your class, and you got a 15 on the midterm...A 15!!! You know what that means? That means you have failed the class and you should focus your attention on your three jobs. Yet you came back to class, still begging me to help you out. So now finals are a week away and you still do not know even the basic concepts taught in the class. You need a 68 on the final to pass the class...the final is out of 65 points. Please...for your own sake...give it up! And give me a break!

At Least She's Got Some Ambition

Cherry has not put forth much effort this semester. She had fairly regular attendance for the first several weeks of the semester. Then she missed the first exam. I told her I would make an exception this one time: I would allow her to make up the exam (in essay format) with a 50% penalty, and she should not expect this kind of leniency ever again.

Eight weeks later, she still hasn't made up the exam.

Then she failed to turn in her first term paper. Nearly one week after the due date, she emailed me her paper. When she came to class, she inquired as to whether I had received her paper. I told her that I could not accept it unless she had some documentation excusing her absence. "Fine, if that's how you're going to be..." she muttered before storming out of the classroom.

I hadn't seen or heard from her until yesterday. I received an email from her apologizing for missing class and telling me she probably wouldn't be able to make any of the remaining classes. Why? Because she is a "gamer." She plays video games for a living, and, as she explained in the email, she is doing very well in her career. She is doing so well that she has been traveling all over the U.S. for tournaments, which prevents her from attending class. She hopes that I can understand that she needs to do this, and she will try her best to turn in work on time.

Let it All Out. We Come Here to Feel Better. If It Helps To Tell Them to Catch a Greyhound, Then We're Right There With You!

• No, sweetie, you cannot take the final now that you missed it. I'm sorry that your scatter brained roommate told you the final was tomorrow and not yesterday. The exam schedule was published at the beginning of the semester and the exam time was announced about five times in class. The fact that you can't read, listen or use a computer on your own tells me something. Oh, and please make good on your threat and leave the college. Your five professors of this most recent semester will buy you a bus ticket.


• I really am sorry that you are experiencing personal difficulties this semester that are causing you to behave in an academically uncharacteristic manner. I’m sure you’ve been an academic powerhouse in every other course you’ve ever taken, but, in my class you suck. I don’t consider your past performance in other classes to be reason enough to spend time coming up with (and grading) “extra assignments” for you when you have not demonstrated the ability to complete “the” assignments. You know, the ones the rest of the class did.


• I’m sorry, but I just don’t know how to make “it” any clearer. I don’t even know why you don’t get “it.” The rest of the class gets “it.” I’m not telling them anything different than I’m telling you. In fact, I’m telling you more because you come to office hours or approach me after class. I’m happy to do that, though. I will not, however, prepare extra special notes just for you, that spells “it” out exactly as it will appear on the final. I’ve walked you through “it” many, many times. I’m afraid if you still don’t get “it”, you will just have to accept that you will get that question wrong on the final and move on with your life.


• Twice now you have made appointments with me to come to my office to “discuss your paper.” Twice now you have stood me up like an ugly prom date. I don’t really mind as I have other work to do, but please don’t email me after final grades are posted asking why you got a D and begging me to change your grade. My answer will be no.


• I know that you're planning on graduating this semester, but when I repeatedly tell you that you have something wrong and need to change it, and then you steadfastly refuse to do so because that would necessitate more work for you, you forfeit my sympathy. Trying to take the "easy way out" on your senior thesis is not a good idea.


• Hey, jackass, your golf coach sends around a list of all the days you are permitted by the college to miss class for golf. Therefore I am QUITE SURE that those other 5 or so days (making it 13 in total) you missed for golfing must have been FOR FUNSIES. Or sleeping. Or drunk. Don't care. Unexcused.


• "But, Professor! I didn't plagiarize! I paid someone to write the essay for me, and that person plagiarized!"


• Yes, my late penalties are stiff but I have laid them out in the syllabus, which you received on the first day of class and is also available on the webpage. You were gracious enough to admit that you had no good reason your paper was late. It was “personal reasons” and not excusable. I admired you for your candor. However, this is a small campus and I also heard that you were drunk off your proverbial arse Friday night, unable to get out of bed for an athletic team trip Saturday morning, making them late for the game. Was the assignment a "waste of time" as you said before you tossed it into the garbage can? Why yes, it was. For me.


• A student came to me after a report was due and said he wasn't able to turn it in on time because he couldn't get it printed. Our school had just switched from a free-printing campus to a pay-per-print campus, so some students got caught unawares that they had to now pay for printing. In an effort to be helpful, I told the student that he could print the report out on my printer. He replied, "Oh, I haven't written it yet."


• Okay, I admit it. This was a film class. We watched films, discussed films, researched films, critiqued films. How absolutely mean of me to show a film for the final exam on which you would be tested. I know, I am a son of a bitch.


• I'm awfully glad you love Jesus and want everyone else to love him like you do. The paper was not on Jesus but on Islam. Can you understand that? It was a World Religions course and not a course in loving Jesus. Your paper never mentioned Islam once. That's why you got an F and not because I hate Jesus.

We Really Mean It

Here are some quick shots to the solar plexus, a little collection of rants and vents that have come in over the past week as the semester grinds to a halt. And we'd love to hear more from you. What are some of the best "end of the semester" pleas, complaints, revelations, and whines you are hearing from students?

• Yes, I really meant it when I told you to hang on to all of your previous essay drafts because they'd be required for your final portfolio - 50% of your grade. And no, it doesn't mean anything to me when you say you didn't understand. It's in the syllabus. It's on Blackboard. I say it in class about as often as I say "Good morning." Really. There are no exceptions. You can look pitiful all day long and it will not melt my cold, dark heart.
• No, it does not help your failing grade that you have a health center note to excuse your 10th absence from the class. Even if I accepted such notes (which, as your syllabus clearly states, I don't), you'd still have 9 more absences to explain away.
• What part of "I don't accept late work" do you not understand?
• Telling me that I'm your favorite teacher at the same time you are asking me to forgive all of your academic sins doesn't work. Try someone duller and more stupid.
• I really meant it when I said you needed to re-do all three labs. It wasn't a suggestion or "good advice." It was a requirement, stated by a professor to three wayward (lazy) students who at the time were BEGGING for a chance to make up for previous faults. So, yes, I really mean it.
• This is not your work. You know how I know? I put this one phrase from your essay into Google, and found about 50% your essay in chapter 5 of a high school textbook. I'd say that was an ingenious stroke on your part, but you're too stupid to have actually done it on purpose. And as noted in class and on the syllabus, stealing someone else's work is plagiarism, a failing offense, and a ticket to see the Dean. I don't care when you thought you were graduating.
• You're right, I don't like to receive papers through e-mail. Of course, I don't like receiving late papers, either. E-mailing me two days after the paper is due wondering how you should get it to me since you're sick does not indicate that you are a good student, but rather that you probably haven't written the paper yet. This information will factor into the grading.
• I can't turn water into wine, and I can't turn your half-baked field notes into a final project for YOUR SENIOR YEAR! Crying won't help it, either. You had ten weeks to fret over this. Why do you choose the day before the THING IS DUE to tell me about you problems for the FIRST TIME.
• No exceptions, doesn't mean, "No exceptions, except for Carrie because she's so cute."
• I know the Dean, too, and he's not going to fall for your sob story either.
• I really meant it when I told you I would not accept this without revisions. Telling me you're so tired from traveling to and from home - getting your apartment ready for you and your lunkhead boyfriend - is not helping anything.
• I did care about you and your progress in this class until you started to cheat on tests and get your friends to write your papers. Then all the trust was out the window, and now I'm just sharpening my pencil for your F, and hoping to forget your name and face as soon as possible.
• Yes, the final is cumulative. Really. Look it up. The word has not likely changed since I was in college.

Nobody Likes a Smart Ass Post. Except for Us, of Course. We Love It. We HAVE to Post It. We Want To Paint It On Our Office Doors!

At the end of the semester, while everyone is suffering last-minute panic attacks, such statements are the last things I wish to hear:

• "You don't understand, Professor J. I HAVE to get an 'A' in this class!"
• "But I HAVE to pass this class!"
• "Don't you understand? I HAVE to do well in your class!"

Oh, my dears, I realize you HAVE to as if your very lives depended on it, as if the end of the world would be set in motion if the very worst-case scenario on your final transcript did, ultimately, occur. By golly, you will be doomed to the fiery pits of hell if you don't get an 'A' in my class. You will be cursed, as will your family and the generations following yours and so forth -- you will PERISH if you don't pass my class. Yes, my lovelies, your attempt at making me feel extremely guilty about the whole shebang is duly noted, and I applaud you for it. However, and I mean this from the bottom of my stoic heart, I don't care.

You HAVE to pass the course, and I HAVE to give you the grade you've earned. You HAVE to get an 'A', and I HAVE to dock you points for not attending class and for not turning in 'A' worthy work. You HAVE to do well this semester, and I HAVE to measure the end results you present to me.We all HAVE to perform our expected responsibilities. This includes your instructor.

Bear that in mind, guys and gals, and you'll be just peachy.

You'll HAVE to be.

When to Interrupt An Interrupting Student

• I'm not sure why you think it's acceptable to interrupt. Didn't anyone teach you that it was rude? [RYS, April 23, 2007]
  

I could go on and on. But I'll just say that this kind of professorial post drives me a bit nuts. Evidently no one did teach this student about interrupting. So why don't you politely call your student on her or his rudeness? Why sit there and stew in silence?

I've learned over years of teaching that a lot of things that seem obvious to me are not obvious to my students. So I spell them out: Bring the book and a notebook and a pen. Don't pack up when we still have five minutes to go. It's rude, no matter who's speaking when it happens. Don't walk into a professor's office without saying hello or knocking. I feel almost parental when I see students grow up a bit in the course of a semester.

When I started teaching, I never thought I'd have to say these things to my students. But it's better to say them than not. I know - everyone is living in fear of evaluations. But I know too that students can change their habits - and feel fine about it - when I make my expectations clear.

Sometimes they begin to wonder why other profs let so much stuff go by.

Season of the Plagiarists

It's that time of the semester again: desperate students resort to plagiarism though they've been warned of the penalties all semester. At first, I feel bad for them, but then, as the e-mails start pouring in, I'm reminded of that scene in Casablanca, the one where Claude Rains' character - the deliciously despicable Captain Renault - says, "I'm shocked. SHOCKED...that gambling is going on here" as he is being handed his winnings by the croupier.

Of the six plagiarists I caught in one class, five immediately e-mailed me to beg for a meeting to explain why he or she didn't plagiarize (though I have a copy of the crappy, free on-line essay with the plagiarized passages highlighted for each of the plagiarists). Four of these began their e-mails with the words, "I'm shocked!" Really. They could have at least had the good grace to be ashamed.

My favorite e-mail, dripping with unconscious irony and lapses in logic, suggested that the student has plagiarized on many papers in other classes, but his crime was simply made note of in the comments at the end of his essay. Though he's just admitted that he plagiarizes all the time, he follows this with the comment that he's never had an issue with cheating before, and he is shocked to be accused of it. He also laments that all his work has now gone to waste - not because he plagiarized, but because I reported it.

Just once I would like to receive a plagiarist's e-mail that says something like, "What must you think of me? I cheated, and you caught me. I am embarrassed and ashamed, and I apologize for putting you in this position."

I discovered the plagiarism five days ago. I have lost five days when I needed to be grading essays and exams, but instead have been dealing with the bureaucracy of plagiarism and the endless e-mails from students who cheated, but refuse to accept their penalty. On top of that, I know from experience that when I see these plagiarists in the halls next semester, they will give me the venom-filled stares of victimhood.

Even Grad Students Get the Occasional Unsent Letter

Please do not send emails to me about how you need to pass this course, or make a B, or receive any other grade rather than the grade you have earned.

I may have a lot of graduate students in my classes, but I am certain your face has never been in my office. When tutorials are held after lecture, you were not there. Don’t say that you couldn’t attend because the tutorials are held after lecture and before the end of class time. Please do not ask me for an incomplete due to the fact that your grade is not as high as you would prefer. The class is over. It’s time to go home. Time to reflect on the fact that you did not study or if you did, it certainly wasn’t for my class.

How can a graduate student score 5 correct answers out of 30 questions? Mere guessing would have resulted in a better grade. The semester is over. Take responsibility for your actions and do not try to wear me down with your creative ideas on how to prolong the semester with extra credit projects and makeup tests, all of which are only for you.

Is this fair to the other students? No! So move along to another semester, sit in class for 16 weeks, and at semester’s end, blame your professor (again) for your poor performance.

An Undegraduate Teaching Assistant Gets Read The Riot Act

Teaching an adult education "introduction to computers" course at a community college is not the same thing as teaching a quantitative methods lab section. Not even close. As such, your "instructor-to-instructor advice" is most definitely not appreciated. Especially since in this instance, only one of us is actually the instructor, and it isn't you.

If you really want me (and, to be honest, every student in the class) to really hate you, then by all means, keep saying things like "so when is this class actually going to get challenging?"

Furthermore: When you get a C on an assignment in this unchallenging class, don't make a big show of asking what the grade appeal process is. You aren't threatening me, and I'm not scared. Failing to follow through on the appeal makes you appear even more churlish than you already do.

If you're going to suggest that I retake a pedagogy course on class evaluations, please know that I recognize your handwriting from all the snotty little asides you put on your assignments. I also know that you've described me as "wretched" to other people in my program. They TOLD me. So don't come up to me and act like you're my friend. You aren't.

Finally, if you're going to be given the opportunity to work as an undergraduate teaching assistant, please don't squander it by being as condescending as humanly possible to the other undergraduates. Teaching isn't an opportunity to show off your own brilliance. That's why the other undergraduates called you a "fucking douchebag" when they were asked about your review sessions (oh, I'm sorry, your "recitations.") Sometimes the evaluations are accurate. How's that for "instructor-to-instructor advice"?

Seriously, If We Want Things To Get Better, We Really Must Start Sending These Unsent Letters

Dear undergraduate who constantly interrupted me during the conference that I was generous enough to give you, outside of my normal office hours, for half an hour:

I'm not sure why you think it's acceptable to interrupt. Didn't anyone teach you that it was rude? You'll notice that I don't interrupt you, even when your opinionated generalizations took over parts of our class. I steer you politely and firmly back on topic, because I have stuff to do in that class. Because I'm your instructor. Remember that bit? Where I'm supposed to teach you things? That's one reason why you shouldn't interrupt.

Let me make that more obvious for you. We are not peers. I am ten years older than you. I'm willing to be friendly. I'm not willing to be interrupted by a little gobshite like you. I have two more degrees than you. Two. Having read your academic writing in all its forms for three months now, I can say with certainty that I know more about how to write an essay than you. You could really use my advice about how to structure these paragraphs, and how to adjust your tone. Trust me, you could.

No, really! After all, I'm the one who's going to grade this on Tuesday. Don't you think that my advice about how to transition might be useful? You'll think it when you see my comments under your final grade, including the one that says: You need to work on your transitions.

In conclusion: Don't talk over me when I'm talking, and don't interrupt when I'm doing you a massive favour. You don't know better, trust me. And you are extremely rude.

Sincerely,
Your underpaid instructor.

A New Week, A Little Smackdown

A – Yes, I know how extremely overworked you’ve been at your very important job lately, so much so that you have asked for yet another extension of the due date on an assignment that all the other students (who also work full time) handed in last week. But judging by your loud conversations with your friends before class, I gather you’ve managed not to miss a single episode of “American Idol,” “CSI,” “Law and Order,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Office,” “House,” “Dancing With the Stars,” or myriad other TV shows all semester. As adults, aren’t we supposed to be able to prioritize our tasks? Or is college merely a petty nuisance that interferes with your real life?

R – The answers are, respectively, no, yes and no. No, it is not OK for you to leave lab two hours early every week to pick up Junior from soccer practice. Yes, you will miss important things if you do leave anyway. No, I will not come up with alternate assignments for you to make up for labs you don’t finish. If you want to get a college degree without attending classes, try one of the online universities. Or just buy the appropriate piece of paper from one of those guys on Craigslist.

B – I deeply sympathize with you. I know how hard it is to lose your mother. It must be doubly hard on you because this is the second time she has died. I remember, though you apparently do not, that you were in another class with me several years ago and had to miss the last week and the final exam to take care of her funeral arrangements in another city. I allowed you to submit a reduced final assignment via email then so you wouldn’t have an incomplete to deal with along with everything else when you came back. This time I want to see an obituary and/or a dated funeral program first.

C,W, I, and H – What part of accelerated program do you not understand? In order to get your degrees in four years as opposed to the eight to ten it would take going to school part time in a traditional program, you have to cover the same amount of material in half the time. You were told this when you signed up for the program. I know it’s a lot of reading, but you only have to take one frigging class at a time. Stop whining and deal with it.

The Last Word On The Kid Factor

I taught a night class that met one time a week (15 meetings), for three hours. A student missed twice because his kids were sick, once because he had to go to a recital, once because he had to go to a hockey game. He missed the equivalent of four weeks of classes for his kids. He assumed that I would teach him, one on one, what he missed. He was astonished and upset when I told him to read the book and get the notes from one of his classmates. Many parents put their kids above everything else; some parents assume that their kids are that important to other people, but missing the equivalent of four weeks of class (for any reason) destroys whatever learning was meant to take place.

An earlier poster wrote: "My empirical data suggests that [students with children], as a cohort, attend more regularly and perform significantly better than "traditional" students." I agree with this, but it's correlative, not causative, and (in part) due to small sample size. People who have children and go back to school strike me generally as more mature than students without children; it's possible that parents who choose to go back to school are drawn from the more mature half of the set of parents as well. That being said, there do seem to be a number of parents who expect any kid-related dereliction of academic duties to be cheerfully waved off by the professor.

On the Kid Factor

• I am so tired of students with children who think that they are entitled to special accommodations. They believe that when they miss classes, are late on their homework, flunk their exams, etc, because of child-related commitments, instructors should cut them special slack. (From April 19th.)

Screw you. This is the most ridiculous piece of antisocial screed I’ve read in a long time. You’re probably the professor who whines about students who are unprepared for college, who slack off, exhibit rude behaviors, etc. Yet you berate those of us who are parents trying to do right by our kids so they’ll eventually go to college and NOT be the student that folks like you are complaining about. I will grant that the kid factor is something that might be abused occasionally, but not more than any other type of excuse that people employ. I wonder how your colleagues and students feel about dealing with someone so quick to stereotype, and so manifestly churlish about it, as you seem to be. Substitute “athlete” or “learning-disabled” or “student government member” or whatever for “student with children” in your post, and you’ll see how easily it reads like every other disgruntled professor who’s pissed that their brilliant oratory and research have not become the center of their student’s universe. Get over yourself.

I am a faculty member with children, and at my institution, we have a lot of students with children as well. My empirical data suggests that they, as a cohort, attend more regularly and perform significantly better than my “traditional” students (though that is a label increasingly losing its relevance). And as for my personal “choice,” well, I’ll put my teaching evals and publication record up against anyone’s. But more importantly, students who attempt to gain an education for themselves, despite “real-life” obstacles, ought to be encouraged rather than berated. Not everyone can devote themselves to the monastic pursuit of Truth and Enlightenment as you appear to be able. Now, if students slack off, make up bogus excuses, or ask for preferential treatment that is unreasonable, then students - with or without children - ought to be held to the same standard as anyone who attempts to cheese out of requirements.

But how often does this really happen with students who have kids. Is it all the time, as your post implies? There’s a difference between being tough, fair, and consistent, and just being an asshole. No faculty member ever died from flexibility - though many ought to from rigid ossification. Have your students with children already gotten one strike against them when they first set foot in your class? If so, your professionalism (to use a technical term) sucks.

Don't Give Up On Them

Having been in school for seven years now, I am definitely feeling the lag that comes with being an undergraduate turning 25. As I browsed through RYS, I've had laughs and frowns at all sorts of the subjects talked about. I laugh and feel a twinge of guilt for offering the very excuses you guys list, I feel sad for the engineering student whose professor thinks it better he drop out, and of course I feel bad for the professor as well.

At one point in college, I pointed my fingers at anyone and everyone but myself. It was a very brief period of time. Denying that the problems were my fault was stupid, and eventually I came around to that conclusion: it was just me and my laziness. Still, I could not bring myself to work hard. The simple truth? I was not college material. However, this is not said with any sense of finality in it. It merely suggests that at this time period, I was not suited to be in college. There are many other students out there who are the same way. Sometimes they can know beforehand they are not suited for higher education, but sometimes they have to play the game to find out.

In the past half a year, all this has changed for me. All of a sudden I can attend my 8 am class, study, and be on top of things. Delivering good results has never been easier. And why? I find a couple of simple reasons have made this possible.

I was reminded of having a dream. A goal. A purpose. And I thirsted for it, moreso than the social club of college. I wanted to go somewhere, explore new territory, figure out the world a little more. Professors who handled adversity well kept me at it. Those few who didn't tell me to bugger off, had something they wanted me to learn. They were tough but fair.

Then there were professors of great character and elegance. Those people had students of all sorts of levels and helped them develop their promise. I recognize the results of the Pygmalion effect and am proud to be a product of it. In these classes at the end of the quarter, it was good to see that good reviews did not come with easy grading, but was equated instead with a good grasp of knowledge and a solid set of developed fundamentals.

So to you professors, thank you very much. As Rober Wolders said, "Having known a few elegant people, I think in all of them their personal style is a result of their unwillingness to compromise on their values and their ability to focus on what's basic and real." And these are the amazing professors one recalls even after decades.

Perhaps some of you are right. Not everyone belongs in college. But don't lose hope and never fail to be the pillars you are. You never know when a diamond in the rough will pass your way.

Menace

This week’s events at Virginia Tech have shaken me up badly. The whole thing is causing me to have flashbacks of a traumatic experience that my colleagues and I had with a sociopathic student.

In Spring of 2004, our fiction writing professor had this student in her class. She is a five foot woman in her 50s. He is a body builder who can bench approximately 350 pounds, a known steroid abuser who had written an essay for his composition class about the benefits of steroids, contending that the media had falsely propagated claims that steroids are harmful. The student terrified her. He was disruptive and hostile in class, using obscenities in every sentence. He turned in a story in which a man inserts a gun into his girlfriend’s vagina, which excites her sexually. My colleague was so intimidated that she had security guards posted after class at one point. She kicked him out of the class, only to be told by the department head that she had to re-instate him. I was sitting in the next room when he met with the department head, and I heard him say, of my colleague, “She’s proof that they’ll give anyone a Ph.D. She’s an idiot.”

The next semester, the student enrolled in my poetry writing class. His first poem contained the lines “She’s begging for a condom that never existed / but it isn’t rape, is it?” His second poem contained a racial slur. He used the class Blackboard page to engage in obscenity-laced flame wars with classmates. Several classmates complained that they felt intimidated by him.

At the end of the semester, he wanted to include a poem called “Fat Stripper” in the class book, and perform it at the class’s public reading. He printed it across a photo of a 300 pound African-American woman in a g-string, pole-dancing. The poem compared the woman to “the last piece of rotisserie chicken that nobody wants.” He read the poem at the class reading, after I asked him not to, and our creative nonfiction writing professor could be heard saying how distasteful he thought the poem was. The next day, outside the building where we work, the student yelled at the creative nonfiction professor, whom he had never met, “Hey [professor’s name]! You piece of s---. You got a f------ problem with me?” The creative nonfiction professor called the police, and the student was escorted off campus.

I failed the student because he hadn’t done any of the assigned reading for the class and because he had been tardy fifteen times. My reward for this was (a) relentless badgering from his parents, demanding that I change the grade; and (b) I had to have the student in class again two years later. In fact, in addition to re-taking the class with me, he enrolled in another of my class, the required capstone class for all creative writing majors. At this point, he had it in for me. He had posted vicious things about me all over the internet. He posted the following response to another student’s creative work, in a non class-affiliated online forum: “Hey! You suck! ________ is perhaps the worst short story I have ever read, and your fanfiction is no better. Please quit school. You will never succeed as a writer, and your major in English is truly ironic (meaning you are an imbecile). Or, better yet, just die. Yes, die please. I think that would suit us all.”

I was afraid for my own life. I met with the university attorney, the dean of students, the department head, the dean of my college, and the assistant dean of my college. They said there was nothing that I could do, besides flunking him again, in the absence of direct threats, e.g. “I’m going to do X to you.” The dean of students actually told me, "You may be in danger of physical harm here," but didn't offer any help. The bottom line is that they were more afraid of lawsuits from the student’s deranged parents than of what might happen to their faculty and their other students.

Again, I had several complaints from students who felt intimidated by his presence in workshop. He turned in hostile poems directed at me, with lines like “Your Ph.D. means s---, / something you masturbate with." In the capstone course, he wrote a senior thesis that was nothing but a hit job aimed at me. It was about an untalented Ph.D. in creative writing who could only get a job teaching second grade. He had a genius student who was already a published children’s author. The teacher’s wife was hairy and was having a lesbian affair. I had to listen to him workshop parts of this story every week. Administrators told me that it was fiction, that he could be writing about anybody. One student became offended because the lesbian character was named “Ivana Hole” and because the story included a gratuitous insult aimed at Italians: “If he had been Italian, he would have slugged her.” She told him that she found it offensive. His reaction was to write a blog entry on MySpace, personally insulting every member of the class, especially the one who had spoken up. He described her hair as “the ugliest haircut on a girl I have ever seen (besides a bowlcut on an Asian chick). It looks like pubic hair tangled up in a shower drain.”“Ivana Hole” and because the story included a gratuitous insult aimed at Italians: “If he had been Italian, he would have slugged her.” She told him that she found it offensive. His reaction was to write a blog entry on MySpace, personally insulting every member of the class, especially the one who had spoken up. He described her hair as “the ugliest haircut on a girl I have ever seen (besides a bowlcut on an Asian chick). It looks like pubic hair tangled up in a shower drain.”

There’s a lot more I could say about what my colleagues and I went through with this student. The dean, assistant dean, and department head have all contacted me over the last few days, saying they are looking into revising their policies and seeking my input. I just hope that now, after this horrible massacre at Virginia Tech, universities will do more to protect professors and students from this kind of harassment and to insure that it doesn’t escalate into something bigger.

Two Perspectives On The Non-Traditional Student

I read RYS sometimes, and I wanted to note your defense of non-traditional students. I'm a non-traditional student at a small liberal arts college with a student body of almost exclusively traditional students. Certain professors DO recognize the difference between having to take a class off to give a deposition for a work related case or going to the doctor with my husband because he's worried about a biopsy versus sleeping through a noon class because someone from an environmental studies class stopped by the dorm (with a bag of pot) to wax philosophical on the anthropocentric nature of campus administration.

Honestly though, most professors DON'T understand the difference. Its very trying. My undergrad thesis advisor was absent from campus for a month when his wife was hospitalized. I could have easily have accounted for a dozen of the couple hundred of emails in his inbox bemoaning the lack of "advice" I was receiving had I been just slightly more frustrated with the treatment of non-traditional student(s) on this campus. I appreciate the response to the original poster, outing my kind as slackers because things like mortgage payments or family illness may conflict for time with things like correlation coefficients of voter turnout stat tables and the cultural self-identity of Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front guerrillas.

I doubt the OP would enjoy a similar assessment if he was late grading an assignment or his lecture notes were disjointed on a particular day because his child was home from school with the flu.

---

I am so tired of students with children who think that they are entitled to special accommodations. They believe that when they miss classes, are late on their homework, flunk their exams, etc, because of child-related commitments, instructors should cut them special slack. This happens in the workplace too: Co-workers who miss important meetings or are tardy on projects expect to be excused because their kids have the flu or a soccer game. As if committing those offenses due to child-rearing obligations makes it "more okay" than if you committed them because you decided to take the afternoon off to play golf. Regardless of the reason, your failure to meet your end of the bargain causes inconvenience to those around you.

People who have children chose to become parents. They chose a life that involves vomiting and squabbling children. Then these same people go on to choose to attend college while those children are still of vomiting and squabbling age, and when those choices collide, they act so shocked and indignant that they are being held to the same expectations as other, non-parenting, students.

And no, many of us in academia are unmarried and/or child-free not because of some malfunction of personality and inter-relational skills, but because we decided some time ago that we could not do everything at once. So, we made a CHOICE, unlike you, who want the best of both worlds and in doing so are unable to fully devote yourself to either.

Two Quick Replies Regarding Helping Students

Here's a true story. Professor learns that a student is troubled by depression. Professor meets with student, they discuss, professors offers sympathy, concern, extensions. Says "you can talk to me anytime." He's a go-the-extra-mile sort of guy. Student calls professor that night. At home. Says, "I'm going to kill myself if you don't come over here right now." And hence the beginning of a troubling few months of a nice-guy professor trying to extricate himself from the life and troubles of a student whose problem he was never qualified to deal with in the first place.

Any student dealing with depression, eating disorders, drug abuse, etc., has been dealing with those problems for a long, long time. It's not like they've never heard, "you need to seek help" before. But it *is* like you're probably not qualified to deal with those problems. If the student asks for help, refer them to the experts. Otherwise, stay out of it. It's egotistical to believe that with a kind word and some encouragement that you can solve an eating disorder that a student has probably lived with for years.

One caveat: after Monday's events in Virginia, we can't be blasé about certain kinds of warning signs. Obviously some things should be brought to the attention of higher authorities, and hopefully higher authorities will act on them.

---

I've been in this position more often than I care to. I am not equipped to help my students with psychological matters of love, pregnancy, eating disorder, depression, and so on. But I am a human being, and I can tell when someone is crying out for help.

On a college campus I am surrounded by people whose careers are all about caring for students: counselors, advisors, RAs, health workers, folks in Student Life. All of those people have more insight and ability than I do as a simple Econ instructor.

When a student in crisis enters my classroom or office, and when the signs or markers seem clear - as I read them in the example about E - then I have a friendly chat with the student in my office. I ask if anything is going on that they need help with academically or otherwise. If they say they don't have a problem, I delicately ask something like: "I've noticed that the last couple of times you've come to class you've been disoriented," or "In group work yesterday I could smell whiskey on your breath," or - and I suspect this is a hard one - "I can't help but notice how thin you are. Are you feeling okay? Is your health okay?"

I know I'm not a professional in the necessary field, but if I can put a phone call in to someone on campus who's trained, I know I have a good enough relationship with my students to say, "I know this might seem like I'm butting in to your business, but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't tell you that I'm worried about your condition / drinking / depression," whatever.

I've done it, and the responses have been mostly pretty positive. I didn't say all the students wrapped me in their arms at that minute, but in every case in the past 5 years, counselors or doctors in the college's employ have helped students deal with whatever is consuming their lives.

I hesitate to send this, as I'm sure others might assume I'm getting involved in things I don't know anything about. But I love those students, and want them to have every chance, and if they look or act as if they're not healthy and well, I don't mind being uncomfortable and asking for help from someone who knows a lot more than me.

How Do We Best Help Our Students?

E has been one of my favorite students since I first taught her as a sophomore. She is a major in my field and has taken several of my classes; now a senior, she has accepted an offer at a prestigious grad school. She is thoroughly conscientious, possesses a sharp analytical mind, and clearly enjoys engaging in intellectual discourse. I also like and respect E as a fundamental human being because she is kindhearted, modest, interested in the lives and welfare of the people around her, well-read, and subtly but absolutely hilarious.

Currently, though, I am concerned for E and unsure as to what I should do, if anything. I have noted over the past couple of years that she is thin, but a spate of warm weather and the students' according adoption of tank-tops and the like have revealed that she is now frighteningly so. I could see all of her ribs in addition to bones that I wasn't aware existed in people's shoulders; her arms are haunting. If this were earlier in her college career and her grades/affect evidenced she was suffering, I would follow college policy and notify her dean. However, only a month remains until she graduates and horror stories of my institution's health center have trickled through the grapevine to my colleagues and me -- it is not inconceivable that the people there would take steps to impede her from finishing the semester, or at the least cause her undue distress during this last busy month. Still, both because I am worried for E's health as well as because I honestly like her, I wish there were a way to reach her without incurring a disastrous aftermath.

Does the Culture of Our College Determine The Students We Get?

I recently read that my alma mater is the sixth most selective in the country. The competition wasn't so stiff when they let me in, but still!

Most of the people in my interdisciplinary major were, for want of a better term, real intellectuals - genuinely excited by ideas and moved by great literature. We took our work seriously and didn't whine about the fact that our major required both an undergraduate thesis and oral comprehensives. As far as I know, though, most of us did not end up in academia ourselves, which is interesting, given the number of RYS posts pointing out that the kind of people who become college professors are not like the typical students they end up teaching.

I think it has a lot to do with the culture at each college. Mine had an intellectual-friendly culture: it wasn't uncool to study hard and do well, and it wasn't weird to be excited - maybe even a little obsessive - about your thesis topic. Perhaps much of the problem is that too many people who don't really belong in college are going anyway, and this is probably true much more often at large public institutions than it is at smaller, more selective ones. I'd be willing to bet that the professors who write to RYS with the most outrageous stories of rude, clueless students are not writing from schools like the one I attended. They're probably most prevalent at large public schools. Many are probably also found at selective schools that get a lot of spoiled bratty rich kids, but in smaller private institutions where brattiness isn't an accepted part of the culture, you're more likely to get highly motivated students who actually look up to their professors.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm a hopeless elitist. But with every passing day I am more and more thankful that my parents sent me to a parochial elementary school and an independent high school, and that I chose the college I did.

Blacksburg

Life's Rich Tapestry

Random student observations from a large, intro-level course on a random Tuesday in April:

• eating (3 - sandwich, salad, muffin)


• drinking (too many to count - coffee, fruit smoothie, diet coke, bottled water)


• cell phone ringing (3 different phones rang during the 1 hour and 20 minute lecture)


• texting on cell phones (3)


• leaving class to use the restroom (5)


• leaving class to use cell phone (1)


• tripping over a backpack while leaving class to answer cell phone (1)


• leaving class before the lecture ended (7 - the first person left a mere 45 minutes after class began)


• kissing (1 pair)


• sleeping (too many to count)


• sleeping while snuggling (2 pairs: 1 lovebirds, 1 platonic, friends-with-benefits?)


• having a 1-hour-and-20-minute long conversation with two friends while laughing and pointing at a laptop, texting, AND sitting next the to the T.A. (1 trio)


• having shorter conversations with friends (4 duos or trios)


• dropping a pen/pencil/back-pack/notebook (3)


• e-mailing (4)


• shopping online (1)


• watching an online video (1)

When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best of What's Still Around

I have been lurking in the dark recesses of this blog, reading the quips and gripes of our noble teachers, and have chuckled many times over in empathy of many of your plights. The apathy I have witnessed is astounding.

But then I stumbled upon a post from March about "older" students and I cannot keep my wrinkled yap shut any longer. Someone writes: "Except for slight variations in the excuses (problems with jobs, spouses, and kids as opposed to athletics, roommates, and too much partying), I get just as many slackers in these classes..."

Excuse me!?! You must be from planet "Young-un" if you lack the reasoning skills to differentiate "Kids, jobs and Spouses" from "Athletics, roommates and too much partying." If I am mistaken about your age, then you must be from planet "I have some malfunction of my personality and inter-relational skills to ever have gotten married and spawned, so I cannot fathom trying to fit classes, employment, kids, homework, sleep, illness, etc into a 24 hour day."

Just as the learning process does not stop when we walk out of the classroom, neither do all of our other responsibilities end when we walk into it. Have you ever worked vectors for Physics while mopping up vomit from one child, mediating a squabble between two others, all the while running back and forth to the bathroom with the squirts and a migraine to boot? Didn't think so. How about doing all of the above and being in a classroom at the same time? If you have, please enlighten me as I have yet to learn this skill.

Someone Else Gets the Message - Nothing Feels Better Than a Confession

I have a confession to make. I still haven't read my instructor evaluations from last semester. They've been peacefully resting in a large envelope on my office shelf for the past 12 weeks. I have not yet decided whether or not I will devote any of my precious time to them before they reach their final destination: the recycling bin.

Why haven't I read them? I've read literally thousands of evaluations over the past 15 semesters. I have no reason to believe this batch of 200 will say anything new. I already know what the positive ones say and to be blunt, I will find them rather boring. I already know that the negative ones contain false or irrelevant statements, will just annoy me, and simply aren't worth reading.

The douche bag who sits in the back row, comes to class late, leaves early, doesn't take notes, and sits there smirking at me with an iPod shoved in his ears obviously doesn't care what I think of him, so why should I care what he thinks of me?

A Modest Sampling of Replies To Our Recent Call For Posts About How You Found Us - And Props For Whoever Just Replied, "Tasty!"

• One of my colleagues told me about your site. I don't remember when it was specifically, or what the context was. I'm usually so drunk at school, that those kinds of details just sort of get lost. I think it's enough that I find my way to your site every now and then. Don't hassle me about details.


• I don't have a clever story, but I read about you in the New York Times. And, yes, I've told lots of people about you.


• How needy are you guys? Can't you just post things without looking for a pat on the back?


• I found this site by accident. I was online, reading up on student loans and the problems that sometimes come with them, when I followed a few links and wound up here. I'm glad that happened. The site is vastly entertaining, and I appreciate the posts even though I don't work in an academic environment. I'm in law enforcement, so I get to deal with the youngins when they're out of class and loaded with alcohol. And I've been doing it for almost twenty years now. Lucky me.


• I first read about RYS in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I’ve been entertained and reassured by it for over a year now. My daughter and her husband are entering the second year of their trial by fire as TAs while they pursue Ph.D.s. I have referred them both to the site. If they continue to pursue careers in academia….. well, they can’t say they weren’t warned.


• Our college president (at a small liberal arts college in the Southwest) invoked your site's name at a faculty meeting, talking about what a terrible idea it was, how inappropriate. He went on at length about the dangers of this kind of "harassment," and I saw about ten of my colleagues carefully writing the web address down on the back of their agendas. I've been visiting ever since.


• Damn you! I've been hooked since (nearly) the beginning.


• I saw a post on phdcomics.com - which used to be my daily procrastination tool until RYS came along.


• A fellow professor posted an example from your site to a department listserv, and I was curious, so I checked out your site, quickly became addicted, and decided that you alone are saving my sanity when I want to throttle the little muggles (my students, not my fellow professors).


• There are a few of us on our floor in the faculty "prison" building that shout down the hallway when a particularly good post appears. It's a bit of a challenge to be the first to get online and see what new post has appeared. What the hell time do you guys work anyway? I've been on at 5 and 6 in the morning eastern time and seen posts for that day already. Are you nocturnal? Does Saucy Susan set an alarm clock? Is there really a Saucy Susan? After that April Fool's nightmare, now I worry about all the sketchy details of the RYS compound and so on.


• My boss told me about the site when we were meeting about a student issue. Checking your site daily is a part of my routine now before I am able to face my classes. I think I held a more positive outlook about my students before I began reading the posts at your site. Regaining that positive outlook may not be possible.


• My father - who thinks it's hilarious that his son who underachieved in college is now a Dean - sends me a link to your site at least once a week. He always asks, "Is it this bad where you are, son?" And I usually write back, "Yes."


• I went searching for you. I didn't know you existed, but I was just hoping. I had finally broken down and checked my ratings on RMP, then outraged, I started Googling search words like "rate my students," "I hate my students," "students suck," and so on. I don't remember which one hit, but I found you and my sanity was saved.


• I ran into RYS after a USA TODAY article mentioned it. I enjoy your site, but do feel that it's lost a bit of its edginess in the past few months. But, thanks for the cheap entertainment. You're more interesting than many of my classes.


• I turned the computer on, and there you were!


• I wrote a post for the site during its first month. It pisses me off that the old archives from the pre-new-regime days aren't available. Can't you get "The Professor" to give them to you? Those early days were wild, but I still read you almost every day.


• I saw an article on InsiderHigherEd.com about the site and thought it sounded like a really bad idea. I checked out, got hooked, and now can quote several lines from the best posts. I must confess that I have taken credit for a couple of lines obviously penned by one of your other correspondents. How would anyone know? I am particularly fond of telling people that I wrote the smackdown post that rated students as if I were an Olympics skating judge. Who can say otherwise?

How Did You Find Us? A Call for Posts.

Where did you hear about RYS? How did you find your way here? Did you read about us, or hear about us? Did you get turned on by a faculty friend, or did you find us while Googling something else? Have you forwarded any of our posts to a pal? Have you whispered our address to someone who needed to vent just like you? Let us know.

Two Twins Come Up Against A Prof With The Wisdom of Solomon. Although The Stakes Don't Really Seem High Enough To Call For Such Heavy Mediation

Dear twin sisters A and B:

I am sure that most of your lives, you have been told how cute you are and the fact that your identical "twinness" has made you think of yourselves as "cuteness squared." I am sure that all through elementary, middle and high school you (plural) were able to get away with many things because you played your twin card - oh, no, it wasn't me....it was my sister you were thinking about.

Today, it didn't work. I know that you, A, didn't agree with how many absences you have. And, B, when you came to your sister's defense, you thought I would crumble under the pressure when you said that it was you and not her who was absent that particular day. Neither of you expected that I would make the final decision: you have eight absences between the two of you. Divide them up as you will and let me know. (Could Solomon have made a wiser judgement?)

Oh, by the way, remember that 4 absences results in a lowered final grade and five in a failing grade. I can't wait to see which one of you will be willing to sacrifice the other.

Oh, my precious little twin cupcakes, it is hard to grow up and take your knocks with everyone else. Maybe a call to Mommy and Daddy tonight will make you feel better. I know, college professors are so mean. They actually expect you to show up to a class when you register for it. How absurd.

Kisses!
Your now least favorite professor

On Panic, Worthiness, and Patience

We received a lot of mail last night about modern students and their proclivity for panic. This comes from regular reader:

"Are modern students all set on a sort of hair-trigger for panic?"

Yes. Their parents were enrolling them in college-appealing extracurriculars when they were in preschool. Their high-school careers were entirely about getting the right extracurrics -- and 8 zillion of them -- whether or not they were interested in the extracurrics in question, so they could get into college. All while trying to maintain a decent GPA.

These students have been on a hair trigger about academics SINCE THEY WERE THREE. School has never been anything but a titanic, identity-defining struggle of life and death where 10 points means the difference between success and failure, between your parents loving you and hating you. Grades are a label that define HOW WORTHY A PERSON YOU ARE, and not just in the eyes of your school, but in the eyes of your friends and parents.

Talk to an adolescent psychiatrist in a wealthy suburban enclave. They treat an outrageous number of privileged, high-achieving, intelligent high school students for depression, nervous breakdowns, and suicide attempts brought on by the pressure of academic achievement, and it is ABSOLUTELY linked to the idea that they will totally fail in life AND lose their parents' love if they do not get that A. This is a group of students where a suicide attempt after a B is not unheard of. They have never, ever had the gift of perspective. No one has ever been so kind as to give it to them.

I mean, Jesus, man, you are taking 10 points of LIFEBLOOD from these students and endangering their parents' love and approval! This is not some measly grade! This is literally the end of the universe for them. They have never known any life where 10 points ISN'T the difference between parentally-demanded and expected success and abject, complete, and utter failure.

---

And this quick one comes from a student, a new reader of the site:

Why can't we relax? Well, some of us have had high-school teachers who would give tardies if we entered the classroom two seconds after the tardy bell rang. Some of us went to high schools where bomb threats, drug busts, and car accidents were weekly occurrences. Some of our teachers really didn't care whether we were trapped in two feet of snow in the middle of December; deadlines didn't move.

Yes, public schools have made us not-so-well-adjusted individuals. Please be patient as we discover college, where there are no tardy bells and we don't have to get a bathroom pass to take a piss.

Would You Please Relax?

Are modern students all set on a sort of hair-trigger for panic?

Today I was 6 minutes late for the start of my office hours. I was coming in the door to my office building carrying a $9 cup of coffee and my cell phone rings. It's my wife who says, "Two students have called here. They're worried about you."

And sure enough at my office door are three students all ashen in the face. "We didn't know what had happened to you." "It's not like you to be late." "We thought you might have been in a car accident."

I didn't even get into how they got my home phone number, but I didn't like the idea of their hysteria floating over the phone to my wife.

Six minutes? This is the tolerance level? And it has to be a car accident? They can't imagine a scenario where I'm taking a piss, talking to a student on the quad, stopped in traffic, or just getting a drink?!

And had this been the only instance, I wouldn't even mention it. But my students also seem to "go off" at the slightest provocation. We had some snow here last week, surprisingly. That day we were going to have some group presentations. About 1/2 of our students are commuters and it's not uncommon for real world traffic and weather to get in the way of arriving in class. Three students didn't make it and I just moved the reports for their groups to the next day. When I got back to my office I had panicky phone calls and emails from all three: "Can you prepare an extra-credit assignment so that I can make up the grade?" "I can't reach the other group members. I know they all failed because of me. Can you give me their numbers?" One just wrote me: "OMG. THE WEATHER AT MY HOUSE IS TERRIBLE. DON'T FAIL ME!"

Listen, it's 10 points out of 500. Get some perspective.

A month ago I docked half the class 5 points for not doing a project in the correct manner. It was on the handout, we talked about it in class, and I had reminded them. It was a minor thing. It's 5 points out of 100, okay? Two students were at my office before I was. Could I call a tutor for them? Could I make up some extra credit? Did I know that they had been sick? Did I know that they were on the college's debate squad, and that the weekend before they had been to Cincinnati and that's what went wrong?

I'm a pretty easygoing guy, so it's not as if I'm railing at them in class about these minor missteps. And each time they come up I find myself mollifying them all. "It's okay," I say. "We're all all right."

Too Few Intellectuals or Just Too Many Students?

I've read innumerable posts about the supposed decline of student quality, but, like complaints about the young in general, they probably aren't new even if they have a new forum for airing. The introduction of Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education divides students into four basic groups, of which only one, the smallest, being scholarly/intellectual. This group has probably always been the smallest, but has always represented the majority of the professors, with a few exceptions like Party Girl. Professors are almost set up to feel a certain disdain for their students, as the other categories are not especially attractive, as they consist chiefly of social butterflies, vocational drudgers, and slackers.

Still, in spite of that, professors probably are facing genuinely poorer students in the aggregate now than they once were, but I suspect the cause of that lies more in the sheer quantity of students who now enter college. In an opinion column in the Jan. 17 Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray advocates that more students attend vocational education and the like, thus leaving universities with students actually interested in intellectual achievement. While I disagree with his conclusions about inherent intelligence and the IQ necessary for a university education, he says that nearly 45% of recent high school graduates now go on to some form of college. As a result, the general intelligence of students probably is at least somewhat lower than it was, say, 50 years ago, but more importantly, the outstanding students are simply swamped by the masses. Numerically speaking, the outstanding students are still probably around, even if they don't seem as prevalent because there are so many of those "other" students professors don't much like—the ones not in Sperber's category of intellectuals.

We Really Expected To Be Next

Dear Fellow Students:

I realize that you have a hard life, what with your parents footing the bill to put you up for a college degree then refusing to send you more cash when your beer fund runs low, but I must take issue with a few aspects of our daily interactions with one another.

First, I am a non-traditional student. Get over it. I chose to give birth to three beautiful, healthy children. This does not give you the right to repeatedly insinuate that I do not belong in an academic setting due to my role as a mother. It also does not make me a freak of nature for you to interrogate mercilessly about the daily workings of my household and marriage. You may inquire as to the health and well-being of my children, and I will be happy to entertain you with a short anecdote about my daughter repeating the "f-bomb" after one of your less that brilliant classmates stepped directly in front of my vehicle without looking, however, if you would really like to know more about sexuality post-pregnancy please visit the library and locate a book on the subject as I am not inclined to participate in a lengthy discourse about the inner workings of my bedroom affairs with you.

On a more specific note, I urge you to find some semblance of collective intelligence since it has become obvious that you are incapable of mustering any individual intelligence. To the music major in last semester's literature class: how do you not recognize the name "Carnegie Hall" when it is presented in the text? Furthermore, how do you get to senior classification in the music program and not know the location or function of Carnegie Hall? My only consolation in this situation is that you have selected a course of study which will require some talent and ingenuity on your part in order for you to succeed.

To the fashion major who lurks around the studios after hours: it is admirable that you have found the courage to pursue this particular course of study after donning your very best ripped (and stained) thrift store t-shirt, grubby jeans and moldy tennis shoes, however, I must suggest to you that your bravado may not be serving you well when it compels you to march into the painting studio and announce to those standing before their canvases that they are not true artists since they are not operating sewing machines.

To the ego obscuring the student seated next to me in Life Drawing: you are considerably and fantastically talented. Your rendering of anime characters and fantasy landscapes are breath-taking, but this is "life" drawing. Please stop antagonizing the professor with pencil sketches of Snoopy on top of the stack of boxes we are supposed to be rendering in charcoal. This course is not beneath you. It is part of the classical, apprenticeship style program you willingly signed up for. Stop being a dick.

Also, to the Adjunct-of-the-Month: You must have hit paydirt when the art department became short-handed and desperate. I've seen your work, and, no, your shit-eating grin does not make it better or clever. I don't care if you're Mapplethorpe reincarnated you cannot take underexposed, poorly processed, poorly composed, barely intelligible photographs, frame them and call them art. I'm sorry. The label "art" allows quite a bit of latitude, but it still maintains some standards.

And finally, to Professor in Black: You're a taskmaster and a half. Are you aware of that? Are you also aware that you are a compete asshole to your students? That said, are you also aware that despite these complaints you are the best teacher I've ever encountered? Somewhere along the way you managed to get past my thick skull with your informative and entertaining insanity. You have earned my undying respect, admiration and eternal recommendation to other students. Thank you.

One Year Ago Today: Three Quick Blasts From Someone Who Thinks You're Not Special

R: You cannot take the final exam early or late. It's been announced since January. It's a normal day, a normal time. You haven't offered any reasonable reason why you can't attend the event. So, no, you have to be like all the rest of the people. You are not special.

G: No, I'm not going to find you a local pharmacist to whom you can pose your lab report questions. Am I in your lab group? Do you imagine that all of the other 79 people in class are having me do their legwork for them? You are not special.

C: No, I will not stay later on Thursday to "go over" what you missed last week while your team was in Texas. I know for a fact that we spend a shitload of money on those tutors who travel with you and who have access to all the class info that I post in the lab databases. Your schedule is rough. I get it. I did the triple jump in college, and sometimes I missed assignments and quizzes. That was my choice. I lived with it. I dealt with it. In order to help all of my students I'm in my office every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-4. You are not special, and I'm not going to treat you like you are.

Somehow We Don't Think This Student's Grade Should Be The Focus Of All The Attention

No, there is no way you can earn a "B" in this class. You have earned an "F." I have listened to your arguments for a "B" multiple times as you have followed me across campus, pounced on me as I walk to other classes, and the time you tried to get into my car with me. Your arguments that you should get a "B" because I didn't email you before each quiz to remind you to study are unpersuasive. The other 224 students in the class somehow knew they had a quiz without a reminder email. I also didn't email you to eat dinner last night, but you probably remembered to do that without my assistance.

Your other arguments as to why you should get a "B" for the class are more disturbing. I am aware that you are an international student, but you chose to come to college in America. In America, women are indeed professors. Your statements that you don't have to take tests in my class because I am a woman do not hold in America. You have also told me that you do not need to take any tests, quizzes, or write any papers because such activities are "servant's work." If you manage to show up to class sometime this semester you should look around. You will note a decided absence of servants in the classroom.

While your multiple complaints to the department chair and dean about "having" to take a class from a woman who assigns to much reading (according to you) and the audacity to insist that you take your own quizzes have let me get to know them better, it is time to accept the grade that you have earned. I have informed the police both of your attempt to get into my car and your unsolicited pornographic emails to the course teaching assistant. I don't think anyone in America will miss you should you be told to leave.

I only wish that I could make you write an apology to all the decent, hardworking students I have had this semester. I could have put more of my efforts into assisting and developing the students who would benefit from some extra attention if you had not taken up so much of my time.

A Quick Vent

Yes, yes, I realize that your 19-year-old brilliance outstrips my measly M.A., three years of teaching experience, and twelve years of writing experience. I even realize that your taking composition classes previously makes it so that you “know something about writing,” even though it strains credulity to believe that you’ve taken the first two courses in the two-semester composition sequence since you’re sitting here in my developmental English class. Surely, even though Bs and Cs won’t get you into medical school, as you say, you realize you’re in a remedial writing class? That aside, obviously you know that your two-full-page “paragraph” deserves an “A” rather than a “B;” and obviously you know that the more comments I write on your paper the lower your grade will be—we’ll just ignore the fact that I’m trying to actively engage with your writing and asking you to do the same; and obviously your very hard work schedule and rampant volunteerism should cut you some slack in the course, even as you say you’re not asking for said slack to be cut.

I know, I know, it would be too much to ask to ask you to actually listen to my lectures and work with your fellow students, let alone accept and consider constructive criticism. So what if your revising partner happens to have gotten an A+ on his last assignment—you obviously know better. So what if I happened to give you the exact same comments as he did on that last paragraph before you turned it in—Lord forbid you should read those comments, accept that they may have some validity, and revise accordingly. You, in your 19-year-old brilliance, clearly know better.

You Mean You Had Class Without Me?

Yesterday, my Speech class's big group projects presentations were due (they have been working on them all term). H was absent, not to my surprise or that of her teammates. Today, though, she graced us with her presence. I could not help but grin when she was shocked to hear that her group had presented yesterday without her.

"I can't believe that," and "but I wasn't here," were some of the insightful pleas she made to me and to her teammates. She did ask if there was anyway they could do the presentation today.............no, they were due yesterday, you have known this for 2 months, your group already presented yesterday. (Although it could have been entertaining if I said okay, just to see her teammates reaction they would need to present a second time.)

This was followed by an even more amusing discussion with some of her teammates as to why they did not recieve her information that she swears she emailed to them. Her teammates did not buy her BS. Then she again came back to me with "but I worked really hard," "can you look at the stuff I did." Again, my response, 'No, it was a group project, it was due yesterday, your group presented yesterday'.

Poor thing looked like deer in the head lights.

Will she fail? No, I am going to D her. Why on earth would I want to punish myself by having her repeat in my speech class again next term?

A Lesson On Avoiding Hyperbole, And An Appearance Of The "Rare Double Whammy"

Dear Miss M,

I have read your email, and I heartily agree--we should change your grade. Below you can see the particular arguments that motivated me to reevaluate your grade:

I did all of the expected work, recieved a good grade on the paper, and memorized my section and particated in a winning presentation.
Poor observation of reality, -10. Lines were not memorized, presentation was not "participated in" in any meaningful sense and class was not attended.

I could have gotten a D by doing nothing at all and it is really frustrating to try to enjoy Christmas when I'm stressed out over how this is going to completely alter my plans.
Overestimation of my interest in your personal life AND oblique insult (rare double whammy), -20.

It just doesn't seem fair to have to retake the course and do it all again, when I did it already.
lack of comprehension of how college works. undermines all credibility, -15

I don't want to make excuses or have anything handed to me, but I just feel as though I could have gotten a D by not even writing a paper or anything.
Poor reasoning, immediate contradiction of opening clause, second oblique insult, -20.

I honestly put a lot into this class by doing work and driving 3 nights in a row to practices from an hour away and paying for parking.
Mistaking this class for a correspondence course, -15.

I tried my best in this class and I feel as though I was graded unfairly especially after I was informed of other student's grades in the class.
Poor comparison with students who showed up, worked hard and didn't text message all class AND sad statement about your estimation of your own abilities (again lowering credibility), -10.

I know there is probably nothing you can do and I respect that, but I had to make an effort because this is my life that we are talking about here.
Massive hyperbole, -5 (and I'll spot you the third oblique insult).

If I have to retake this class then I have to drop my other class that is at the same time and I need that class because it is only offered certain terms and I was lucky to get into it this term, plus the reciation is during my other class so I will need to drop that as well and find something else to add and everything is most likely closed or will interfer with my work schedule.
Generally incomprehensible, -10.

This is just a huge mess.
Insightful reflection! +15 AND -50 for having the gall to write this pathetic missive over a grade in a class on PERSUASION.

You have learned nothing. I have adjusted your grade, however our current grading scale cannot accommodate your new score. You now have a "J+." You can use the rest of the break to figure out how to explain THAT to whatever organization was foolish enough to give you money while you stayed home rather than come to class and pay for parking.

Sincerely,
Your Overworked and Underpaid Instructor

Nothing Sounds Better Than A Week In Hawaii With Memaw

Student: I'm going to be gone for nine days. My grandma is taking me to Hawaii, and that's kind of more important than school.

Me: Well, if that's what you think...

Student: I looked at the syllabus, and it doesn't look like I'll miss anything.Me: Well.

(I open my mouth to say more)

Student: (Cell phone rings) Hello?

Me: (Incredulous) Are you talking to me or to the other person on the phone?

Student: (finishing phone conversation and nonchalantly turning to me) So is there anything I need to do?

Me: (trying not to internally combust) There will be some assignments due while you're gone. You'll need to turn them in before you leave if you want credit.

Student: Okay. It doesn't look like I'll miss much.

Me: If that's what you think, I guess there's nothing else to talk about.

Here's Someone Who Gets The Most Out Of His Student Evaluations

My dear students,

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the end of the semester course evaluation surveys. Your feedback will be tremendously helpful as I attempt to improve and refine the course in anticipation of the idiocy and self-handicapping laziness of many future students like yourselves. Please allow me to respond to some of your most informative points.

“Should have given review sessions before exams.”

But I did! Three times a week, every single week of the semester. They were called “office hours.” Did you neglect to show up for a single one of them? Or do you mean that in addition to sitting in my office alone all that time I set aside for you, and in addition to opening and closing every single lecture period with time set aside for your questions, and in addition to frequently being in my office until 8 PM to answer emails, and in addition to answering emails again almost every single night right before going to bed, you think that the night before an exam I also ought to have skipped having dinner with my friends, called the dog-sitter to go take out my dog, neglected that book chapter I have coming due, and skipped catching up on my Tivo’d Colbert Report episodes because you somehow managed to get accepted to one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the country without ever having learned how to take proper notes? Go fuck yourself.

"If you're going to put the Powerpoints online why don't you just give them all on CD at the beginning of the semester? It was really annoying to have to go online before each lecture to print the slides each time. "

Just a reminder to proofread carefully - It looks like you misspelled “Having the Powerpoints available online was a valuable resource. Thanks for taking the time to do that.” Seriously, do you think I just go to usefulteachingresources.com and download that whole series of Powerpoint presentations at the start of a semester? I mean, I know that the whole concept of putting thought into a project, planning how to assemble it, creating a draft, and then reconsidering it and revising it until you think there are no more improvements that can be be made is still somewhat alien to you. So let me explain that the reason they sometimes don't show up on Blackboard until the night before is that’s when I'm staying late in my office to revise the Powerpoints that I have been spending semesters painstakingly attempting to perfect. This goes so slowly (thus sometimes making them available only just before lecture) because it requires that I first lie awake for several nights in a row attempting to forecast the untold different ways in which you are likely to misinterpret each and every word on every slide.

"Textbook should match lectures more closely. About 25% of each chapter didn't cover in lecture, and 25% of lecture was not in the book. Simple calculation = only 50% match between book and lecture."

Yeah, no duh. Except that your math is wrong. If the conditions are as you describe (which sound about right) that means two-fifths, or 40%, of the material appeared in either lecture or textbook but not both. But regardless, what’s the problem? Since you’re capable of attempting that calculation, surely you’re also capable of reading a book without requiring the help of a degreed professional to explain each and every sentence to you. On the assumption that you can read (surely your teachers covered that at some point by the third grade?) of what real value would a point-by-point restatement of that book be? If you think that would be valuable, lectures that so closely match the book do in fact exist and are available to you. They’re called “Books on Tape.” But in my class the lectures and book are intended to complement each other, so as to expose you to a wider range of perspectives, applications, examples, and caveats (and sometimes even amusing tangents) while also allowing me to tell you about the most recent developments in the field. And yes, I meant to write “complement,” not “compliment.” See, as a scholar I have learned that just because my spell-checker recognizes a word doesn't necessarily mean it’s the word I ought to use.

"Scheduling an exam for the class after [Annual All-Fraternity Intoxication / Assault/ Incapacitation / Emergency Room Marathon Weekend] was totally uncool."

Good gracious will you please grow up? Now, I have not forgotten what it’s like to be 20, nor am I holier-than-thou. I don't mind admitting I like having a couple of beers as much as the next guy. In fact, I'll even come right out and admit I think it’s fun to get a little drunk occasionally. But we grown-ups who like to do that make a point of setting aside time to unwind when our work and other responsibilities have been already satisfied, not vice versa. Moreover we do not expect others who depend on our functioning to tolerate our own selfishness. Really my great hope for you is that you very soon realize how childish you are. I don't blame you, really, because that adolescent egocentrism and short-sightedness are part of growing up. But what disappoints me is the gusto with which you celebrate the most repulsive aspects of your personality, deliberately dismissing that nagging voice you sometimes hear suggesting to yourself that there’s more to life, all the while expecting me and my colleagues to play along. See, what I like most about working with you is how surprisingly interesting and complex your inner mental lives sometimes turn out to be. That’s why it’s such a disappointment when you revel in diminishing yourselves. Many of you have big things in your future that you'll eventually discover to be so much more fulfilling than binge drinking. You’ll publish a book, fall in love, raise a child, start a charitable foundation, learn to fly fish, or whatever. You'll still get to drink in addition to all that once you are mature enough to realize how embarrassed you should be by your present attitude.

"An additional outside reading on [Topic] would be helpful because the textbook gave so much weight to [Particular Theory] but that neglects [Series of Experiments] and so we never saw any explanation for that. Also when you covered [Topic] sometimes the graphs showed suppression ratios but other times they were pre-post data, and I think that is what confused everybody, or me at least. It was easier to see the connection between the experiments once I did the conversion and plotted all the graphs on a common axis, so maybe you could point that out. Do you ever talk to Dr. [Colleague]? He was teaching that [discredited theory] in Intro. I told him what you told us and he was interested in it so I told him to look up [Author]. Overall everything was good! Challenging but I learned a lot."

Oh, my. You know, you may be the first person to ever notice those things. Interesting. Who are you? Are you “two coffees kid” by the window? The one who made me a bootleg copy of that old movie you saw because you thought one of the sub-plots was a good analogy for that thing we read about a couple of weeks before? The one who pointed out the hilarious irony of the title of Chapter 9? The one who showed up the day after I ripped into your poorly developed essay, but did not once question the grade or even imply skepticism of my judgment, and did not once attempt to excuse your own procrastination, but instead sincerely sought advice on how to do better on the next one? The only one who laughed at my joke about the shape of a discounting function? I thought so. You know, it hurts me to give you an A-minus, because I know that you know how much it sucks that sometimes just caring hard is not enough. I always had the same problem with the snooze button too, but you'll grow out of it one day. Thanks for your hard work and for your contributions to the class. I appreciate your feedback. Have a nice vacation.

More Letters We Can't Find The Heart To Send

Dear T.,

I wish you had a better sense of time. Your frequent late arrivals during class disturb the other students, some of whom are trying to learn. You also don't seem to realize that there are only 10 minutes between classes, and that it's important to start the next class on time. If you need help that takes significant time and effort, you should come to my office hours.

I also wish you had a better sense that there are over 100 other students in this class. You gave me a grade-check form to complete after class on Monday, and then you told me you wouldn't be in class on Wednesday to pick it up, so I'd have to keep it for you until Friday. Then you asked me whether I'd like to see a copy of your schedule, so I could plan my schedule accordingly.

I go to great lengths to help students who want to learn, but I can't chase students around like this: with over 100 students, there simply isn't time for it. It shouldn't be my job anyway: you are a university student and therefore an adult, and really ought to be able to take the responsibility to look after your own business.

---

Dear A. and B., Is there any way I can BEG you not to become K-6 teachers? I don't want you around kids, because you are SO poorly educated. You obviously know it too, because you're SO touchy about it. How could any university student possibly not know that if you don't show your work on a homework assignment, you'd be docked points? I knew that when I was in second grade!

Worse is your attitude toward learning. It is not true that "just the idea is enough" when it comes to teaching science, that we needn't "bother with mathematics or other such mumbo-jumbo" (which A. misspelled "mumbo-gumbo"). So, you think scientists can always be relied upon to do all our thinking for us, do you? And there will always be plenty of them, no matter what we do at the K-6 level? Sooner or later, a kid is going to show up in your class who's just like me: much smarter than you, and interested in science, which you clearly fear because you'll never be smart enough to understand it, and you know it. From the way you acted in my class, I have no doubt that you'll try your best to stomp him into the ground, just like you tried with me.

It didn't work, you know: I have tenure now. Your fellow education majors have the lowest SAT scores of any students in the university, and they graduate to the lowest-paying jobs. Those are well-documented facts. Education majors also have the highest GPAs in the university, which suggests that your education ought to be more rigorous. Your professors in the education school claim to use methods that are scientific. They clearly are not. When I asked A. to explain words she'd learned in her education classes, she reacted with panic. The best she could come up with was "that's what we were taught." This speaks badly of how much practice you've been given in thinking for yourselves.

The nastiest experience of dealing with you, though, was how so many students in your class laughed so loudly at that video I showed of little kids struggling to understand the world around them. I was so saddened by this, I never even tried to show that video to the end.

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Smackdown

K, I didn't kill your kitten. For the first two weeks of class, I thought you were just horrified and taken aback by the nasty hypotheticals every philosophy class is required to provide. You made this terrible, disgusted, get-me-out-of-here-this-woman-is-a-psychopath face. Now I know that's either the face you make when you're thinking, or that you think I killed your kitten. I didn't kill your kitten. And having read your written work, I'm pretty sure you don't think. You might need some Ex-Lax. Or some serious psychotherapy.

J, it is so sweet you want to sell me weed. I was totally not cool enough in high school or college to know anyone who sold weed. That's why I teach philosophy. It's not going to get you a better grade, but I do appreciate the illegal gesture.

M, I'm counting your grandparents. You're down to two. We have five weeks left of class.

G, it's true that you outweigh me by 100 lbs. and I couldn't take you in a fair fight. You still have to take the midterm. Sorry.

S, I realize that you are soooooooo brilliant a comic that you deserve your own late night talk show. Still, I'm not sure that's a reason for disrupting class every 20 seconds to share your hilarious insights. Yes, yes, we all get that you're hysterical. That dude sitting next to you, whose hair and clothes you like to mock repeatedly for being too preppy? He's a marine just back from his hitch in Iraq. I'm seriously considering asking him to beat your ass. I think he'd enjoy it. I know I would.

Something Else Keeping Students From Attending Your Class

We've all had our share of funerals, weddings, illness, and cars spontaneously combusting. But, I've noticed a trend this semester that I've never seen in past semesters, and for some reason, I'm getting a lot of them.

Apparently, attending class is getting trumped by a number of different appointments and activities that students simply cannot miss. I have had students come up to me this semester, saying that they will be missing class because:

1. Their philosophy class is giving an extra credit assignment to go to a museum downtown.
2. Their tutoring hours are conflicting with when class begins.
3. They have scheduled an on-campus meeting with an academic advisor/international student advisor/financial aid office that can only happen during my class.
4. They have to go to the doctor (and their doctor can only see them during my class, for he/she is really busy/hard to get an appointment with). My beef with this one is that when a student takes off because they are legitimately sick, they seem to be able to find a doctor with little to no problem. But for this, they are scheduling appointments, with full knowledge of when class is.

Now, trust me, I will give an excused absence if it is excusable, but when did school issues take precedent before actually going to school? Why do students look at me cross-eyed when I say that, no, going to see an advisor during class time is not excused (my school, by the way, does not have assigned tutoring, but is on a walk-in basis, unless they are honors students or students on academic advisement - both categories of advisors would recognize the importance of attending class for the student). I hear work come up now and again as a reason to not attend class (this is not a new one), but when does school get in the way of school?

Everybody Breathe

We feel foolish ourselves.

Never in our wildest imaginations did we think our modest April Fool's Day post would stir up a pretty Sunday for so many people.

At last count, we've received 715 emails about the post, an overwhelming number of them duped by our efforts. Thankfully, when sent one of several different form responses we had to create, nearly all of our readers sent us back kudos on a good prank.

Most folks were impressed with the creation of "Martin Bell," a completely fictional character who had a dull photo and a set of RMP ratings. One of us had set up Bell on the Arkansas Northeastern College RMP page more than a year ago to prove a point about RMP moderation. We were happy to see that his ratings were still there this weekend, allowing us to add one more layer to the illusion.

All three moderators have been fielding the mail overnight, and here are some snips.

Before knowing it was a prank:

• I beg you not to close the site down. It's unfair what's happening to you, and I know some of your readers will take the site over if you need to let it go.


• I can't believe the Chronicle would do this to you. It makes me so angry I could spit.


• Why can't people see that you are doing a service for other professors. You don't write the posts, you just put them up! (Although you are sometimes scandalous with your witty titles)


• I know that this world is not worth saving when shit like this happens. Keep the site up, Dr. Bell.


• RYS needs to go on. As a frequent lurker, I found the venting humourous, but more importantly, I found strategies for dealing with similar issues as they arose. Yes, it's a funny site, but it also fills a very important niche. If your Dean and Administration are too short-sighted to deal with this appropriately (which would, of course, be to let you continue with RYS), and if there are others who would be willing to help take over, I'd agree to do the same.


• One of the very few bright points in those last hellish months of graduate school was my daily visit to Rate Your Students. There wasn't much of a TA support system at my university, so for the majority of my assistantship I felt alone in my frustration, disappointment, and disillusionment with teaching. RYS gave me some much-needed reassurance and entertainment. Almost every single post made me cackle--cackle!--with glee; here was a place where teachers, professors, and students across the map, of all ages and ranks, could commune to vent their spleens, give advice, and offer sympathy (or a smackdown) as needed.


• PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T DO IT! DO NOT SHUT RYS DOWN!


• I'm so angry at this. Why can't people recognize this site for what it is?

After:

• OMG!!! I feel like such a jackass. That's a good one. Well played!


• Awwwwwwww, I fell for it. I can't believe that the only April Fool's joke that "fooled" me was yours!


• We don't have April Fool's Day in Korea. *Sniff* Seems hardly fair to take advantage of the gullible and culturally deprived. I really have been in this country too long. Hat's off! That was very well done.


• YOU ARE SO BAD. The thing I was maddest about was the "admission" that there weren't really three of you. I loved the notion that the site was a cooperative venture. I almost wrote to ask you if Saucy Susan was ever real! What a dumbass I am!


• Your post today had me worried. Doesn't the Chronicle have better things to do? Did they use your correspondence from the piece on excuses to out you? But when I couldn't find a Martin Bell, classicist, on the site for that community college, I got the joke, the "total joke," to quote RMP. I think you have a lot of people in academia worried. We're dingdongs.


• Duh -- I've been sick with a really nasty head-cold, given to me by one of those germ-infested beings I teach... the possibility of an April Fools joke never occurred to me... you got me good!


• I just got it! Ignore my earlier note about how upset I was and all that. It's April Fool's Day, isn't it? Oh, how delicious. I suppose you got a lot of us. I hope I'm not the only one who fell for it. You're so terrible, RYS...but I still love you.

So, let us selfishly thank all of our dear readers for letting us have such fun yesterday. Although we rarely all correspond over a weekend, we had the emails buzzing around enjoying how well our little prank went.

For those of you who felt duped or foolish, that's the point of the day, after all. And we meant no harm.

Regular smackdown programming will continue later today!

Outed

I am chagrined to report that my cover has been blown by a Chronicle article that will appear online tomorrow morning.

I started Rate Your Students as a bit of a lark in November of 2005. After a brief but intense series of interviews and national attention, I started to receive a great deal of nasty mail. During one week in February of 2006, the site was hacked several times. I decided it had been too much of hassle and so I took it all down. A few weeks later, I came up with a fake back story that three moderators, all at different colleges, had taken over the site and were running it.

Things then continued very quietly for this past year until about ten days ago when my office phone rang and a reporter from the Chronicle called and started to ask me specific questions about the site. It seems that they had tracked me down by using a trail of IP addresses from this site's Hotmail and Blogger accounts. (Oh, and the tipping point appears to be an innocent clarification I had made to a spurious attack on my ratemyprofessors.com page.)

So, the cat is out of the bag, and I must admit I think I'll have to shut the site down. I am embarrassed, in fact, and reeling still. I have tenure at my college, and I am simply the moderator of RYS, but I suspect my fine colleagues will think my relationship with the site is inappropriate.

Below is - as I say - a little flava from the Chronicle article mentioned above. I have made an appointment to meet with my Dean today to tell her the whole silly story and get her suggestions for what I should do. Limbo, is I guess what you'd call it.

---

Academic Blogger No Longer Under Cover
Rate Your Student Founder Found Out

by RACHEL ZINO


Rate Your Students, an increasingly popular blog for academics, has led a brief but interesting life online. Started sixteen months ago, the site has attracted hosannas from beleaguered professors and venomous attacks from students.

The moderator of the site had been a mystery up until this week when Chronicle researchers matched Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from the site's Blogger.com home to a Hotmail.com account from which a number of emails to this paper were generated.

Martin Bell, 52, a Classics professor at Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, confirmed on Saturday his role as the site's sole moderator since inception.

"I'm a little embarrassed it has come out this way," Bell said. "I never intended the site to be demeaning or condescending to students, because they are the life-blood of my own career. But I always felt that a little venting made for a more reasonable and even-tempered faculty lounge."

Bell had hidden his identity on the site, and could not say what the future would be. "You're catching me a little off guard. I need to get my ducks in a row, or 'on the road,' as my students often say. I'll likely need to consider taking the site down."

Confirmation of Bell's identity came through a further match to a comment he left on Ratemyprofessor.com. "It's awfully ironic, of course, that a harmless attempt by me to correct an anonymous lie on that blasted site has been part of what outs me. I still regard what I do on RYS as a rather harmless and good-natured enterprise, certainly not like what happens at RMP."

As of press time, Rate Your Students was still online.