"Take Your Perfect School and Perfect Self and Shove It." Silverback Stan Runs Into Things-Are-Rough Thandie.

This was our first post of the day, and as things work on Blogger, later posts go up higher on the page. So, a number of folks wrote in to express their dismay that we had "buried the concerns of junior faculty." Well, fuck that. We didn't do that. To appease that group - who were actually vulgar and accusatory in their emails about it - we've moved the fucking post so that now it's the first thing people will see all day. As always, we try to be representative with the work we put up on the page, and the pro-Silverback tenor of today's postings is a result of the mail that's come in so far. Seriously. There's no conspiracy. Well there is, but not about this.

--

Dear Stan,

Just because you landed in some sort of otherworldly academic paradise doesn't mean that the rest of us don't have to deal with the cards we've been dealt. Your institution doesn't exploit its employees or discriminate against underrepresented groups? Congratulations, we are so happy for you.

Let me tell you a little secret, though: not every institution is just like yours. You see, here on RYS, we exchange stories about our various experiences in academia. Surprisingly, they are not all the same! Some of us work at perfect, unblemished institutions like yours and some of us work at institutions that could rather use some improvement here and there. So, it is just a smidge unfair for you to suggest that Rachel's list of warning signs is invalid simply because your institution does not experience these sorts of difficulties. As I tell my students constantly: it's not all about you. Just because you came upon a post that doesn't apply to you, however, doesn't mean that it doesn't apply to many of your colleagues at other institutions.

For starters, where I come from (public R1), t-t assistant professors who attempt to negotiate their teaching assignments and decline new committee assignments are routinely denied tenure. Is this the case everywhere? Probably not, but just because you don’t have to deal with it doesn’t make it less of a reality.

But what really kills me is your treatment of discrimination. The suggestion that discrimination is only such when it is overt and deliberate is exactly the reason why the academy is such a hostile space for women and people of color. Oh, you mean there aren’t meetings to decide how to screw over underrepresented groups? You’re right; this must be a perfectly egalitarian environment then. Sarcasm aside: Women and minorities remain ridiculously underrepresented in my department, but I’m supposed to believe, since no one is openly plotting to prevent women and people of color from being hired, that there is no problem? For the last three hires, we received more applications from women than men, but white males scored all three positions. I could tell stories that would make you sick (well, maybe not you), but I am genuinely afraid of retribution myself! Again, just because you don’t see or experience discrimination doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

Finally, just because you, as an individual, do not fit the description of a silverbacked good old boy does not mean that such pricks do not grace our hallowed halls. No less than a week ago, I heard one such asset to the department bemoan that there are no longer cute little secretaries to type up manuscripts and that the grad students are harder on the eyes. This is the same gentleman that announced in a faculty meeting that the female faculty would be taken more seriously if they would just dress like professors, which presumably means that they borrow one of his sweater vests (and possibly also grow a penis). Other charmers include the Department Star who calls his female RAs sweetheart, the grouch who has voted to deny tenure for every female in the last fifteen years (he gives a different justification every time, but the pattern is clear), and the inimitable asshole who has been teaching since the 1950s and truly believes that there is his way or the highway.

So take your perfect school and your perfect self and shove it. This was not a post about you, your school, or your life. If it was, it would have been the warning signs that your institution is perfect but nevertheless filled with self-centered blowhards who are unable to understand anything they do not directly experience. We’ll save that one for another day.

"Maybe I'm Butting In...

...but I'm beginning to think that Silverback Stan is my hero. First, he writes up a post lamenting those who are "fraught with self-esteem issues, bad sense, and an overactive flight response." Then, it turns out that he did such a good job at it that he pissed off Thandie, who seems to be fraught with self-esteem issues, bad sense, and an overactive flight response. It's uncanny. My hat is off to you, Stan.

As a black man, I've always maintained that the biggest barrier to the cause of racial equality was other black people. Particularly those who latch onto this myth that "the white man" is holding us down and therefore, any failures they may have aren't their fault. I'm beginning to see that the quest for gender equality has its same enemies. If I had to guess, the conspiracy theorists out there all suck at their jobs, and don't know how to handle the fact that they suck at their job, so they create a big gender conspiracy.

Thandie bases part of her conspiracy theory on the fact that men (gasp) make comments (oh the horror) on the physical attractiveness of women (which one of you young gentlemen will break my fall if I faint?). One has to look no further than a Diet Coke commercial for confirmation that women (gasp) make these same comments about men.

Also, a guy calls his RAs "sweetheart," and a codgerly old professor believes he's right about everything. Yep, dinosaurs who refuse to adapt to the times must (somehow) be an indication of the dark conspiracy against women and (to pick up extra support though she never really explained how we were involved) minorities.

Women face a number of obstacles in today's career market that men don't, but that conspiracy diatribe just serves to diminish the real problems the female half of our population faces. I wonder if blaming her struggles on other people make Thandie feel happy. I hope it does, because she's doing it at the expense of the equality she seems to crave.

But then, I suppose that I'm probably part of the conspiracy....

And The Year Starts To Close...A Happy Wave From Someone Who's Already Finished! (Oh, Don't Be Haters...)

I just finished marking my last exams and papers. I’m blown away with how great a lot of my students executed, some recovering from brutal mid terms and ongoing reality checks. Many learned what they needed to and showed it and proved it. Others didn’t triumph exactly, but did the work and passed. And there were some dipshits.

Among the best self assessments: my writing is difficult to understand and very tedious. You nailed it there, pal.

So now it’s done with all these students and off for beers and what the summer brings. The sun is shining and this job is fucking awesome.

Thanks to RYS for a killer year and for getting out there every day.

"Stan, Stan, He's Our Man, If He Can't Quell the Junior Faculty, No One Can."

• Rachel sounds like the whiny students I have in class. I bet she is young and has recently come up through the current "raise self esteem" and "kill work ethic" elementary, secondary, and higher ed system of education. I'll agree with Stan and add simply that Rachel needs to grow up. People make their own opportunities. Sounds like she's waiting to be spoonfed on her job just like she was probably spoonfed all the K-12 and college. That's the nature of the folks coming out of our education system these days. The whiny students we write about now will be tomorrow's college professors. Makes me cringe to think of it!!
  


• Oh, I'm sure you'll kick the shit out of Stan tomorrow, but I had to write to say I think his advice is right on. Stan hit me hard with this comments. I recognized myself in every line. But I'm not entirely to blame. My advisors in grad school all gave me the party line that I must fear the new institution, be on my best behavior, eat shit and like it. And for the first couple of years that's what I did. I had a full-scale victim suit on, and everything that happened around me felt like an attack, a slight. It wasn't true, of course, and I found out when I'd given up on the job already. I told my chair that I wasn't going to accept the teaching assignment I was given, and he pleasantly asked me what I wanted to teach instead. It ended up being a friendly negotiation. I took that as a license to turn down a committee project, and instead of the earth opening up and swallowing me, my colleague said, "Oh, okay, but we wanted to find someone new to campus for this. Do you have anyone else in mind?" And it went like that for a year until I finally felt I'd arrived. Rachel will grow up, we can only hope, and so will the rest.
  


• We have a crop of Rachel and Renatas at our college right now. I feel for them because I was one of them, too, not so long ago. Whenever I try to be welcoming, they pull back. When we ask for their opinion at meetings, they stay mum or pass along some freeze-dried reply that seems custom made not to offend. It's maddening. The life of the department is stagnant because the "new blood" won't pump. It just lays there in the vein, looking miserable. It's your school, too, people. Speak up. Say something. Disagree, whatever. But show us your alive. Is there anyone inside those nice clothes?

Rachel's Right. Renata from Rockford Has Regrets.

Taking a break from "putting together" a new interdisciplinary major that my department chair asked me to write up for him by tomorrow, I read the comments from Rachel.

I don't know whether to laugh, to cry, to laugh maniacally, plot murder, or just try to figure out how to sink unnoticed off the side of the midnight ferry back home tonight while we're in the middle of the shipping lanes.

I scored a significant 5 out of 6 reasons to jump ship. I feel like such a dumbass for getting myself into this situation. I should have been smarter than all of this. I should have seen that gleefully accepting assignments to 9 committees, undergraduate advising, and a teaching overload at the grad and undergrad level was NOT the path to getting my husband a secure job at the Uni with me and stabilizing my own career.

I should have seen that my department put me on the "use and lose the diversity hire" plan as soon as I arrived here to a "forgotten in your interview" package of overloads, committees, and "extras."

"Quit Being a Victim." Stan the Silverback from Sarasota Replies to Rachel.

I admit I'm annoyed at Rachel's post from yesterday. That list of 6 reasons to jump ship all strike me as being written by someone who is fraught with self-esteem issues, bad sense, and an overactive flight response.

• If you get a bad teaching assignment, speak up. These things are usually negotiable. I hear younger faculty all the time bitch and moan about what classes they're "given," yet nobody ever says, "I talked to my chair about it and we worked it out." There's a "victim" mentality in too many of you.
  


• Same thing. Say "no" sometimes to extra assignments. Ask, "What's Harry doing?" "How many committees are the rest of the faculty on?" "Wouldn't Joanne be great for this? I don't think I'd add much. I'm enjoying my work on Xxxxx committee."
  


• In extreme cases, of course this discrimination is abhorrent. But in most departments, there's no fucking conspiracy against you. The "silverbacks" don't have little meetings finding ways to fuck you over. Get this straight: Most folks don't give a shit about you, so aren't wasting time plotting against you. They are doing their work, making their own paths. Stand up. Don't cower.
  


• Some good advice in this point, actually, because when you actually are harrassed, you should get others involved. Use your colleagues and chair to your advantage. When things are going south for you, get help. But don't expect help to find you.
  


• Rachel's oversimplified view of "back in the day" is quite quaint. Has she been watching too much Mad Men lately? She's actually quite rude in her depiction of what she imagines senior faculty lives were. And she seems to be talking about an older generation than the one that is in "power" now. I'm sure I qualify as a silverback - despite having rather brown skin - and my wife never typed my work for me. She was too busy being a doctor. Our kids were raised by television, just like normal. And, yes, better opportunities, they exist, but not in the numbers you imagine. The opportunity lies inside, and as soon as you realize that, you'll be a lot happier.
  


• I think you'd imagine anyone was a dick who didn't fall over themselves making you and your partner feel good. But good gravy, can't you do some of the heavy lifting yourself? Did you not research the town you moved to? Did you not check on opportunities for your spouse before you moved? They've got this vast interconnected network of information sites now that you might check into. Shit, back in the day we used telephone books and the library to find out if Pudknocker, Kansas was going to be right for us. And we asked our future colleagues, and we didn't expect the Pudknockerians to make us all well and happy. And yes, because your "grandpappy" isn't from around here, we're going to do all we can to ruin your spouse's career. Good grief, get some backbone, both of you.

On-The-Edge Omar Offers some Smackdown. Seriously, Dude, You Can't Let Them Get To You.

• SLACKER WHO SITS BY AND HASSLES HER RESPONSIBLE FRIEND FOR HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS: You may not turn in your research paper in at the end of the week when it's due today. Ask me again tomorrow. I dare you.
  


• ASS CLOWN WITH THE FLY BOSE HEADPHONES: You are not allowed to make up for your 9 absences, including the one on the day of your final. You wouldn't know that anyway though because you cannot hear me.
  


• "COMEDIAN" WHO NEEDS TO FIND A NEW GIG -- AND QUICKLY:It is not a funny joke to pretend you forgot your research paper, not for you anyway.
  


• THE BASEBALL PLAYER WHO WILL NEVER PASS MY CLASS,EVER: I don't care about your baseball games, your flat tires, your multiple family reunions, or your suddenly ringworm-stricken sibling. There's a guy in your class whose dad and sister died in a car crash, and he missed only 2 class periods, has turned in all of his assignments on time, and doesn't have any makeup work at all. He's tougher than you will ever be, so he will pass with flying colors, and you will fail. Kiss it.
  


• THE BASKETBALL PLAYERS WHO PLAGIARIZED: I will not tell your coach. He will email me and ask me, and I will simply present the evidence. That is all I will do, I promise.
  


• 15-30 MINUTES LATE-FOR-CLASS KIND OF DUDE: I didn't excuse your classmates so they could leave early today. This is finals week. Our class' last day was yesterday. This isn't even your class.
  


• THRIFTY PENNYWISE: You may not turn in your paper, final, and final essay online because you're saving gas money.
  


• LURKERS, HOVERERS & LOITERERS: You may not see if I've gotten to your research paper yet. And stop asking me"What'd I get?" That's the equivalent of "Are we there yet?" for any teacher.

Rachel from Raleigh, One of Our Chief Correspondents, Tells Us When and When Not We Can Jump Ship.

I thought with Newton you had created open season on junior faculty again. I'm glad you revisited the issue.

You always generally eat it when you're the new kid on the playground. Some of this is actually useful, like the beatings you get reviewers and journal editors, some of it is necessary in how the university is structured (somebody has to do the work in the department), and some of this is just some stupid hazing that primates engage in to see how committed you are. But there are limits, and you should know what are grounds for leaving vs what you should just suck up and deal with.

Reasonable Dues-Paying Activities:

1. Having the crap office. I literally cried when I saw my first office at Cracker Uni. My desk was held together with duct tape. There were fist-sized holes in the plaster. Here, you just gotta suck it up, invest in some decent furniture even if it comes out of your own pocket, and do what you can to spruce and liven it up.
   
   
2. Teaching (some) crap classes. You should expect to teach a few of the classes that nobody else wants. A decent department is entitled to expect you to carry some service teaching but won't overload you with it. Be enthusiastic about teaching one or two rotten classes and use your good performance in those classes as a reason to say no to other things. "I'm sorry, I could teach Overview of Overview-ness, but I already teach Intro to Intro-ness. That would mean the majors would have two classes with me their freshman year. I'm thinking that diversity there is important, don't you?"
   


3. Some general snootering around and expectation that you be seen and not heard in various departmental contexts. You should expect that you will get some lectures and some spankings, for lack of a better term, at the same time you get little to no praise. Plenty of good people will generally ignore you as long as are you are doing what you should be doing (getting good evaluations, publishing enough) and only rouse themselves when it's time to chew you out for something. This actually counts as mentoring in some worlds. My advisor was of the Dr. Cox (Scrubs) school of mentoring, so I got trained on this early. If you want to get to know them, take it upon yourself to ask them out to lunch. Again, this should be a balance. It's not unreasonable for junior faculty to take some bruises to the ego while they are being trained and proving themselves. It is unreasonable to bully or belittle them and then expect them to give a crap about your opinion or your institution.
   

Reasons You Should Get Out:

1. Bait-and-switch on expectations. Yes, people promise you the moon during recruitment and then neglect to mention that you must build your own ladder to the moon. But there is a difference between that and universities that promise you one teaching load (3/3 or 2/2) and then ROUTINELY discover that you must teach uncompensated overloads. That is a sign of a bad ship.
   


2. Overloading you with departmental housekeeping. You should be contributing to the shared work of the community (that goes for both senior and junior faculty; seniors who use tenure as an excuse to do no departmental work are selfish and, in an ideal world, should have their merit promotions and raises revoked or delayed). And some of that is going to be crap work as noted above. But there are limits. Junior people should NOT be doing all the advising in the department. The department didn't score a win in the "Buy one young Ph.D., get one Event Planner Free" sale. You should be teaching at least one graduate class so that you get to know the good graduate students if you need them for your research. You should not be on university committees, not until you have tenure. Ask to be replaced on them if you have been appointed. Learn to say “no.” If you get ignored when you say “no,” that’s a bad ship.
   


3. Terrifyingly obvious discrimination. All universities have race/class/gender/orientation bias, I am convinced. But if absolutely all of the power at your university is held by the silverbacks (old white guys), then if you have ambitions to move into administration, this is a problem for you if you are not one of the boys. Take some time to figure out the possibilities for advancement there and if it is not good, you are entitled to strategically move. If they are loading all the junior female faculty with advising and freshman teaching and the junior male faculty are given research appointments, this is a bad ship to be on. If you are overloaded with being the “Face of Diversity” at your university, that’s another sign of a bad ship. Feel free to jump.
   


4. Bullying or harassment that goes unchecked by the rest of the faculty. Don't mistake well-intended chiding with bullying. By this time, you should be mature enough to know the difference between somebody who says "you need get involved in the biggest issues in your field" and somebody who says "You're an idiot." The former is constructive, the latter is not. Beware: there are variants of the bully/jackass everywhere. Don’t move just because of him/her. If you like the rest of your situation, ask the chair to shield you from the ass by moving you to different committees.
   
   
5. Just plain better opportunities. This is related to #3. Yeah, so your first job was a low-tier university. You work your fanny off and publish a lot and make major contributions. And you're supposed to turn a blind eye to the opportunities that come your way because of loyalty? There is a difference between a mawkish junior faculty prima donna who wants to be treated like a star straight off and one who has actually delivered goods. In the latter case, there will be places that can and will reward a consistent producer even if he/she comes with a bit of ego noise (like Newton) and senior faculty need to get over that "Back in MY day, we didn't play that game and we knew our place" routine if they want to hang on to high human capital faculty. Back in their day, they had wives raising their kids for them, typing/proofing their work for them, keeping house for them, and trailing them without question. Back in the their day, they got hired with no publications and got tenured with four. Senior faculty who are real mentors to you understand that mentoring is a gift: mentoring serves the institution if everything works, but it is unreasonable to expect your proteges to turn down wonderful opportunities that you can not, for whatever reasons, offer them. IOW, mentoring is casting your bread upon the waters in a major way. We all have to live with these risks in the hypermobile, globalized world of elite labor.
   


6. Irresolvable Two Body Problems. This is where Backwater and Cracker Unis have a huge problem. Located in a town of 16,000 people with 10,000 students, there is nothing for a nonfaculty trailing spouse to do. Some trailing spouses do a great job of reinventing themselves and find ways to fit into the context. Others, like my spouse, basically ruin their career by moving to these locations where in order to get a job outside of the university, your grandpappy had to be a fine, upstanding civic leader. If nothing comes together for your spouse or your kids at your job locale, you are entitled to look for a situation where you and your family CAN build a life together. And anybody who doesn't understand that is a dick and can be ignored freely.

Bathroom Haiku - Found at a University in the Midwest.

I have always been
glad to do it on my own.

Pay for it - work hard -
earn the grades - alone.

Until now.

I'm drowning in a sea
of entitled-feeling assholes.

Two Proffies Wrestle With the Right Balance.

I know all about fairness and rules and following the syllabus. I know I need to maintain academic standards. But occasionally I'll get a student like Reynolds who just seems to be outside the normal standards.

Reynolds is an adult student, coming back to school after 15 years. He works in a neighboring city because he has a young daughter. He's in the midst of a terrible child custody case right now, and also works full time. How he gets to all of his appointments, to class, to his job every day just astonishes me. But he's always cheerful, ready to go, and hard working.

He doesn't have anything like the kind of time my traditional students have, and sometimes it shows in his work. He's skirting the C/D line right now, and at our institution the D carries no weight, is more or less a more pleasant F. I've asked him what he's able to do to increase his time in the lab, or what I could do to get him his assignments a little ahead of time, but Reynolds just shakes his head and says, "Just treat me like one of the kids, Professor."

But it's breaking my heart. He's got more on his plate than any student I've had before. Last week his ex-wife had a car accident and Reynolds is now shouldering even more of his daughter's care. He turned his lab report in, and while it showed that he's getting the material, it also showed that he'd simply not spent enough time on it.

I know what the right thing to do is. Reynolds doesn't have the time to really do well in this class. I have no doubt he'd ace it if he could just pull back one of his real world responsibilities. But I hate how I have to treat him the same way as the ganja-smoking waste of a life who is his lab partner, Reggae Richie, who is either stoned, getting stoned, sleeping, playing Xbox, or shuffling into my class in his hemp sandals.

~~

The young woman went AWOL from class for three weeks. During that time she missed two assignments towards the researched essay, four journal entries, three quizzes and class conferences. She did email me about our conference, saying she had to take her niece to the doctor as she was the only one in her family with a car. I understand the tug on my students from their outside life, and unlike many at the neighboring Big U, these community college students have much to juggle.

On the day she returned, I passed back the research papers. She approached me and asked if she could make up the work. I referred her to the assignment where it clearly stated, "No Late Work." Or I thought it did. I realized I'd only said that in class, when she was gone. I'd been quite dramatic about it, hey, the class even laughed with my dramatics, but. . . she wasn't there. Luckily, she took my word for it, and as she left the desk I scribbled on my handout "add No Late Work Accepted." I'm covered, because it says this in my syllabus.

So how does a professor balance this need to be King Solomon?

I much prefer the days when I stand in class and give out the assignments, rather than the days where I have to balance their excuses/reasons/life fumbles against the standards of higher education. My father (also a professor) says that the university is bigger than just one student. While I can live with throwing the one under the wheels of the academic train once in a while, it's wearying.

What Has Newton Taught Us? Three Stragglers Join the Debate on Our Northbound-Fleeing Colleague. Who, By the Way, Called Us all 'Weenies' in an Email!

• I recently read the post by "Northbound Newton" (and subsequent smackdown) regarding leaving a particular school. While the responses seemed appropriate in this particular situation, I was wondering if the readers at large had any advice on when one should leave and any"success" stories readers wish to share. Are there any clear-cut signs one should definitely watch out for on a daily basis? Do readers have a list of "slam dunk" reasons to try elsewhere? I'd be particularly interested in responses from tenured faculty.
  


• Y'all had your fun with Newton, but a lot of us junior faculty probably understood his misery. We get wooed hard by you people during the hiring, and then when the contract is dry we get shown our closet and then ignored for about 6 years. That's bullshit. There seems to be such a level of dismissal when you're a young professor. All of the old guard where I am treat me like a 9 year old, and then idea that I'd have the nerve to speak up at a meeting has been the context of a few conversations. I don't think it's fair to call the senior faculty deadwood, but it sure wouldn't hurt if they'd soften a bit so that new folks feel welcome and then stay longer!
  


• It all depends on the institution, I think, and the character. I can't imagine Northbound Newton would ever be happy anywhere. And I don't doubt that there are schools that are less than welcoming to new faculty. But in my own experience I've felt wanted, right from interview time through my 3 year review. My views are sought out, and my ideas are implemented in concert with the those of folks who've been here 20 years longer than me. And that sort of involvement and respect has made me love the place and feel like it's my own. I have friends at schools who can't wait to get out, and I think a lot of it has to do with how invested they feel in their school. For me, at least, it's the senior faculty who took me in, valued my input, and thus made me feel welcome and at home. Sure, there are other schools I could work, and I do have ambitions that might take me somewhere else, but it would have to be a pretty spectacular offer because I feel at home here, and I wish all junior faculty were as lucky.

Samrat the Smartass Scientist Sends In Some Stanzas.

Grading my finals
is easy as pi: no essays.
I teach chem, not lit.

Calculate numbers.
Equations are right or wrong.
No partial credit.

Poor comp and lit profs.
Students cannot plagiarize
If they do not write.

Chem grads get jobs.
People think we’re useful.
Pay accordingly.

Well rounded? Hell no!
I did learn to write Haiku
by reading this site.

Lazy Ass Saturday Gallimaufry. Where the Moderators Almost Give Up On the Whole Enterprise. "We're Still Doing This EVERY SINGLE DAY?"

I teach classes online. So I have my students reading an article about how text messaging and IMming are ruining our children's ability to spell. Here is one of my best responses to date! However the week is still young!

"i don't think that text messaging and iming is messing up our spelling and grammer at all I do it all the time and i can still spell the words out its just that when you are text messaging you are trying to do it fast its just a fast way to communicate not a replacement for spelling plaus every1 knows whut i am typing when i type b4 everyone needs spelling if no one could spell how would anyone have a job? i am not the best speller in the world but i dont think that any thing is running our spelling or young kids i think that they just have to step up the spelling with the math and reading you can read a word all day but u should be able to spell it like its nothing."

~~

The semesters ship is sinking fast, and the rats are scurrying off to find the latest flavor of cheese. All the little lies are turning into spontaneous combustion of various sets of pants, and I'm telling you that I for one am glad it's finally- reasonably- close to the end of the year. so, let's lift one for another step towards retirement, another conference attended-but-not-the-presentations (who in their right mind would locate a conference in New Orleans and still expect people to attend presentations like 'the changing face of aesthetic discipline in 18th century art') another set of free tote bags.

~~

You were in line with everyone else today with drafts of essay five, eager to get that 10 extra credit points for sitting with me and talking about your work. When your turn came, you had a reasonably good first draft, encumbered by common first draft errors, and I started thinking maybe you had the potential to make it. Then I remembered what you had forgotten...

....IT'S FUCKING WEEK FIFTEEN!!!

I tried to be very kind because it was the first time you had actually talked to me and because I'm one of those sucker teachers who think every lazy ass student is redeemable. Finally, after a few gentle words about how there's no way to salvage the semester, you tell me this is the third time...THE THIRD TIME...you've piddled away the semester. I couldn't even say "third time's a charm!" I had nothing absolutely nothing...except...

One more semester and someone who gave a shit could have taken that sports scholarship and finished a degree.

Next?

~~

If you're going to copy answers off your adjacent neighbour during a multiple choice exam, make sure they're not a fucking idiot. Your 110 out of 120 matching choices sets off alarm bells when the vast majority of those matching choices are wrong answers. 1) The statistical improbability of such an occurrence roughly equals the number of particles in the universe. 2) Your copying did you no good whatsoever - even before I bust your ass to the Associate Dean, your exam score means you'll be failing spectacularly in this course. 3) It doesn't help that you've circled some answers on the actual exam that don't correspond whatsoever to your exam bubble sheet, and that would have resulted in a higher score.

Rhetorical Reggie Celebrates April By Saying Farewell To Some Students.

Ahhhh, April. The snow is finally gone, sun is occasionally poking from the clouds, and students, reeking of obsequiousness, have come from hiding. The question is, why bother? They could have saved the world some fuel by not making those bothersome trips to class when anyone with an ounce of sense would know that he or she had failed.

• Pierced Petunia: You came to four classes, were told by me that you would not be allowed to make up any work, yet asked for a copy of the midterm to study for the final exam. Why bother? You failed already. Congratulations, you were the earliest this semester. What were you thinking?


• Sincere-looking Sammy: You politely asked to leave my 3-hour class early because you weren’t feeling well. A quick check of my grade book revealed that you had not written any of the 4 essays and had failed 5 of 8 quizzes. You failed and I told you so. Why did you bother to ask if you could leave? What were you thinking?


• Stephanie Seldom: It took me forever to learn your name because I rarely saw you. You, also, have passed zero essays and failed half the quizzes. You wanted to reschedule your conference with me about your final paper? Why bother? You already failed, and I told you so. What were you thinking?


• Wanda Whatserface: You thoughtfully called from the emergency room to reschedule your conference about your final paper. A quick glance at your record allowed me to reschedule you to never. You, too, have never done an assignment and have failed as I told you over the phone. What were you thinking?


• Dominic Deadwood: I should have known better than to let you add my class on the day it began. Since then you’ve failed six of nine quizzes and one essay, and you haven’t turned in anything else. You skipped out before I could tell you not to bother coming to conference with me about your paper. You’ve failed. Now you’ve got to come all the way back to school for me to tell you. Seems a waste. What were you thinking?
  

Someone's Just Finished a Set of Papers. And We Fear We Might Get an F As Well If We Don't Post This.

• I have so enjoyed reading your paper on the death of your first beloved dog, Mr. Sniggles (affectionately known as "Snig"). The drawn out description of how Snig forever changed your life, as well as the inclusion of nine separate occasions on which you "broke down sobbing" really carried an emotional punch. However, I am a bit perplexed. This paper was supposed to center on the analysis of a news article. While I can see how you might think that your story was "newsworthy"--its being so unique and all--the lack of an actual news article is, I think, where the paper first goes wrong. It then continues to go more drastically wrong with the lack of anything approaching analysis, the narrative and informal tone, the completely personal focus with no real evidence, and the overwrought, cloying sentimentalism. For the lack of anything nearing an actual idea, as well as the complete disregard of the assignment, this receives an F.
  
  


• This paper has in it some good points. I think you're right: children ARE exposed to too much sex on television. And if I had not already hear this point 75 billion times on TV, on the radio, from every pundit ever, and on the back of my cereal box this morning, this might actually be a good idea. Unfortunately, this is not an idea at all, but a trite, cliche generalization that shows absolutely no thought whatsoever. Moreover, you don't even provide evidence or analysis of anything related to this issue in your paper. For example, when you throw out the statement that "Every parent should monitor their children's television intake 24/7," you tend to overlook some very key issues in parent's lives, and you also manage to sound like a pompous jackass trying to tell everyone how to live. Since our class has been devoted to avoiding sounding like/being a pompous jackass and instead actually examine ideas thoroughly, this is a bit of a disappointment. For the lack of focus, evidence, thought, and the fact that you insist on acting as though you can and should dictate the lives of others despite being an eighteen-year-old whiner with no life experience, you receive an F.

"You Mean They Lie Sometimes?" Replies to This Week's Big Thirsty.

• I was caught off guard by yesterday's question about lying. I've taught long enough now that I just assume everything my students tell me is some kind of deception. The mentality has been - for as long as I've taught - "us against them," and I can't imagine it changing. That's ridiculous, of course, and wouldn't university life be so much more rewarding if we all didn't play this horrid game?
  


• The small shit casual lying should be countered with similar small shit casual lying: "Those essays I said I'd hand back today? Oops, I left them in my office, but I did finish marking them." "That reference letter you asked me to write 2 months ago? I sent it." "You have some questions about the lecture I just gave? Sure, I...oh damn, I have a meeting I have to get to right now." "You'll do fine in the course, so don't worry about a thing."
  


• If you're at a university with an honor code, you shouldn't hesitate to report lying, even casual lying, by writing a letter to the Dean of Students. If you have an Incompetent Dean of Students, like mine, this may not achieve much, but it should be tried anyway. At the very least, you should refuse to work with any student who lies---or is honest but is immature, unreliable, or just plain stupid: who knows, maybe your student was in fact on the second floor---or to deal with them further in any other way. You can do this subtly, with no confrontation necessary, which may be useful if you have a department head whose management style is to avoid all conflict at all costs, like an old one of mine. You may not be able to prevent dishonest students from taking further classes with you, but mercifully, the ones I've caught always chose not to, but then I'm good at glaring at them. As a science prof, I can't tolerate dishonest students: if they give me research results that they've fabricated, doctored, or cooked, it could be the end of MY career if it got into a publication.
  


• I used to report students who lied about matters that impacted their grade or progress. I dutifully followed the instructions in the faculty handbook, explained why the deception was counterproductive to the student's progress in class, and then waited. And then I waited some more. When I would hear back from the Dean's office, it was always with a bemused, "Well, they're just kids." Shrug of the shoulders. "We don't see any reason to pursue it." So I learned my lesson. The powers at my particular college could give a shit less if we're lied to. I try not to let it bother me anymore. I assume I'm being lied to and just try to be fair in everything else.
  


• This question is too easy. Smile and lie right back. When the liar calls you on it--deny it. And smile. This is what I do. "Professor, I'm on my way (25 minutes late and calling from cell phone) "Okay, don't hurry," I reply, getting up from the library table and picking up my bag. "I'll wait for you." Rinnnngg. "Professor! Where are you?" (about an hour after I left). "I'm in the library, uh, by a big stack of books," lies I -- while lifting my Sam Adams and toasting the cute (but too young) bartender. "I can't find you," says panicked student. "Well, I'm right here," I say. "I'm right next to some books about the Civil War. I can't remember which floor it is though." "What shall I do?" wails student. "Well, keep looking," I say. "Don't worry. I'll wait for you..."
  


• I’m with you. The casual lies have me going casually nuts. This week a student didn’t pick up the papers the whole class was supposed to have read for an in-class workshop. I know he didn’t pick them up because I can do math—one set of papers out of 13 remained uncollected in my mailbox, and everyone else had the papers. So in class I asked him to comment on the reading, and he smiled and said, “Sorry, I left it in my dorm room.” And like the Big Thursday Poster, I have no idea whether I should have retorted, “Bullshit, I have your papers right here.” The last thing I want is a student piling up evidence that I hate him (because I do hate this kid), and I don’t like the idea of humiliating someone—even a liar—in front of his peers, so I just made a note to myself to lower his class participation grade. But so far, in response to casual lying, that’s the best I’ve come up with.
  


• You confront each little liar in the moment, you smile sweetly, then you ask "Why do you resort to lying?" Before the snowflake replies, or as he/she stammers for an answer, add "But thanks for the additional insight into your character," then just turn and walk away...
  


• As far as it relates to excuses, I just shut it down from the outset. I say, "I don't want to hear your dead grandmother stories, the flat tires, the roommate is bulimic bullshit. You either are here, doing the work, getting things done, or I don't care. You succeed entirely based on the work you produce. The excuses are nothing to me." I've only had one student in 5 years who said a word about it. Fuck it. I'm not going to get all wound up about whether or not my students are going to lie to me.
  
  
• You mean they lie sometimes? The little dears? No. Not here at my wonderful uni. We love each other. We have an honor code. We show respect. We are fair and impartial and open. And our students reciprocate by playing it straight. Dead grandma? Of course, dear. Take a few days to collect yourself. Your uncle was in a car crash, well then by all means let's finish up this ugly business of the lab reports on another day. You forgot the projects were due? I can understand that; you have a lot on your mind. You didn't know that plagiarizing someone else's essay was wrong? Well, of course. Who knows that? Here's a free pass to the rest of your life.

This Week's Big Thirsty: "Should I Get Bent Out of Shape Over 'Casual' Lying?"

I don't know if this is a problem for many folks, but I'm about at the end of my rope when it comes to the casual attitude my students have about lying to me.

Oh, my little SLAC has a nice honor code, and the students get all dolled up on a Saturday before freshmen year and sign this big book. I bet they even use a quill, who knows? And we're always told by our chair and Dean that the little darlings take this code seriously.

Well, er, bullshit.

My students lie about everything under the sun, big things, small things, some shit that doesn't even matter!

One student swore up and down that she was not writing my Sociology term paper for another class, yet, between her rough draft and final she switched from APA documentation - used in my class - to MLA style. When asked, she said, "Oh, I thought MLA was the new way." (Oh, and I have a crush on this student's English prof, and already know the paper is a double dip.)

Just today another student skipped a meeting I had set up for him to talk to a visiting professor. My student wants to work in this professor's non-academic field, and I arranged this as a favor. When 20 minutes passed, the professor and I went to lunch instead.

When I got back to my office, my student said, "Oh, I came to your office at 11 and you weren't there." I said, "Well, Dr. Xxxxxxx and I were sitting right there." The student then tried, "Now, are you on the 4th floor or the 3rd floor?" "315," I said, "just like last week when your group report team came to meet with me." "Oh, well I must have been on the 4th floor. It's the same office, I'm sure. But there was no name on that door, so I thought it might be yours." After I got the call, I went up the stairs to look at the door for 415, a heavily cat-decorated abomination with a picture of the female prof (I'm male), her family, her cats, her husband's motorcycle, a drawing of a unicorn, well you know what I mean.

And it goes on and on. I don't have a problem with the big things, plagiarism, cheating, and all the rest. But this little shit makes me crazy. Are these just excuses by panicked student, or is it worse?

Q: What should proffies do about "casual" lying?

A: Send your responses here.

"Get a Dog. Get a Life. Get the Fuck Out of Here." Northbound Newton Takes a Beating.

Northbound Newton was one of those little gifts we sometimes get, someone so sure he was right, so sure he'd been wronged by wickedness. As is often the case, Newton was just a jackass, and our readers wanted him to know. Enjoy the flava:

• Of course Newton's not a rat. He's just a colossal douchebag. And he seems to have the emotional maturity of my Pomeranian. Speaking of dogs, maybe Newton should get one. Because that's the only way he's ever going to get the emotional validation he seems to crave from his colleagues. He's bent out of shape because no one threw him a party for some fucking poems? Who gives a crap? Does he pay attention to every scholarly or literary achievement of all his colleagues and fete them accordingly? Bet not. And seriously. He thought his colleagues, for whom he has created more work, would do more than smile and congratulate him? How much emotional work does he expect his colleagues (whom he clearly scorns) to do on his behalf? Junior faculty don't owe the university anything more than their service. It isn't ratlike to leave. But it's pathetic to expect everyone to get all excited when you announce that you're now going to leave their inbred, shoeless, retarded cracker university for a real job with real students. And it's startlingly childish to let their lack of enthusiasm for your future happiness turn a day of glad tidings into "the worst of your life." Man, is Newton going to be cheesed off when he discovers that his next job has its own realities. And I bet NONE of those realities include "just accepting him for who he is." That's not what a fucking job is for, Newton. That's what your mom or our Pomeranian is for.
  
  
• Let's see...Cracker College made promises that you would teach interesting classes. They made you promises that life would be great, and then it wasn't. Now you're getting promises from another school someplace else that says they are interested in you and your important work. Here, (really - trust us) you'll teach great classes. I'll bet they even tell you that those students will be interested in your classes. Count me as a skeptic. And I'll be looking for your next post when you leave Northern Noncracker U.
  


• Wow, and we all thought precious snowflakes can’t amount to anything. Heaven forbid a person take a job and have to deal with seniority. Newton is an arrogant ass that gives all professors a bad name. Why can’t he teach freshman level courses; is he too good to help his students learn good technique and maybe mold them into something useful early in their college career? His office is on an inner wall, boo hoo. Many educators don’t even have an office they can call their own. His comrades in arms are senile deadwood? Maybe there is a reason they are teaching upper level… what is the word I am looking for… oh yeah, experience. Maybe the tenured, senile professors get the classes and perks because they have proven a commitment to the school and its unwashed masses (those freshmen you have to lower yourself to teach), rather than running at the first sign of greener pastures. The “cracker” university that Newton is leaving is better off without him, maybe they can get an educator instead of a prima donna. Newton is most likely going to have a rude awakening when he gets to his greener pastures and finds the pastures are never as green as they seem.
  


• Dear Newtie: When I agreed to date you, you told me a ton of lies about how great things were going to be: we would have a beautiful house, do activities we both enjoyed, and you would respect and encourage my interests. But in the three years since that time, you've taken little interest in me or my accomplishments, and we're still living in a studio apartment, with me scrubbing the toilets while you're out having fun. Happily, I've just met someone new. He's sexier than you, lives in a better part of town, makes a lot of money, is better in bed, and truly appreciates me in a way you never did. So I'm here to tell you that I'm leaving you for him at the end of May, and I'm glad, glad, GLAD that, within a couple of months, I'll never have to see you again. Wait.... why aren't you happy for me? Don't you want to help me celebrate?
  


• Howdy, Newton, it's the aged and nearly senile prof in the cushy outside office. Good ol' Geriatic Joe Bob, your favorite hayseed. You know, the one who has been here for 14 years more than you, and who has won both the university's highest teaching and research awards? You know, the, what did you call me, deadwood professor who teaches mostly upper level courses while your academic skill is wasted in mere Freshman courses. Congrats on your new job. I tip my trucker's cap in your general direction. Hell's bells, son, you're leaving? So soon? I do SO hate to see you go. I'll miss so much about you. We thought we'd have a good-bye poetry slam (complete with haybales) featuring some of your students to thank you for your service, but we couldn't find a single student who wanted to speak in your honor. Nope. Not even a danged haiku for your work here at good old Cracker U. Newton, face it, we're glad you're heading north. None of your colleagues is going to miss you either, since you've never bothered to be a colleague in the first place. And you're worse than a rat, Newton. You're a possum. Oh, and don't let the door of your sequestered office hit you on the ass on your way out of town, ok? P.S. Drop us a note in three years when you scurry away from that place, too.
  

Please, Will You All Leave Us Alone With the Memes? We'll Do One If You'll JUST STOP IT!

Apparently every professor at every college in America is taken by this Photobucket meme thingy. At least we get enough mail about it to suggest that it's some kind of holy grail of hyper-reality and critical whatamajiggy.

The directions are:

1. Go to http://www.photobucket.com/
2. Type in your answer to each question in the “search” box.
3. Choose a photo from the first page of results.
4. Insert the photo into your Blog.

We've received dozens of different ones, but we're using the one sent to us by Pilates Pilar of Pocatello. Thanks, Pilar. We now know more about you than we bargained for.

The Official One-and-Only RYS Photobucket Meme:

1. What is your relationship status?

2. What inspires you?














3. What is your current mood?

4. What is your favorite movie?

5. What do you look like?

6. Where do you live?

Northbound Newton Is Not a Rat. Do You Hear Us? HE'S NOT A RAT. We Mean, He Is Scurrying Away, But That's Not Necessarily Rat-like.

I am so angry that I can't even think straight. I went from the best day of my life to the worst in a blink.

Let me backtrack. I was hired by this cracker university 3 years ago with a ton of lies about how easy my time was going to be. I would get the classes I wanted, I'd have a nice office with a view of the quad, and my research would mean something. But it hasn't worked that way at all. Instead I'm asked to teach almost all freshman classes, while the deadwood professors teach mostly upper division. My office is on an inside wall, when the aged and nearly senile senior faculty luxuriate around the outside of the building with sky-high windows. And when I had three poems in a quarterly journal, not one of my "colleagues" said a thing to me.

But I just shut my trap, was very professional, and took their inconsideration because I knew that I was better than any one of them and that someday today would come.

Today I got a chance to jump to another t-t spot, at a garden spot, a truly beautiful campus, close to where I went to grad school. The people there, forgive me, wear shoes and have all their teeth. It'll be like sucking manna through a straw for me. There I will get to teach upper division courses, and everyone who interviewed me seemed truly interested in my writing, my teaching, and just accepting me for who I am.

So when I got the news I ran to my office building and started knocking on doors to tell my colleagues. Call me a greenhorn, but I thought they'd all be happy for me. But most just smiled and said, "Good for you," with about as much passion as deadwood can summon. In fact, after I left the faculty lounge - where I told a group of faculty from Political Science and Sociology my great news - I thought I heard someone say: "I sort of forget it's job season. I guess the rats are scurrying off the ship."

I couldn't believe it. I AM NOT A RAT, you ignorant cracker douchebag. I AM NOT A RAT. I'm a hard working and talented professor, one who has been ignored and lied to, disregarded and underused by this small time, small town ship of fools. (Ahhh, there's the ship imagery!)

I am going to turn my grades in, pack my books, and I'll be on a highway north before my former "colleagues" even know I'm gone. I would give anything if you would publish the name of my school so that when their job ad comes out next week nobody will get stuck like I did. I know you probably won't, but it's Xxxxxxxxx College. Fuck them. You're better off teaching where you are then coming here. You're better off being UNEMPLOYED than being here.

Sign me out,

Northbound Newton

Feeling Linky.

• Treat Students Like Adults, Yeah, That Always Works. From DailyEmerald.com.


• Professors and Wikipedia. From InsideHigherEd.com.


• Professors Should Get Out the Vote. From the St. John Fisher Cardinal Courier.


• Professors as Role Models. From the CSU-Chico Orion.


• Professors and Assigned Reading. From the Stanford Daily. (Check the date.)


• Professors on Film. From the Washington Post.


• The Aging Professoriate. From the Brown Daily Herald.


• Paperless Professors. From InsideHigherEd.com.


• Textbook Costs. From the NY Times.


• Textbook Worth. From the Quinnipiac Chronicle.

Readers Are Split On Angie the Advisor.

Kindly keep your nose out of my classroom. It is not your job to arbitrate students' disputes with faculty. On every campus I know of, students are to appeal to the dept. chair, then the college dean; appeals are to be submitted in writing with supporting documentation. If a student is too lazy to read how the process works in the student handbook it is their problem. You have no more business asking me what is on my syllabus or what will be covered on my tests or what "my side of the story is" than does a student's mom.

Did you ever wonder why the student does not have a copy of the syllabus? Quit being a doormat. Tell the students to grow up and talk with their professors themselves about any problems they have with a course. Furthermore, please make sure that students in my classes actually meet the course prerequisites! And, don't worry, I won't be coming by your office regardless of how cute you think you are.

---

Your requests to your fellow faculty are reasonable but futile. The people who have appointed you the academic advisor are not people who are interested in what would make your job easier. Period. Your situation is freaking unconscionable. Get out now, if you can. The path you are on is the path to academic doom. You will receive crap pay raises because you can't be sufficiently research productive under the conditions you describe, and worse, you won't be able to publish your way out of that shithole because they saddled you with excessive departmental housekeeping.

No matter how many bellow that advising is "a good way to learn the ropes of the university and this department," in most universities, dumping advising on junior faculty women is simple exploitation. Period. It is a chapter in a book entitled "How to Kill a Career Slowly and Painfully." Even if they give you tenure at the end, you'll be making a fraction of what you could be making in another department where they don't see you as fresh meat for their grinder.

Angie from Ann Arbor Explodes All Those Myths About How Bitter Academic Advisors Are in April.

In case there's any question about this, being an academic advisor (AA) is not a great job. It's a particularly steaming pile when one is an academic advisor and a regular faculty member. This means that I get to deal with my students and yours. And at this time of semester, when you've thrown a complete hissy fit about something or another in your class and have failed half your students, this means my job goes from shit to shit-plus.

To that end, please don't:

1. Decide at the very end of the semester to enforce a particular policy, whether on your syllabus or from the university. I spend lots of time hearing sorrowful complaints from students who bleat "but he didn't take off for plagiarism on the first 4 assignments!" Make your rules consistent and firm, and things will be easier for you and me.


2. If you didn't finish your syllabus, please don't test them on the full syllabus, unless you make explicit that everything on the syllabus is their responsibility, regardless of whether it was discussed in class. How many times must I hear "but we only got to chapter 12 and 1/2 the final was on chapters 13-20!"? Oh, and if it's a cumulative final, tell them so.


3. Please, don't come by my office in the middle of my advising hours, cutting through a line of imbeciles 20 deep, to tell me long winded tales about how awful your students really, really, are and how sorry you are about having made my life difficult.


4. When I ask you for your syllabus or ask questions about your course, so I can check to see whether Johnny is lying about the due date, or Susie is telling tales about what was really supposed to be on the test, don't send me last decade's syllabus along with a drunken screed about how inconsiderate I am for making you attach a file to an email when you're "so busy working on your book."


5. Please, after you bolt to "civilization" the very afternoon of your final exam, when your TA is desperate because you didn't leave the grade key, when I remind you again that your grades are now overdue, and that each student has to be given an Incomplete - leading to a stream of should-have-graduated-seniors and their angry as hornets parents to my door - don't "forget" to respond to any of us then send the department head a snippy email about how "really, it's not the advisor's place to make demands from the senior faculty." Keep in mind, I am doing an essential part of all of our jobs while you are drinking cosmotinis in Belize.


6. Please don't tell me that "advising issues" (read: determining whether we can throw the book at Lying Johnny for plagiarism) are my problem or remind me why I have this job when I ask you for your side of the story. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm the AA because I'm just "that personable" and "students respond so much better to advising from a young, female staff member." You've told me already, every time I ask something of you. Fortunately for me, the former AA, also a personable young female faculty member who left for the university across town when she decided she'd had enough of being the students' dorm mom and your door mat, has also told me that "personable" means "has boobs and is not paid enough for a summer-vacation ticket to anywhere but the next Batman movie."

We'll Have Our Eye Out For Golden Poopie Boy.

I am friendly and apparently approachable, so the fact that I'm pursued by the crazed zombies in search of recommendation letters is my own fault. But I just got the topper.

The MOTHER of a kid in my drama program e-mailed asking me to write him a recommendation. She finished the request with "we appreciate this," without a hint of irony.

Let's set aside that his mommy is asking for his recommendations for him - I wouldn't recommend him anyway.

All I could say is "Golden Poopie Boy will occasional show up for rehearsal. You can expect his mother to call you regularly to give you a 15 minute description of whatever family function he's attending instead of rehearsal. Golden Poop, as we call him, is the only student to ever have done community theater. He's the only child ever to have sung AND acted in the same play, the only one to get all of his lines right, well at least the ones he remembers. If you sometimes feel unchallenged by the dolts who come to your program, then please accept GP. I know he will be the first child ever to have been accepted and that your life will have meaning now that GP has graced you with his divine work."

If it was for a college that would involve a dorm and an overnight drive, I'd probably write it.

"Explosive Topics." Where We Imagine The Writer Using That Old Dictum: Start With the Punchline.

I figure being able to come up with a persuasive topic beyond the death penalty, abortion, or why 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner is better than a bottle of each (yes, I had that one) is a reasonable task for students.

Yet, despite Google searches and numerous suggestions from me, many students (whose only grammatically correct sentence is a dumb look) come up with topics like, “I’m thinking about writing something about Iraq, you know, the war and stuff, and like it’s not good, and stuff.” How about I just give you your grade now, I fantasize.

One young lady, obviously destined to be a Wal-Mart greeter back-up, voiced her frustration at finding a persuasive topic. She mentioned women’s rights so I suggested she find something persuasive about women being exploited.

Her paper arrived 2 days later with a pencil note at the top. She wrote: I don’t think my paper is very good because I couldn’t find any information on why we should explode women.

4 Minutes of My Life I'll Never Get Back. The Ballad of Slaptastic Shitforbrains.

Student X: Hi, uh, Dr M?

Dr M: Yes...?

Student X: Hi, I'm in your class and I wanted to know what I can do to get a good grade. I am supposed to graduate in May and I really need an A.

Dr M: Okay, which class of mine are you in and what is your name? Let's see what we can do.

Student X: I'm in your media course and I'm Slaptastic Shitforbrains.

Dr M: Well Slaptastic, as I teach 3 courses in media, you may have to be more specific. If you don't know the course title, give me your ID number and I'll look you up on the roster.

Student X: My ID number? Did you give those out at the beginning of class?

Dr M: Your university ID number? The one assigned by the university when you started?

Student X: Oh, that. Uh, I don't remember, can you look me up by my name?

Dr M: You know, you don't look very familiar to me. When is the last time you've been to my class?

Student X: Um, I haven't been in a while because I've been really busy.

Dr M: Define "a while."

Student X: Well, I meant to come last week, but couldn't. See, I enrolled in your course but I haven't been to class. It's been a really busy semester. I'm taking 4 other courses and it's just been too much. I need 5 courses to graduate though, so I need a passing score for your class. I was hoping I could make up the assignments this week and get the photocopies of the notes so I can pass the exam. My friend said you make copies for us. Can I get the notes? If I give you the assignments by Friday will you accept them? My friend says that course work counts for 60% and that we have to have a participation score. Can I do an extra-credit assignment to make up the participation score? 'Cause I really need an A.

Dr M: Let me see if I understand you: you have not been to class at all, everything you know about my course comes from your friend, and you want to do all the course work in the next 48 hours. I'm sorry, at this point, I cannot help you.

Student X: You see though I really need a score higher than a C because I have to pass.

Dr M: You have not come to class once. I cannot help you at this point. Your choice not to come to class at all is a choice not to get a grade in this course.

Student X: Is there someone who can help me? Do you know who the academic advisor for the media department is?

Dr M: I AM the advisor and I am telling you that I cannot help you, either as advisor or professor of your course.

Student X: But, I really need....

Wherein We Get One Last "Gooey" Shout-Out For Margie. (And, Diaperin' Doug, You Might Want to Look Away.)

Dear Mama Margie,

I feel you, baby. While Doug has his heart and his man parts in the right place, I imagine that his post only served to make you feel like shit that you're not being a good mother. In Doug's Utopian world, where there is a superwoman wife to bring home the bacon, beloved family members who form the village that raise the children, and a really convenient schedule (hurrah for you Doug. Really.), it all runs well. For you and I, and the other thousands of grad school moms (I'm a single mom, and have been since the end of my Master's degree) life isn't this idyllic, but we can still squeeze out a doctorate. We'll just be a little worse for wear than Doug on the other side. So here are some tips I've picked up along the way (I'm writing my diss now). Take what you want, and leave the rest.

It's okay if your kid watches TV while you work. I prefer Doug's suggestion on this point, which is to be in the room with them. When I'm under the gun, I load up a tray with water, healthy snacks for both of us, colors and a coloring book, and take my laptop in the bedroom where we camp out for a couple of hours at a time to work. That way I can monitor what she's eating and watching, pat her back if she's dozing, and feel that I'm at least physically present. Then we take the dogs for a quick walk and talk. Maybe we go back to the bedroom, maybe we're done for the day.

If you're the food provider in your household, take a couple of hours over the weekend to cook a shitload of meals that are then parceled out into individual servings. Throw some in the fridge and some in the freezer. Then you can not take on the guilt of feeling like your family is malnourished (and you can save yourself from lunching out of the vending machine).

Minimize grading in your class. When you give quizzes or in-class work, let the students grade one another's work. I glance over them in case Johnny gives Suzie and A so he can bang her over Spring Break, but it usually works well.

Have them workshop one another's larger projects. It teaches them how to be tactfully critical and evaluative, and they learn more about the project, paper, or whatever themselves. Take this time to make out the next day's lesson plan.

Figure out when you work best. If it's at night, stay up and write after the kids go to bed. If it's in the a.m. (like me), go to bed when they do and get up a few hours early to write.

Don't let shitheads make you feel like you're not a good mother. As long as you're around, and you care about your kids, they will be okay. My mom had to do the same thing with myself and my sister, and we're functioning members of society. Take care of yourself, and hug your kids a lot. (And for those of you who regard this post as too gooey for RYS, go screw yourselves.)

Every Assignment is a Character Test. Replies to Audrina.

Many of you wanted to give Angsty Audrina some help. We've chosen the flava below for you to enjoy:

• You ask: Does she deserve to fail for being dishonest or stupid? I read this question two ways: 1. You have decided to flunk her and now want to decide between two choices (dishonest or stupid). 2. Although she was either dishonest or stupid, you are asking if you should flunk her. Either way, my response is an easy two-worded one: “academic dishonesty.” I hope that phrase has not been phased out at your institution. Not only should she fail, she should be placed on probation at the very least.
  


• No, 20 years ago she wouldn't have failed the course and no, 30 years ago she wouldn't have been expelled. This is just a standard variation on an excuse that has been used since there were students. "Oh no, I must have put it in the wrong mailbox!" "I slid it under your door, didn't you get it?" "I put it in the stack of papers at the front of the class with everyone else - please tell me you haven't lost it!" Or the all-time favourite, "but I put it in campus mail 2 weeks ago!" - which was, in my day, good for anything, because campus mail routinely lost every essay ever entrusted to it. Or so one was forced to conclude, since none ever reached the intended recipient. This isn't deliberate intent to defraud or to pass off another person's work as one's own; this is just panic-stricken dishonesty of the "the check is in the mail" variety. The appropriate penalty, then as now, was to give the student 0% on the paper, since it never reached the instructor. It's nothing to get your knickers in a twist about, Audrina. Save your self-righteous rage for the lying little scumbags out there who ARE ripping their papers off the web or paying someone to write them. They deserve it. This pathetic child just needs to learn to hand stuff in.
  


• I think you put way more effort into this assignment by way of helping her find the paper than she deserved. I suggest next time that a student be able to produce a copy immediately if necessary, or that he / she will get a failing grade on it. If you'd told Lizzie that--when you found you had no paper from her--[hard drives can be mined for old files; almost everyone has a thumb drive these days] you could have saved her a lot of lying and you a lot of angst. A few years ago I came up with a pretty good solution to the 'I'm sure I turned it in'-missing paper problem by requiring students to print out two paper copies at the same time: one to turn in and one to keep 'just in case' [noted in the syllabus and the requirement repeated in class before the assignment is due]. That way they can produce it immediately if I find I don't have one from them. Lo and behold this has virtually ended this problem. I also now check the papers off against a class list as soon as I return to my office, and notify any students who have not turned one in that they have 'x' amount of time in which to do so without 'y' consequences.
  


• I, for one, am absolutely astonished that any teacher would waste so much time. For God's sake--and every other teacher's--don't do it again. Giving the original F would have elicited howls from her if she had DONE the paper and most likely, silence if she had not. That would save quite a bit of time--the most precious commodity we have. Sometimes the most charming, likable students will blind you--fool you--as they've fooled others in the past. Don't be a fool--make sure each student knows that the responsibility is his or hers alone, for providing proof. Don't give an opportunity to lie and waste your time.
  


• In the future, Audrina should ask whether work not submitted merits a grade of F. The F is tricky: as a semester grade, it's a zero, but as a grade on written work, it's a 55 (at least where I come from). That's still a grade -- something -- for nothing. Many years ago, I decided that missing work gets a zero, not an F. Why give "points" for non-existent work? The question should not be whether Lizzie "deserves" to fail for character flaws. The question could instead be whether someone with a zero for 20% of the semester grade should continue in the class. That student would need to average an 87 on all other work to pull out the most minimal C. Lizzie could decide for herself whether that seems do-able, and Audrina wouldn't have to be angsty because of someone else's dishonesty. Oh, and when students promise to show you "their true character," note well: they already have.

The Return of Academic Haiku: Plagiarism, The Futility, the Quickness of Time.

You turned in a paper

so clearly plagiarized

that it made my eyebrows curl.

I tried Turnitin.com -- no luck.

I tried Google -- nothing.

I floated it to the faculty list

I spent two hours on it,

trying to track down references,

time I could have spent with real students.

You included no works cited,

although you cited in-text.

Then you turn in new names whose articles you could find.

The guilty flee, I suppose.

The time I will spend working on busting your ass

exceeds the time most people took to write the paper.

In that time, I could have had conferences with half the class,

written six to ten pages of my novel,

or had sex twice (four times, if they were quickies).

For the history of RYS's

series of "academic haiku."

Angsty Audrina Tells Us The Tale of Lying Lizzie and Her Late Essay.

When I had finished grading all of my students' first essays in a media studies course a couple of weeks ago, I noted one was missing. I checked my email to see if the student had emailed it (something I do not encourage, but since the computer lab many of them use often has printer issues, if students ask first I allow them to email assignments so they can meet a deadline). She had not.

I spoke to her after class (this was ten days after the deadline) to say I did not have her paper, and she said she had emailed it. I said I would check again, and did. I emailed her to say it was still missing, could she print out a copy and put it my mailbox, and/or email me a copy? She then emailed me to say her computer was malfunctioning and "at the repair shop" and so she no longer had access to the essay to send it to me, as (naturally) she had not bothered to back up the hard drive nor had she printed out a draft copy. She would be without her computer for at least two weeks.

I responded via email to her that it was a difficult situation, as I had no evidence she had actually emailed it to me the first time. It finally occurred to me (long after it should have occurred to her, if she was telling the truth) to ask her to forward me the email from her "sent box" which, even if the essay file attachment had been removed, would have shown a dated correspondence proving she had sent it to me. I said this should have already occurred to her, and said if she could not send me this proof, the due date was moved up to the following day at 10 am.

Then she started to get a bit cagey. She claimed she "thought" she had sent it and was "willing to accept" the failing grade and thought that was "fair."

I spoke with her after class and, after she promised to check her email for the "proof" she had sent it, I let her know that, if in fact she was lying all this time, that 20 years ago this behavior probably would have resulted in her failing the class, no questions asked. 30 years ago, she might have been expelled. She nodded, and left.

She emailed again to say she had checked her email and could not find it and that she realized "this was making her case seem weaker." I wrote back to say that the only way to prove she had done the work was to show me the file and the date of its creation and editing, thereby proving it was at least being worked on around the time of the deadline. But that if she had in fact been lying all this time, the time to come clean about it was now. I also said that if she had been telling the truth she certainly would have tried harder to prove she had done the work.

So yesterday I got an email admitting that she had not turned it in because it was "incomplete." She said she "had never meant things to go on for so long," apologized for "perpetuating this and wasting your time" and claimed this was absolutely not "in character" for her, that she was sorry to not have shown me the "respect" I deserve, that she was "ashamed" of her actions and hoped she "could prove her true character" to me in the time remaining in the semester (about 3 weeks).

The essay was originally due at mid-term, almost a month ago. This back and forth via email has been going on for two weeks. I answered her most recent email thanking her for finally coming clean, and saying I was giving her an F for the assignment (which counts for 20% of the grade), but that it was still possible to pass the course if she got everything done on time and did really well. Her attendance is fine and other grades so-so.

Does she deserve to fail for being dishonest or stupid?

We Love His Energy And All That, But We Feel Pretty Sure that Trash Can Tim's Going To Blame Us For This One Day.

You guys saved my ass yesterday. Posting that 2 year old flashback about evaluations was just the recipe I needed, the wind in my sails, a little Prozac for the soul, a giant espresso enema that got me on track and loving life again.

So, let me tell you how it went down.

I'm in my office, doing my normal 8:34 am thing, and my chair comes in and drops a manila envelope on my desk. "Tim," she says. "It's evaluation time. Since you did all of your classes in the Fall, you can do just one this term. Bye!"

Yeah, and I really hate evaluations anyway, so this wasn't as big a treat as she may have thought. In eight years I've not learned a single thing from a student evaluation, except for that maybe my breath stinks and I wear my suits too baggy.

So I'm getting my class stuff together and browsing RYS, and I read the post about evaluation instructions. I cracked up at: Part and full-time instructors use your responses – and particularly your written comments – to help improve our courses and our teaching. At least in theory. Some just toss them in the bin right away, cackling at how silly your little concerns are.

Anyway, 8:58 am comes and I have to go, so I scoop up my briefcase and the evaluations and start the death march to my class. The whole time I'm thinking, "I'm a big pussy. I'm a loser. I'm going to get down on my knees to the dipshits in my class and beg them to evaluate me. Because they know! I mean, if anyone understands educational pedagogy, and the value of a professor, it's a half-drunk 19 year old Sigma Butt Banga!"

As I neared my building, an inspired moment of genius swept over me. In my right hand was the evaluation envelope. A garbage can loomed on my right, and I tossed that bitch right in there.

I have never felt so free in my whole life. I taught a great class. I didn't think once about whether or not I was doing the right thing. I don't need an evaluation to tell me anything. I work hard. I'm a smart guy. I give my interested students everything I have, and I save a few dunderheads as well.

I don't know what happens next. I guess I won't be turning in evaluations this term. Somewhere up the line a box next to my name will go unchecked. I figure I have 34 lies I can tell about the envelope. Lost it. Did it, but student trashed it. Did it, don't know the rest. Huh? That's one for the record books. What's the worst that can happen?

The point is, you saved me today. I had the impulse only because of you guys. I've gotten stronger over the past few months as I've read this page, and I'm thankful that you and that trash can conspired to give me a groovy day.

Portfolios. Another Way to Ruin Our Fun.

Our department has just replaced a written essay final exam with porfolios. According to my websearch, this idea is all over the country. But unless you eliminate the student's name, AND the professor's name from the headers on the portfolio submission, don't they merely become a way to Rate The Professors?

I just spent 8 weeks reading and re-reading their first essay to get the students up to snuff. I saw one student's essay 4 times and when he kept changing the good parts and keeping the bad parts, I told him it was fine--ready for Portfolio! I chirped--hoping to preserve at least some of the decent writing.

The reasoning for this portfolio madness? I've been told that in case a version of NCLB moves its way up the ladder to us, we can say we are already evaluating our students on a rubric. Yippee!

So more of the high school level garbage is coming our way? First it was the idea that we'll hold the students' hands. (One student asked me yesterday why I didn't tell him that he didn't turn in his first essay? Um, not my job?)

Then it was Student Learning Outcomes--so we can have a nifty phrase that desribes what our students should be able to "do" when they leave our class. And now it's portfolios, which are just another way to import secondary education so we can all really become Glorified High School Teachers and act accordingly.

If that's the case, I'm headed to the Teacher's Lounge and hope not to return. Oh yeah, right. Unlike high schools in this state, who get a mandated slice of the yearly budget, we used to have a Teacher's Lounge, but it was made over into office space.

What Happens to Evaluations of Profs When Profs Make Students Teach Themselves? Depressed Delmar Wants to Know.

So I'm trying this cooperative-learning stuff in my class. I've rebuilt my entire intro science course into a team-learning model, and it's been really successful from my point of view as the instructor--students are learning more, and applying it at a more sophisticated level, than I've ever seen in this course. I've read up on this stuff, been to workshops, seminars and talks, and I'm using best practices. I work hard at this. And I am a very effective teacher.

And yet: they're over there doing their course evals right now, and I suspect I'm going to get slaughtered, because so many of them would just rather have someone stand at the front of the room and drone at them--whether they learn anything or not, whether they make good grades or not--than have to read the material and have a conversation about it. "She never actually teaches us anything, I have to learn everything myself, I had to read the book to learn anything, I had to study more for this class than for any of my other classes" is what I'll get, over and over again.

For my part (and while I'm actually qualified to have an opinion about what makes for effective, deep learning, most of them are not) I actually take those comments as positive feedback rather than negative. I mean, whether or not they realize it now, that's a big part of what I'm trying to teach them: that ultimately we have to learn everything ourselves. But because they think that having to read, discuss, digest, synthesize, and form a complete sentence from time to time are undesirable things, they also give me the crappy crappy numbers. (Some of them even go so far as to check "no" of "never" or "disagree" on things like whether I passed out a syllabus the first day; clearly they don't realize that when they check "no" to something on which 147 other students check "yes," they just look like idiots.)

Maybe it won't be that bad, I'm just depressed because of how shitty this system is. I fucking hate evaluation time.

Two Years Ago on RYS!

What Should Really Be Given As Instructions On the Day You Pass Out Student Evaluations In Class

To be Read by the Instructor:

Each quarter, Xxxxxxxxx College asks students in every course to complete a Course Evaluation form. Your honest, thoughtful responses provide us with vital information we use to evaluate and improve courses. We also use the information to gather data on your instructor. If he likes to wear dresses on the weekend, for example, the data we get from you will allow us to fire him for something other than being freaky-deaky.

Your responses provide important information we use to evaluate part-time instructors for re-hiring and scheduling of future classes. Although, to be fair, part-timers are so cheap and pliable, that unless you report that your instructors have been sodomizing animals in lieu of lecturing, we'll probably hire them all back and put them in your classes again next semester. It gives a nice break to our real professors who are trying to get ready for tenure and promotion.

At the same time, part and full-time instructors use your responses – and particularly your written comments – to help improve our courses and our teaching. At least in theory. Some just toss them in the bin right away, cackling at how silly your little concerns are.

It’s important for you to know, however, that we instructors will not see your responses, or the summary of them, until after your assessments have been submitted. In other words, the anonymity of your responses will be protected. We ask that you be fair, candid, and constructive in your comments. Besides, we've saved some innocuous class quizzes from early in the semester so that we can match your handwriting, and if you make even the slightest negative comment, we'll find who your next profs are and collude to give you so much hell you won't believe it.

At this point, I’m going to turn the process over to [student volunteer/person too stupid to avoid the job], and I’ll leave the room while you complete your forms. Thanks for your cooperation. I'll be out in the hallway, relishing an extra 15 minutes away from you and your criminally small brains and bad attitudes.

Diaperin' and Dissertatin' Doug from Duluth Doesn't Want to Desert Mama Margie.

I'm not surprised Margie was ignored. The problem may be that she asked the wrong crowd. That is, she asked professors (who are sometimes ambivalent about kids - God, this is landmine territory! - and not parents, who understand her dilemma better than any childless Ph.D. candidate ever will).

I have a two-year-old, and I teach four classes. How? Damned if I know. But I will point to things like time management, my wife being on board with me, and getting some help from my family.

Number one. Take a cue from no less than Helen Vendler. Write your dissertation at night when the kid's asleep. This may mean crashing when the kid crashes. Let the dishes and laundry go. That cat nap will give you what you need at night when you're usually wiped out.

Number two, is your partner on board? I stay at home because my wife is the breadwinner. Her sacrifice is significant. As a result, I do what I can to make her life easier w/r/t all household work, and she is willing to allow me to address my outside obligations when she takes reins with the kid. I have a relative who watches my daughter when I teach my courses. It's not an all day affair (my classes are back to back twice a week, while others are at night when the Mrs. is home), so I feel I'm not asking too much.

Here's the deal. The kid is your first priority. End of discussion. In five years, she's off to kindergarten and your day will open like never before. But she's only two-years-old once. Sit her in front of Elmo if you must, but you better be right there on the floor spelling alongside her or it's going to be calamitous later on. (Look at your own students.) Get her toys that amuse her without guilt. Blocks rock! A toy piano. Get the Toddler Busy Book. It kicks freshly diapered ass -- gently, of course. This way, you can correct printed pages of your work alongside her in the same room. Maybe a laptop would help.

Here's the kicker. When he or she turns two, it's all going to change. It gets complex and challenging exponentially. Be there. But you have permission to bring your work to the park when he or she plays on toddler slide.

Damn! The cat's in the toaster again! I gotta run!

Non-Entertaining Ernie from Edmonton (We Just Added That!) Wants to Reply to Animated Abbie.

Dear Abbie,

You seem to think I’m resistant to new and powerful teaching tools. MySpace and Facebook are teaching tools now? And here I was thinking they were places where students fucked around for hours every day instead of actually learning something. You see, that’s where I don’t get your point. How is it that my refusal to let my students “learn” by doing whatever they damned well please INSTEAD OF the actual work for the class is a sign of my laziness? Do tell. To me, it seems like coddling.

Your comparisons are ludicrous. I refuse to adopt as a pedagogical tool whatever flash-in-the-pan technological distraction catches my core classroom demographic’s frequently wandering interest. And that is somehow similar to a student who doesn’t want to learn more about calculus? I wish you were around when this old fart was an undergraduate. You could have let me play Tetris in class to learn about geometry. And I’m sure I would have applauded you, like any good drone from “the other site” for offering classes that aren’t overly challenging, and which show how cool you are. I don’t think I’m the lazy one here, and the violence of your response suggests that I hit a nerve.

Did you even read what I posted? Did I say anything about being anti-technology? “You’ll be the one using computers?” What the fuck? You think I’m using writing slates and primers? Get over it. I use technologies that have an application in the classroom. Facebook has no place in the classroom.

Sure, I’m skeptical of new technologies. I was skeptical of Power Point back when it was the shit, and anyone who has seen what idiots are doing with Power Point lately would probably agree that it’s one of the primary channels for laziness in teaching. I’m skeptical, but here’s the thing—being skeptical of new things takes a hell of a lot more energy than simply jumping onto the bandwagon.

You have fun coddling your students and kidding yourself into believing that you’re some sort of pedagogical innovator. And this old fart will continue to pick up the slack left behind by shitheaded teachers who would rather be cool than teach well.

A Puny Potpourri of Professor Pain.

• I'm not sure how much effort to put into grading the magazine article report by one of my students who pulled a piece from a journal filled with a large number of women's thong-clad asses. Nor can I determine how to evaluate a cultural activity report about...a Donald Duck movie. The student chose this activity because "it funny." And apparently, the countries Donald visited are "magnifious places."


• Do we have to absolutely forbid Wikipedia? I hardly get a paper anymore that doesn't feature sources taken from it. Do these children not know how to walk, or to log on to the university's library page - which has actual sources?


• How is it my fault if you send me an email with no essay attached? And then 24 hours later send the essay with a note that says, "Whoops, I think I forgot this." Oh, it's not my fault. Never mind.


• Hookah Hank has been a dismal student all semester. He's written about legalizing marijuana twice in three papers. He's a fat, slovenly mess, and apparently only plays Xbox and gets high. Oh, but then his most recent essay comes in, an absolutely magnificent piece about the civil rights movement. It's full of sources from the 1980s, nothing newer than 1988. And I know it's plagiarized from some place. I know it's not his work. It doesn't sound the least bit like him. Yet, I've Googled myself silly looking for even the tiniest scrap of it. I can't prove it. I know it, but I can't nail his ass.


• I was sitting in the library the other day, minding my own business, when I heard two girls talking next to me. One said she was headed to class and how much she had been enjoying it. Her professor was a great teacher, and had recently been written up in the school paper for winning an award. To this, the other girl responded "I don't need a good teacher. I just need someone who knows how to GRADE RIGHT."


• Telling me that I'm your favorite professor doesn't hold a lot of water when you've missed more than half the semester. You don't even fucking know me!


• Summer's not long enough for one student. We have our final on May 2nd, but her trip to Europe starts on on April 26th. I'm sorry, did you miss the notice about semester dates? Your dad is going to "lose his mind" if he has to rebook tickets for you? And why do I care? And, Europe? What are you going to do there? Oh, first visit is Amsterdam? Sure, I can see that. You must be a big windmill fan, or perhaps you want to see the new baby tigers at the Artis Zoo. Sorry, sunshine. We've still got work to do here on Responsibility Planet.

Some Big Thirsty Replies. And Not As Many About Booze As You'd Imagine.

• Scantron. Graduate student graders. I’ll be at the bar. Stop by if you need any more advice.



• To lessen the damage, I try to have a paper due about 2 weeks before finals. Otherwise, Moosehead just won’t be enough. We submit our grades on the campus intranet now so they’re immediately available instead of a 1 day lag. Thus, I wait about 3 extra days to submit them. That gives me time to get a 4 pack of Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Expensive, but at 9% alcohol, it has its uses.



• There is no getting around the "grading orgy." Your students put a lot of work into those final essays and projects, and it's your job to spend an appropriate amount of time evaluating it.



• I used to be bothered by it, but once I figured out the math, it got easy. My final is worth 20% of the final grade. That means when I'm sitting down at the big steel desk for the last time, I already have 80% of each student's grade figured out. In almost all cases, the final has to either soar or go splat to change the grade they've already earned. For example, if one student has aced his way through all of our other quizzes, projects, etc., it's a simple matter to grade the final: 1) Is his name on it? Check. 2) Did he write a note that calls me a dickhead? No...good. 3) Is it in English? Check. 4) Write down his A. Any other hand-wringing is just so the teacher feels more important.



• There are many ways to avoid an unpleasant grading season. First of all, make sure it's JUST the final at the end. Don't extend paper deadlines, project deadlines, etc. Make that stuff due over the course of the semester. Too many inexperienced prof-babies at my college end up with 2-3 projects in every class all coming due at week 15. That's insanity.
  


• All I can think of now is to switch from red wine to white wine so I don't inadvertently stain my students' papers.



• I hate to admit that I've moved more and more to multiple-choice finals. I do a small essay and 2 projects during the term, but I simply don't have the time to read normal blue book final exams at the end, not with the load I'm forced to teach. I rationalize it that at the end of the term I pretty much know my students and their work.
  


• While I often have a lot of grading at semester's end, it's usually not very difficult. I've spent all semester with these students and their work, and I know it inside and out. It's not as if I'm starting from scratch. I have a semester's worth of other grades and projects to help me evaluate whatever the last grade is.



• Sometimes, I put a sign on my office door saying that car payments are negotiable and grades are not. When I get the usual “How the fuck did I get a B?” emails, I write back and tell them what they got on the final, what they had for the course and what they would have gotten without a curve. That usually shuts the little whiners up.
  


• Oh yes. We must talk about this now. Right. Let me get my bullshit meter set up. Ding Ding Ding. Someone is going to talk about the dear students and how important it is we evaluate them with care and goodness in our hearts. Bullshit. Someone is going to tell us about some grading software that makes it all smooth and creamy. Bullshit. Someone is going to say, "Grading, isn't that what these lunkhead grad students are for?" Oh, I hate Thirsty Thursday. You get dumb questions, and even dumber answers. Like this one, I suppose.
  

Big Thirsty. How Do You Cope with Grading Season?

We're tempted, because of the dismal help Mama Margie received, to skip Big Thirsty this week, but many of you have asked us to spend some time on the grading pressure at the end of the year. We got the idea for this week's question from one of our favorite correspondents, Buck The Canuck:

• You know that saying about the million monkeys at the typewriters? They may or may not ever write Shakespeare, but I bet they’d manage to start a new paragraph every so often. How the fuck do you go twelve pages without indenting at least once in a while?
  


• Speaking of Shakespeare, you ever notice how all those books I told you to read never called him just “William," "Bill," or "Shakey"? Not once. Either surname or full name – I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t consider you a close enough friend to call him anything else.
  


• I have Google. Do you plagiarists think you’re hooked into some covert network that I don’t know about? It’s hard to say what makes me more pissed off: that you think I’m stupid enough not to catch you, or that I now have to spend hours on administrative bullshit reporting you so you can get a slap on the wrist. Honestly, I’d rather skip the formalities, wrap your downloaded submissions around bricks, and beat you cheating motherfuckers senseless with them.
  


• Don’t like your grade? Trust me, if it weren’t for the gentle beer buzz I maintain while marking, you’d all get 10% less.
  


• I can formally bear witness to the fact that your opinions about most everything are retarded. So, if you want to look a teeny bit smart in an essay, leave them out. Just write me a straight ahead paper that uses evidence and analysis. It’s not only that I don’t give a fuck about your off-the-cuff musings, it’s that they are depressingly stupid.
  


• I read every paper carefully, but I can usually guess the eventual grade on the basis of the first paragraph. I keep an open mind, but I’m awfully tempted to save myself time and just hand you a grade based on that alone.
  

Q: So, how do we best deal with the grading orgy at year's end? Do we, like Buck, get out the Moosehead to smooth out the process, or do you have a better set of tricks that will help even the most harried of us to get those papers, exams, portfolios, and projects marked up and ready for final grades?

A: Send replies here.

Back Before We Became Boring and Pretentious, We Featured a Lot of Smackdown. In Fact, Our Heads Are So Far Up Our Asses, That We Almost Missed This!

H: You are a derailed keener. You want to be idolized as a deep thinker and brilliant mind, but it would help if you actually read the books we're discussing. I'm not an idiot. I know when you come out with broad statements about style or vague responses including the word "postmodernism" that you have not done the reading. Don't try to answer every question when you don't know what's going on. Oh, and stop showing up in your DIY clothes, smug smile, and air of entitlement.

R: Please shut up. Just stop speaking. No one listens to you, no one thinks you're funny, and you waste SO much class time with your tangents and stupid, unrelated questions. Who cares that the play you wrote last semester included a joke about the Cold War? So very clever of you to reference the political climate of the time in which your play is set.

E: Everyone knows you're lusting after the guy who sits next to you, but please stop giggling maniacally at everything he says and put the ass-crack away. No one wants to see your thong at 9 am and your cackling makes me fear that a den of witches is going to descend upon the classroom at any moment. Plus it's distracting. So stop it.

J: Seriously, if you roll your eyes again I will poke them out with my pen. It's not even your just your eyes; you practically roll your entire body. But guess what? You make more mistakes than most people in this class. It's not below you. I realize your sense of entitlement allows you to loudly interrupt the lecture when you don't understand something, and even almost-yell "No!" when someone presents a fact you disagree with.

Barney from Baltimore Earns Our Applause For His Deft And Unconventional Advice on the 18 Page Dissertation.

I can help Mama Margie get her damn dissertation finished.

Point one: Perhaps you’re making the mistake of actively soliciting feedback from your advisor or dissertation director?

DON’T!

He’s not really reading your dissertation. He’s doing a little light skimming. He’ll stop once he realizes you haven’t cited some article he vaguely remembers from his own dissertation. And he’ll make a note: “You’ll need to account for Henderson’s 1974 analysis of blah, blah, freakin’ blah.” More work for you!

If you give a dissertation chapter to an advisor, he’s going to make comments. Avoid this by ignoring him completely until you’ve actually written your dissertation. Present the dissertation as a done deal, an intimidating twenty pound lump of painfully dull nonsense that no sane person would want to touch. Throw your completed dissertation on your advisor’s desk defiantly, as a challenge. “Mark this up, jackass!” He won’t.

Point Two: You’re probably saying to yourself, “If I could produce twenty pounds of text, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Your problem? You worry about quality.

DON’T!

No one will ever read your dissertation. Visit any research university. See the rows upon rows of heavy cloth bound dissertations? There’s a 1923 dissertation on the use of mythology in Herodotus’ histories. The spine is uncracked, the author long dead. Instead of letting this grim fact depress you, take heart: your committee members won’t actually read your dissertation. They’ll skim the introductory chapter, lightly, make a few notes, then go back to playing Tiger Woods Golf. So, focus your attention on the Introduction. If you can write 18 pages of solid prose, you can graduate with a Ph.D.

And that, Margie, is a task you can accomplish this weekend.

Animated Abigail Takes a Leap and Lands on Non-Entertaining Ernie. (And Tries to Start Up the Old Senior/Junior Thing Again.)

Are you renaming the site to "Rate your slothfulness (as a professor)"? I think Non-Entertaining Ernie is a dipshit. He's proud of his resistance to trying new and potentially powerful teaching tools.

His attitude parallels that of the student who is convinced he already understands calculus because had one shitty course in high school. Ernie thinks he already understands teaching, but Ernie sucks at teaching. How do I know? Because he does not deign to consider alternative educational approaches, and he doesn't want to hear about ways to generate greater interest in his subject.

The best teaching is entertainment, and vice versa. Technology is not a gimmick if you use it properly to achieve and illustrate topics which are naturally dynamic or experimental or interactive.

Sorry you're lazy, Ernie. Sorry you're old. I'm going to leap to the conclusion that you're one of those tenured deadwood blocking the way up the TT for the thousands of energetic and experimental scholars who care about teaching. You go on chiseling your rote lessons into the rock face, and I'll be the one using computers and experiments and animations and participatory demos.

Oh, and I'll be the one with the students who care about my class.

Wherein the Kompound Kids Apparently Have Revealed An Agenda.

THAT is how you chose to mark the first anniversary of the VA Tech shootings? That is how you honor the victims and the survivors and their families? With Flossie? With some bitter, angry political screed which can be found on any comment-open site on Earth? I was beyond thrilled when, a few months ago, you declined to endorse anyone in the Presidental campaign, thereby preserving RYS as at least one place I could come for respite from the endless left vs. right political screaming which divides our nation more and more.

The refusal of RYS to become yet another respository of ideological screeching from either side of the aisle is one of its strongest assets. And then on a day for reflection, sorrow, and remembrance, here comes "brownshirts," "goons," and "gun-nut."

Flossie is, of course, entitled to her opinion, and I'm glad she is free to express it. Maybe she can be regarded as an example of the anger we must overcome if we are to become a more peaceful society, one able to fully concentrate on "High Culture," as she wishes. Well, we all want that. But why choose to showcase such divisive language today?

I know you just had a submissions-begging post, but in the absence of anything especially compelling to mark the day, what was wrong with a quiet picture of a ribbon, as you posted last year on the day of the shootings? Or why couldn't it have simply been business as usual, showing that through the terror, blood, and pain, we all go back to the classroom undaunted?

Instead, you showcased a tantrum. This wasn't only a missed opportunity. It was a downright shame.

Fed-up Flossie from Fort Collins Is Leaving, And We're Waiting for Our Invite.

On this, the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, I read my state legislature's new concealed-weapons bill (now pending the guv's signature) that would give our self-centered, self-righteous adultolescents with anger management issues permission to carry handguns on campus. The alleged rationale for this piece of right-wing, gun-nut, ideologically-driven crapfest is that several 18-year-olds with impulse control problems are, theoretically, going to save me and their classmates in Room 330 from the next mad shooter to lose it. If the snowflakes' aim is anything like their inability to hit the broad side of a syllogism, we're up to our necks in deep shit.

I have the solution. I am leaving the U.S. of A. to teach in a country where handguns are not permitted, admissions are based on academic performance and intellectual ability (not bastardized testing), and High Culture is revered. (And yes, we can extend the definition of High Culture to include that of Indigenous Culture, in case you were wondering--not like here in the States.)

While the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, cleavage-flashing, Daddy's-SUV-driving morons of our great nation continue to bullshit their way through useless "degree programs" that leave them with a piece of framed toilet paper as the ultimate validation of their snowflakey genius, I will be training the cultural elite of another nation to kick their asses in business, politics, the arts, and every other aspect of civilized life. And I will have health care, decent working conditions, and--most important of all--students who actually WANT to read, write, learn, think, grow.

I say leave the universities to the Philistines. Nobody has had the balls to call a general strike over the fact that college professors make half as much as K-12 "educators," much less the clear and present danger of armed MySpace Cadets. What would it take, people, for you to rise up from your individual and collective complacency about how shitty teaching conditions have become?

Religious nuts and ideologues of all political stripes (but especially the right) have mounted an assault on the citadels of reason in this country, using false, invalid, and unsound arguments that most freshmen can't grasp but are willing to swallow like Girls Gone Wild on spring break in Florabama. Young Americans for Freedom goons send students out like so many Amway salesmen to earn "points" for creating one-sided "debates" about the alleged brainwashing that "liberal" professors are engaged in.

Now wealthy ideologues are buying their way into the curriculum (via bad Ayn Rand books). In short, the university is becoming a bizarre mix of sex, religion, and drunken target practice. Next up: Brown shirts as the new uniform to restore order to our nation's campuses and Coulter Across the Curriculum.

Let's decamp. Exile is the solution for the foreseeable future. Let's enjoy pleasant climates, reasonable costs of living, regular dental visits, classroom authority, and a living wage--not to mention the honor and respect we have earned by dint of our hard work and sacrifice over decades of research and learning. We are masters and doctors, not grade-waitrons.

My work here is done.

If You're Going to Just Pull Your Assignments Out of the Newspaper, At Least Drive to the Next Town For Them - Or Check the Byline.

Some students are not so dumb. One of mine, for instance, redefined "stupid" all on his own. The assignment was simple: write in about 500 words how you felt following 9/11.

He turned it in, I read it, and on the spot told him he plagiarized and asked why I shouldn't drop him from the class. I think I said something to the bend of "Why is your ass still here?"

He denied it, of course. I explained that it isn't procedure to accuse anyone of stealing someone else's work unless we have proof -- so clearly I was not bluffing. He denied it again, of course.

I gave him two options: come back with the original and I'll let him redo it -- I believe the embarrassment alone is enough sometimes to loosen up those tight asses out there. Or, I come with the original and I remove him from the class (my standard policy -- do your own work or work at Hardees).

He told me I couldn't come back with the original since he wrote it. He showed up for class the next day. I taught. Everyone left but him. I asked if he brought the original and he said he had not, not making eye contact, slouching in that way only students can when they know they're about to be embarrassed.

"It's okay," I said. "I brought it."

I started to read: "There are still no words for September 11th, by...." I looked at him a long time.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he said.

It was the first paragraph of an essay I wrote for the local newspaper.

"It had to take more time to find this than to just write what you felt," I said/asked in a "no one can be that stupid" kind of way I've spent two decades perfecting.

"It wasn't such an easy assignment," he said. "I really didn't feel anything.”

Damn. That's what scares me the most.

Mama Margie Is Thirsty a Day Early.

RYS is full of people who did what I can't seem to do. I read tons of anecdotes from the people who ran off from grad school early ABD and had to adjunct a long time before finishing the dissertation. But then they got it done.

I'm finding it's a catch-22 and I don't know how you get out. Before your dissertation is done, no one will hire you full time so you have to work two jobs to pay your bills. And while you work two jobs to pay your bills, there's not enough time to work on the dissertation.

I have kids, too, and the 15 month old is going to be a moron because I plunk him down in front of NOGGIN and PBSKIDS for long periods of time so I can squeeze in a little work.

I assume it's bad time management on my part. So I'm begging for tips. Any efficiency tips related to any aspect of my life would probably help. How do you get your lesson plans done, your tests written and graded, your labs graded, your problem sets graded, your thesis written, your 15 month old fed, cleaned, played with, your dogs walked, your tires checked, your hair washed and your coffee brewed before you're so sick of your dissertation that you light it on fire and literally become a whore because you're tired of doing it figuratively at every community college in a 50 mile radius from your home?

I know a lot of you did it and I know whatever I'm doing wrong, it's me and not unique circumstances. So please, help me. I want to be on the other side with you.

Over It Oscar: "Over and Out."

We tend to get a lot more of these posts than we used to, and they often come near the end of semesters. We've gotten at least 20 of these this month, and they always make us sad. We've found great joys in an academic career, but we completely understand this writer's confusion and despair. We'd rather this was a light and lively smackdown story, but the truth is, a lot of our readers feel like this.

So, another semester come and gone in my life on the temp treadmill. Sadly I am coming to the conclusion that I don't need the academy to be happy. So despite the opportunity for continued spectacular underemployment, I have had it with condescending senior faculty and unmotivated, culture of entitlement students. Unlike some of my colleagues from grad school who are unemployed or under-employed as fry-vat engineers, I have been 'lucky' enough to land a couple back to back contracts at Mediocre Midwest University.

The faculty here at MMU has generally been supportive, but I am tired of the uncertainty of yearly contracts which the university views as less expensive than a 'real' hire. I am also tired of the job search grind. Yeah I just got the Ph.D, but I don't see how that makes me sub-human. In my experiences with search committees I got the impression that they felt I should be grateful they deigned to talk to me... and here I thought they might view me as a valuable potential addition to their department. Silly me.

As for the human flotsam barely pretending to be a carbon based life form around here, i.e., students, what can I say? If this sad ass lot of Guitar Hero wannabes is the best we have to offer as a culture, we are screwed. They don't need a university professor, they need zealous missionary attention.

Anyway, I am not interested in dribbling on about how my precious little feelings have been hurt - they haven't - or how the system has damaged my idealism - it didn't. But I do want to point out that the current system is moving towards students as customers and this cannot be good.

Anyway, fuck it. I can go elsewhere, make some money, not have to deal with the bullshit and have a satisfying life. So I am taking myself out of the game.

See ya,

Oscar

They Don't Entertain Us, Why Should We Entertain Them?

Two items in my always-overstuffed email inbox caught my eye this morning. One offered me the glorious opportunity of coming in on my day off to listen to a speaker discuss ways we can reach our students through Facebook and MySpace. The other asked whether I was intrigued by the possibilities of using Second Life (a “Virtual World”) as an instructional tool. I’m sorry, but I am not intrigued, nor am I planning on spending my off-time listening to someone telling me how to reach out to students who can’t be troubled to reach out to the alarm clock each night to be sure that they get up in time to attend my class. When is this shit going to end?

When did it become my responsibility to meet students half-way, let alone going all the way over to their turf, to keep them interested in my class? What makes anyone think students would respond better to having a two-dimensional simulacrum of themselves listen to a two-dimensional simulacrum of me lecturing in a virtual classroom? What’s next? Virtual teleconferencing? Your on-screen persona watches a virtual television broadcast of my lecture, performed by my pre-recorded on-screen persona? Despite the Escher-esque subtleties of such a teaching environment, I just have to say “Fuck that.”

What folks don’t seem to be getting is that anything that is cool for students is cool because it violates the rules of the academy. I’m trying to imagine how I would have felt if an instructor had told me, back in the ‘70s, that he was going to teach me about Sociology by playing a bunch of YES albums and playing Dungeons and Dragons with us. The closest I can come to the reaction my 19-year-old self would have had is: A) What a dick, and B) I bet I can pull an A in this class with absolutely no effort at all, as long as I don’t let him know what a dick he is.

Can we please dispense with technological attempts to teach those who would rather be entertained than taught?

Being "Wonderful You" Is Not Enough.

I’ve seen the nasty name of NCLB invoked as a cause of the rise of snowflake-ism over the past few weeks, and it seems to me a political scapegoat. Personally, I don’t want any politician of any party anywhere near my classroom. But no single government program could wreak the sense of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility I’ve seen.

The problem isn’t testing. If that were the case, these lumps would know how to take a damn test, and as Tricky Tricia pointed out, they can’t even do that. The problem is the culture—the spoon-feeding, ego-driven, helicopter-parenting, fame-for-nothing culture.

My generation was at the front end of this. When I moved out of my parents’ home, I first sifted through childhood debris cluttered with participation certificates and eleventh-place trophies. Not surprisingly, I first had to receive a real-world knockaround before realizing that simply because I’d emerged onto the post-graduate stage with my magnificent presence, no one was going to automatically hand me a contract for anything but trans-fat grease engineering.

I completed my college application on an actual typewriter after four years of writing term papers with actual books as sources. And when I recently visited my alma mater, I entered the library to be smacked in the face with an enormous computer lab stocked with top-of-the-line PC’s and Macs. The books? Well, they were to the side and took up maybe a third of the space of the monitor farm. I’m an email addict and often use online databases to buttress my own research, but it would have never occurred to me to hold up a medium-sized novel by the cover and demand to know if I “have to read this whole thing to get an A.”

So when students are taught from balanced-by-committee “readers” instead of full-length primary sources and permitted to list Wikipedia on a bibliography, is it any wonder they plagiarize without even bothering to change the font? For their entire lives, breaking news, historical subtexts, and scientific debate has been pre-chewed and available instantaneously. Of course they shriek when we ask them to construct their own analysis. The entire lives have been analyzed for them.

If Daddy’s going to call the teacher to demand to know why “I’m failing” his son, why should the son bother to show up, physically or intellectually? After a lifetime of micro-marketing and MySpaceism, why are we shocked when they treat us as their personal grade servants? When they see people making a living from fighting with roommates on The Real World or wailing about Britney Spears on YouTube, why should they strive to build any useful skills at all? MTV will hand a path of glory to them. If they’re physically appealing and willing to make a life of thrusting abs or cleavage into a reality show’s camera crew, there are many eager to pay them for it. And millions more willing to watch it.

The problem, then, rises from nearly every corner of the culture. Including mine. At times I’ve hit the automatic lecture button rather than endure another 50 minutes of blank stares because “it’s Rush Week, and I didn’t have time to read.” It means yet another half hour of explaining to a student that even though he “tried, really, really hard” on an end-of-semester paper, he is still going to get a D, because he employed such phrases as “the author who said that in the book is rediculos” and handed the essay to me in cheerful Comic Sans font.

Not, it's not just about testing. It’s that the majority of our students haven’t yet figured out that sometimes, merely being Wonderful You isn’t enough.

One Last Note About Solomon the Softy.

So, Solomon--'as long as they get it in by the end of the semester you'll count it'??? Wow--you must have one easy finals week, with--apparently--an endless amount of time in which to do that end-of-semester grading. Or a lot of TAs with little regard for any of their time. Or perhaps just a lot of Scantron sheets? Those of us with writing-intensive courses [and I don't teach English Lit and/or Comp] who have a finite amount of time to do a good job of grading can't afford your laid-back ideas about deadlines and/or laissez-faire notions about responsibility for one's work.

Yes, if I were one of your colleagues I'd seriously consider zinging you on tenure / promotion evaluations. You don't take the structure of academia seriously [a sequenced course in which material builds on itself in some meaningful way in a semester or quarter]. You apparently don't think that what faculty do in their courses is terribly important--you make it sound like busy work we've assigned to justify our academic existence.

You also give students the impression that you're cool, and everyone else is a 'Draconian' jerk [requiring things on time--what a useless concept]. So you undermine a major part of what it is that we do [ideally, anyway]: set up a means by which students can demonstrate their take on what it is they're learning--all together, at the logical time in the course.

The Slouchers.

What do you do when your students don't want to be in college? I'm not talking about students who are less than interested in your class, but students who simply enroll in college to appease parents or "society."

I'm at a below average regional state university that feels to me like a prison rather than anything else. I ask my students every semester what they're doing in college, what their dreams are, what they're majoring in. The answers invariably are:

• I don't know. I just want to get my degree and then get a job.


• My mom told me I had to go for 2 years and then I can quit. I want to race cars.


• I'm undeclared. That way I don't have to take any classes above 200.


• Once my dad's money runs out I can quit.

And of course that attitude makes the classroom a dismal place, a place where even the strongest superkeener would give up.

I spent last week conferencing with my students in preparation for their final projects and final exam. Each 15 minute period felt like an hour. Nobody had questions beyond: "Do I have to write this down?" and "Do I have to take the final?" Everyone slumped. Everyone scowled. Everyone looked at their phones or watches or at the clock on the wall, and just waited for the misery to end.

I have to tell you, I used to love teaching. I've only been at this college for 7 years, but I almost feel that it's not worth continuing. I've started to wonder if college really is a "thing" that we should be doing. Students come but don't have a reason. I can't raise a smile or a chuckle from anyone. I can't find one student who just gets a kick out of being here. They slouch and stumble and hang their heads, and I fear that I'll soon be just like them.

Barbie the Bitchy Bear, One of our Favorite Correspondents, Stands Up and Growls For Deadlines, Discipline, and Professional Schools.

I think it's fine if some profs enforce deadlines and other don't. A diversity of personalities and approaches is great. All for it, I am.

But damn, then you had to go looking down your noses at professional schools, and now the gloves are coming off, Pumpkin.

Every once in awhile, I feel bad about the fact that universities generally treat the humanities like crap, and then I have sit through self-important, self-indulgent bilge like "our job is to advance civilization, not train cubicle rats." Civilization, is it? How's that going? It seems to me we're doing one helluva job at that, aren't we? Were it not for us, there would corporate hegemony and whatnot. Thank heavens we're around to keep that sort of thing from going on.

Do you tell your parents that's what you do? Advance civilization? I bet they are impressed. Not. Myself, I'm just one of those robot profs in the professional programs that pay the university's bills so that you get to have the lights on while you discuss Lacan. In the past when my students whined about having to take the humanities requirements, I always said: "Hey, you don't want to be a dumbass when you get out of here, do you? The humanities make sure you're literate, broad-minded and capable of formulating and handling abstract ideas. That's really important for everything you do from parenting to voting to being a professional." I should have said "Do you want to advance civilization or not?"

Look, people in professional schools do not just train Dilberts. We educate nurses and social workers and teachers and doctors and a bunch of other stuff the world needs. We care about the humanities and social/cultural effects of what we are doing or else we would not be grounded within a university. As anybody who understands money knows, universities need professional programs a lot more than the programs (and the professors in them) need universities. A little less holier-than-thou screeching from the rest of the university would be nice. I respect what you do (although I'm kinda thinking the advancing civilization claim is a mite overblown), so how's about exercising that broad mind of yours and allowing for the fact that professional school profs aren't all a bunch of knuckle-dragging, money-grubbing goons averse to the spiritual nature of inquiry simply because we think professional acculturation matters?

And ahem, professors in contemporary universities have very few stones to throw at corporate drones, being corporate drones themselves in either corporatized public institutions or private university corporations. Oh, wait, I'm not capable of understanding the box we're in as I'm an unwashed professional (vocational) school prof who doesn't "get it" like you deep types in the crappy buildings on campus.

I repeat: learning to discipline your own procrastination/perfectionism is one of the most important things I can help a student learn. It's not just about being able to keep a job when they are done, though that is nice. It's about self-mastery, people. It's a lot like everything else we do here. It's about struggling with yourself and overcoming your resistance to expressing your ideas, regardless of whether those ideas are about math, the universe, the nature of it, Derrida, Dracula or a computer program. It's about learning to own and manage your own creative and intellectual processes; it's about forging a daily commitment to the intellectual work that we do either as scholars or as professionals. And no, I don't expect students to be perfect right way; that's why I give students a few grades they can drop to help them figure out that their normal routine of "Wait until the last minute, do a crap job, beg for more time" won't cut it.

Learning to manage your own work (setting your own deadlines, learning to keep them) is the difference between those who move up ladders, corporate and otherwise. It is the difference between finishing your dissertation and not doing so; it is also the difference between getting tenure and not getting tenure at research universities. Pretending you're above that sort of "deadline nonsense" just says to me that you are a sloppy and undisciplined scholar, not that you are producing golden eggs.

Don't Sweat the Other Site.

• For the math professor who has been so crushed by an unfavourable review - can you say snowflake?! For heaven's sake, why go to that other site if it is clearly going to make you so miserable? How long did it take you to cut and paste those comments and write your sad, defensive little screed? The literacy of that woeful student's post speaks for itself. Grow up, grow a skin and get over yourself. Honestly!
  


• I know that RYS was started years ago in part as an answer to that other site, but your recent hysterical poster just doesn't get it. Who gives a shit what students write on that site? All it has ever done for me is keep slacking students out of my rigorous classes. Any student who takes that shit seriously - and plans their college education around it! - deserves what they get, pretty, softy-Solomon types, who smooth the way for students to "succeed," "achieve," and then be under prepared for the world that awaits them all...and it does await them, even those who take the courses that supposedly "advance civilization." Oh, God, I've never laughed so hard in my life.
  

When Someone Visits the Site That Is Not to Be Named, We Usually Get a Note Like This.

As I perused my usual reads earlier this afternoon, I couldn’t help myself; I simply had to look at ratemyprofessor.com and see if there were any new stabs at my character. Now, since this is the time in the semester when the developmental math students must take a state test, their attitudes are at their worst. Once I reached the site, I noticed some of the usual libelous material attacking my character and stating how inferior I am to other teachers, but a particular rating caught my eye:

“test are hard and and hes proud of it and if you dont show your work he takes off points also homwork is due on the test day with your lab sheet and if you didnt take the lab mastery before taking his test he takes of 5 points and the same is for homwork to sum it all just dont take him half are class had to drop out cause hes horrible”

First, I would like to observe a moment of silence to remember all of the poor, pitiful brain cells shriveling and dying in this idiotic lump of flesh that I have the distinguished honor to call “my student.”

Now, I know the spelling and grammar are about as deformed as the un-pedicured toenails of a syphilitic leper, but if we look beyond that we can see this student is criticizing me for a few of things:

1. Apparently being proud of making challenging tests is a bad thing. Keep in mind that I do not make tests too hard to pass (I still have several students with A’s on each of my tests.


2. I teach a math class, and yet the student (remember now, this is a STUDENT) thinks that I am being unreasonable by requiring all scratch work to be shown on the test so that I know that they are doing the work correctly. I’m so sorry, student! I’m sure you, with your minimal high school education, can run a class better than I can!


3. First of all, I have no idea what “homwork” is. But I can tell you all about my homework assignments. Homework being due on the day of the test is bad? Even though I give a minimum of a week to complete one chapter’s worth of homework? Should I give the full 15 weeks of the semester to let you turn in the homework whenever your poor little vegetable brain feels like it?


4. Yes, the lab assignments are also required on test day…but what the student didn’t say is that the lab is actually due before I require it in my class (the lab is independent from the lecture portion). So, if it’s due before I require it anyway…why is this a problem? Ah yes…I forgot; the snowflake doesn’t want to do the lab at all. So sad.


5. “To sum it all just dont take him half are class had to drop out cause he is horrible”. Wait, what? Half are class? Now, I can understand confusing “their” “there” and “they’re” (Hey I didn’t say excuse that mix-up, I just understand it) but mixing up “our” and “are”? This is fantastic! I had all of this excess malice building up in me with no place to unload it, so thank you student! Thank you for crapping out a wonderfully idiotic review to confirm my growing suspicions that college students are becoming more and more stupid!

I guess the student tried to sound at least a little smart by using the math term “sum” in the review…Unfortunately, my misguided fool of a student, you are still an idiot who is going to fail the class (and hey, that means you have to dish out more money for that attempt…a little insult on Ratemyprofessor doesn’t even compare!)

But after I finished reading the review (and finished the subsequent laughter), I realized something: there’s nothing truly wrong with having the characteristics the student complained about. Having challenging tests, requiring homework to be turned in, requiring lab work to be completed on time…mon dieu! The student has actually pointed out several good qualities for a teacher to possess. That’s when I had the realization that if students think that these characteristics are somehow negative, then they have lost sight of what it means to be a student.

Where 3 Readers Get Softy Solomon's Back.

I find it really interesting that all of the replies to Solomon implicitly equate the "real world" to "work." Do you all work for vocational training schools or something? See, I work for a university, and while we train them for the working world, we also educate them in order to live the rest of life as well. (And I just generally assume anyone who uses the phrase "real world" or "ivory tower" is a jackass and an idiot, but that's just me.)

Yeah, you're not teaching them deadlines -- but maybe you're teaching them exactly how long it really does take to write a paper, from start to finish. Or are they just supposed to know that coming in? You bitch that "it makes my job harder" -- your job is hard. It's meant to be. They're not robots; they're students -- and yeah, sometimes lazy, stupid, and feckless. And sometimes they're really confused and need more time to think through an idea that turned out to be more complex. Now, granted, that means you might not get that paper when you get the rest of the stack. God, the hardship you go through, you poor, poor professor, and all because of li'l ol' me.

I have a soft policy on deadlines. But students learn what deadlines are actually for. They learn they're not arbitrary, because they get back a paper with very little comments, two weeks after everyone else has turned in the second draft. But I don't imagine you ask your students to revise, either, because that'd make your job harder.

Students can be damned whiny, I'll grant you; however, professors can be worse.

---

Who are these faculty playing hardass about deadlines in reply to Solomon Softy? They come across sounding as if our job is to train good little corporate drones who obey their orders and can get to work on time every morning. Maybe in vocational colleges and professional programmes this is closer to the truth, but that isn't how I see our job as university professors.

Our job, I take it, is to help find the truth, advance civilization, and try our best to convince sufficiently talented and motivated students that they should want to do the same, and figure out ways of doing so. That may sound corny, but if you don't somewhere deep down believe it, then you probably shouldn't be at a university.

I've never believed that good scholarly work is done on an unforgiving schedule, or that the grades I assign should have much to do with students' abilities to manage time according to our whims or institutional fiat. I don't much care what schedule they work on, only that they take their task seriously and find a schedule that works for them, so they can learn how to think.

To be sure, it is considerate for students to try to get things to me on time, and in return for that consideration I promise them I will try to read their work and offer constructive comments in a timely fashion. (I also tell my students that late papers typically go to the bottom of a rather large pile of work I need to get done. Late submission is thus something of gamble: I likely will get to reading and grading their papers eventually, but there is a very real chance that I may not.)

---

The mistake you hardasses are making is that you fail to recognize that we are already part of the real world - we're the academic part of it. Sure, businesses may run things differently. Let them. They have reasons to keep to deadlines which don't apply to me. If I thought my job was technical training for future cubicle workers, I would have quit it a long time ago and started doing something that makes more money.

I'm with Solomon. My job is to teach my subject and assist students towards a rudimentary grasp of what constitutes decent English prose. I organize my evaluation system to give them some idea how they're doing in those areas and how they could improve, and give myself something that does not waste endless hours of my time chasing down delinquent adolescents, so I can focus on, you know, teaching my subject.

So I accept late assignments, from which I deduct 1% per day for every day late. I don't do make-up quizzes because they're a waste of my time; if you don't show up for the quiz, you get a zero. Bring me a doctor's or counsellor's note and I won't count the quiz/ deduct quite as much for lateness.

Do I think that 1% per day is not enough to punish these delinquents for their evildoing? Or is perhaps unfair to all the people who hand things in on time? No, not at all. In my (pretty extensive) experience, people who hand in late papers get lousy grades anyway; it's not that they spent more time working on them, you know. They don't even start until after the thing was due, and then they stay up for 2 days straight to produce something half-assed and incoherent. I do tell them this at the beginning of term, and then let them work it out for themselves.

I am not a traffic cop or a K-7 teacher. I am teaching notional adults. I'm not going to waste my energy in time-consuming disciplinary chasings around. I will spend it where it matters: on the course content.

Will things be different out in the business world? Very likely. Is it my job to train them for that? Nope. They'll figure it out. Or not. But my bet is they will. In the meantime, I have better things to do.

Tabby the TA from Trenton Has Had Enough of the Silent Treatment.

Dear poker-face students,

What do you think "discussion section" (as opposed to "lecture") means? How stupid and basic do questions about the reading have to be before you will answer them? Do you realize that when you don't say anything, you look more stupid than shy?

The way it works, kids, is that you're supposed to feel free to contribute your thoughts and responses. You're also supposed to ask questions--asking questions being a fundamental part of education. When I start out the discussion with a question that seems easy, that's because it IS easy. We're starting out simple. We'll make sure we're all on the same page, and you'll earn those participation points mentioned on the syllabus that my boss, your professor, wrote. As we get deeper into the subject, I will do more explaining to make sure you're learning new things in addition to just talking about your own thoughts.

But chiefly, kids, just remember that this all has no point if you can't find the energy or motivation to be curious. Curiosity is, you might say, a prerequisite to intelligence and cultivation. It's not my job to open up the blinds in your brain. You're old enough to do that yourselves, so don't waste my time.

And don't say on my evaluation forms that your TA "doesn't explain things," when you're not willing to let me know what needs explaining. I was hoping to learn something from you, and I think I've found multiple ways of making that clear throughout the semester. I respect you and value your contributions, and that is perfectly clear if you've been awake. But my respect for your will diminish, not increase, when you try to make my job difficult, and when you make me look and feel like an ass.

Sincerely,

Tabby the TA

A Serving of Replies to Solomon the Softy.

• Here’s the deal, Solomon. These snowflakes will eventually graduate and go on to whatever passes for the real world. When they get there, evil people (often called bosses though we call them deans) will give them something called a deadline. It means they want something done by a certain point in time. Not whenever. Look, it’s not like you have to be a hardass. Just tell your students the assignment is due on a certain date. If you want, you can tell them they can turn it in late, but at a penalty of a letter grade a day. Think of the students who actually take you seriously. If you have any left. They turned the work in on time. Is it fair to them to let the others slide? Given that you’re new to this biz, here’s something else to think about. If you’re regarded as a soft touch, you’ll get a disproportionate number of slackers. Do you really want to have classes like that? I’d rather dance on crushed glass and hop into a rubbing alcohol bath.
  
  


• I can guess that Softy has never been out of the ivory tower. With this type of training it is no wonder that students leave the academic setting ill prepared to face the real world. I highly doubt the mid-level boss at Widget, Inc. will be as forgiving for the entry-level employee right out of school. Likewise I am sure at least one of those employees will lament, “but professor Softy always let me turn stuff in late, this is so unfair.”
  
  


• If deadlines and and due dates are just "false edifices that professors hide behind", why don't you go ahead and try living an adult life that way? There are all kinds of “false edifices” built into our society, and you’re just the kind of sensitive and sincere guy we need teaching the next generation of society-runners their core values. I’m sure that the IRS won’t mind if you turn in your tax returns a few months late, since “the work is the most important thing,” or maybe you could just be the in the 10% of people who “can’t get their shit together,” and just not file a return. I don’t imagine that any future employers would have a problem with students who were taught that deadlines and due dates and just plain showing up don’t matter. Miss the deadline? Blow off the meeting? No sweat. Dude, you’re not just teaching your subject. You’re prepping them for life, and in your case, starting them on the path to being irresponsible fuckups.
  
  


• My students know that the deadline is absolute, and most of them get the submissions in, on time. I usually bend for the odd one who REALLY has a crisis. Yes, my workload is less, but only because I'm not dealing with reams of excuses (I'm crystal clear about my no-extension policy). In terms of grading, I end up with the same stack that you do. Why did you have to go and accuse me of trying to lessen my marking duties? Nonsense and bullshit. I'm gonna bet that your students respect you less than me, and that they take my class more seriously. Go ahead and be a softy, but consider that there's a way to enforce deadlines without being self-serving or an asshole. And the students benefit from learning a bit of discipline too.
  
  


• I'd hope your colleagues would be fierce, vicious, and merciless with you. This is because your being a softy devalues education, because it fails to teach good work habits that students will need after graduation. It also makes things harder for those of us who still do have integrity. We have better things to do than chasing after immature students like with children, such as helping good students who do have their act together.
  
  


• Your ultra-forgiving approach to course management is that it makes my own job more difficult. When students leave your class, they come to mine, and I have to spend the first half of the semester teaching them not just the course content but something more basic: how to be students. I have to teach them what you haven't: that deadlines matter, that the world (of academe, of business, of law, of medicine, of nature itself) runs according to schedules. I have to teach them to be responsible, accountable, professional. You've trained them to ignore deadlines, miss class, cut corners, procrastinate. I have to undo the undoing you've wrought upon them, to retrain them to be responsible, professional adults.
  
  


• In the professional programs like the one I teach in, learning to manage your time and work to a deadline is seriously one of the most important skills a student can learn. Period. No, we're not all in the liberal arts here, people. And if I don't help train a student to work to a deadline, they are going to struggle to learn it on the job, where mistakes will have a much higher personal cost than when they get a "zero" for late work in my class. Better to get your spanking, cry your tears, and learn your lesson about deadlines in my class than screw up something for your first boss the first time out of the chute. Yes, many deadlines in the 'real world' are negotiable, but many are not, and the key is to learn which are and which aren't, what types of negotiations can make you appear weak/incompetent, prioritize your time, and discipline your perfection/procrastination accordingly.
  
  


• While I agree that sometimes there are circumstances that just can't be avoided, I personally think that your softness breeds students that will take advantage of it. You didn't mention in your post whether you take off marks for late work (and I'm somehow getting the feeling from it that you don't) - that's not at all fair to the students who do get their work in on time, when their assignment(s) may end up clashing with a midterm, 5 other assignments, family or work issues.
  
  


• Your problem is that you want to do only part of your job. You are not just teaching content; you are also teaching work ethic, responsibility, and the ability to function in everyday society. How many student swill have bosses who say that deadlines and due dates are "false edifices"? Is that important client going to stay with the firm as long as her project gets done"eventually"? Hell, while you're at it, why use the semester as a deadline? Just give them all incompletes if they don't finish the work. They'll get around to it someday!

This Week's Big Thirsty: Solomon Is a Softy. Do You Care?

I haven't been a reader here for very long, but I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to my question. But, it's not a topic I've been able to talk about with my colleagues, and I'm dying to hear some feedback.

I'm a softy. I don't teach a Mickey Mouse class, but I give my students extensions, take in late papers, let them skate on attendance, etc. I'm not stupid, either. I just don't want to play the "excuse" game, having to figure out if Judy Just-Slept-In is telling the truth, or if Randy With-A-Bad-Radiator really broke down on his way to school.

To be fair, I don't include all those Draconian policies in my syllabus. I tell my students that the work is the most important thing, and as long as they get it done before the end of the semester that I'll count it. Even when I was in college I thought that deadlines, due dates, etc. were just false edifices that professors hid behind. It's a nice way to cut down the workload. If 10% of our 19 year old students can't get their shit together and turn a paper in, that's 10% of the workload we don't have to shoulder. I understand the convenience, I guess.

Q: But, as someone with a few years to go on the tenure-track, I don't want to get a bad reputation among my harder-assed colleagues. So, if I'm soft on students, are you going to be hard on me?

A: Send replies here.

Oh, It Would Have Been a Lot of Fun Just to Ignore Polly, But Weepy Wayne (the Chiefiest!) Begged For a Crack At Her. How Could We Refuse?

Putrid Polly,

Listen carefully. You're a shithead. From what I can tell, you somehow managed to hopscotch through a series of links, clatter your fingernails about the keyboard (no doubt bumping your gums as you proofread on the fly) and succeeded in contributing absolutely nothing to our fine academic discourse. Congratulations. Have a Twinkie.

You must be a student. Now get your pajama-swaddled brainpan off your chair, track down the Registrar's office (here's a handy link), and submit a withdrawal form. Do us all a favor. I don't want you in my class. I don't want you in my colleague's class. Hell, I don't even want you in some perfect stranger's class somewhere out in Buttsniff, Utah. I want you to submit an application to Denny's and spend your days telling the shift manager where it's at. Tell 'em you're "just putting another (ex)students (sic) point of view out there." Let's see how well your stillborn opinions function out there in the greater world. I'll be here. Waiting for your kind to come crawling back to the community college with a sob story and a bulletproof understanding of what it takes to be a student.

This blog is mobius strip of bitching? You came up with that yourself? Boy howdy, ain't you a sharpie. Sure you didn't click the ready link for the SparkNotes version of RYS? "(A)ny serious student knows these things"? Jesus Clark Christ, you're on a roll! You're about ready to spin the wheel for a Liberal Arts Ph.D in lefty hectoring. Then you could go on about how NCLB created a wasted generation of mouthbreathing test-takers robbed of innate imagination who possess the reading skills of a dishtowel and the critical thinking skills of, well, you. But you've heard this all before, right? You didn't understand what it meant as it went whistling past your earsockets, but I bet all them words in a bunch like that look sorta familiar.

It is agreed. You "don't have a point." You don't have a "specific thought." You don't have a fucking clue what it means to grind out a four-year degree, starve your way through grad school, humiliate yourself as an adjunct for ten years, then realize your efforts are wasted on some bobblehead, low-watt academic equivalent of Hannah Montana who gets her jollies twiddling her press-on nails across the keys and pressing "send." You don't understand that because you are little more than a fucktard with a mouse.

I'd happily dismantle your childish metaphor of the Tie-dye Kool-aid stained Ivory Soap Tower (or whatever the fuck you're talking about), but I got papers to grade. But here's a "futile request" for you. Why don't you snap shut the laptop, open a book, open another, then another, and repeat the process for the next seven years. Then, after that, and only after that, I want you to come back here with something approaching an original thought.

Tricky Tricia from Tucumcari Is Making A Test, And We're Bold Enough to Suggest You Should Just Be Sick That Day.

I'm about ready to laugh in the face of the next student who tells me something is a trick question.

I had a student recently, on looking over her graded exam and the posted answer key, ask me if "all my exams were going to be this tricky." For once, words did not fail me at this deliberate attempt to provoke a confrontation; I laughed and said that if she was asking whether future exams would require her to know the concepts and terms well enough to be able to answer questions about them, then yes, all my exams would be this tricky. (While she had no response to that, I'm not naive enough to think I won that round.)

Let me make this clear: I don't write trick questions. If that were my goal, I could easily write an exam, based entirely on legitimately testable course material, that everyone in the class would fail. That's not my goal--they may not believe it, but I want to find out what they know, not just what they don't know.

I do, however, include some problems or questions on every test that actually require a correct understanding of course vocabulary and concepts to answer correctly. This is considered by some of my students to be a completely unreasonable standard. C students who think they are A students are particularly likely to be of this opinion. They completely ignore the fact that the exam has to contain 70 points' worth of questions a trained mynah could answer correctly just to get them up to a C, focus on the fact that there are about 10 points' worth of questions that require a somewhat sophisticated level of understanding and maybe 5 points' worth that actually require a nuanced use of vocabulary, and conclude--often publicly--that "the tests are full of trick questions."

I point out in class, starting at the beginning of the semester, that when people call something a "trick question" it typically means that they've completely missed a pivotal piece of information. When I write a question that I know is going to be hard, or require a distinction between closely related terms or concepts, I typically put the pivotal word or phrase in bold print. They still miss it, and still blame me.

I'm going to try this illustration the next time I get the trick-question accusation:

"True or false: in most states, drivers are allowed to make a left turn at a red light after stopping completely."

I expect most of our students (at least those who drive) would be able to answer that question correctly, and would have little sympathy for anyone who complained that it was a trick question because they thought it was referring to a right turn, not a left turn. When I ask what particles are in the nucleus of an atom, and a student answers with a list of all the particles that are in the atom rather than just those in the nucleus, the only conclusion I can draw is this: the student does not know the difference between an atom and a nucleus. It's not a trick question (i.e., my fault), the student simply doesn't know the answer (i.e., their fault).

Because You Love to Click. Some Links.

• Rating his own ratings. From Lucy the Blog.


• Professor as Open Book. From NY Times.


• RateMyCop. From NY Times.


• ProfessorsStrikeBack. From MTVu.


• RMP's a Fraud? From Through The Eyes of a Freshman.


• Fail Your Prof. From the Badger Herald.

A Teaching Philosophy That RYS Can Get Behind. Farrah from Fresno Finds Freedom.

Dear Dean of the Prestigious Technical Community Commuter College, On-line Edition, of the East-South-East Corner of The Middle of Nowhere,

I have currently updated my Teaching Philosophy, given some of my recent interactions with students. I think you will find it much more realistic now, and much more suited to the goals of your institution. As I would love nothing more than to whore myself out as an adjunct, visiting, limited instructor at your fine institution, I hope you will accept it with enthusiasm:

I believe all students will try to do the least amount of work possible to get their lazy asses a passing grade. While I may try and try to "change their lives for the better," they will, in fact, see my class as a blow off and pay little to no attention to me. So, instead of spending pointless time prodding the little darlings and potentially pissing them off by forcing them to do anything productive, my new philosophy is: fuck it. This is a valuable approach for teachers, students, and your institution as a whole.

In the classroom, I will enact this practice by not taking attendance, not asking them to complete any more than the minimal requirements of your college, and generally being a "cool and laid back" prof. I will hand out the grades, never anything below a B-, for their incompetent work. Students will feel they are achieving something even though they're not. This is a boost to their precious self-esteem, and it also allows me more time to think about major problems in the world and in my personal life (like how academia is becoming a meaningless exercise in time management, and how somehow despite all of my studies, I'm here, producing meaninglessness).

Always mindful that I am here to be evaluated by my students, I will receive awesome end-of-term evaluations. They will comment on my "ease," my "helpfulness," and my "consideration of their needs." They will talk about how I really "get it." Some may say I'm the "best prof ever." This will be proof that my methods have worked. Everyone will feel good about themselves without having to learn anything ever.

The fuck it philosophy will enable students to leave my classroom exactly the same way they came in. No one will have to change. No one will have to improve. This will prepare them for the remainder of their lives, which they will most likely spend in a cubicle or factory somewhere, where skills of stagnancy and mediocrity are also highly valued. I believe that they will look back on their time in my class and not remember a thing, which is exactly as it should be.

The fuck it philosophy aims only to leave the world exactly as it is, which will keep people coming to this college, which will keep me in a little money, and you, dear dean, in a lot more of it. Happy endings all around.

It'd Be Easier Asking a Leopard To Change His Spots. Agreeable Alex Holds Fast.

Yes, Freddie, I understand that your program requires a minimum grade point average. And yes, I understand that the B- you pulled in my course last term is too low for you to continue in that program. What's more, I agree that it sucks to have your term average be lower than you needed or wanted it to be.

See how agreeable a fellow I am?

But here's where we part ways. No, I will not raise your grade to a B. I know it would "only" take 2% to do so, but since each grade point only has a 3% bracket, those two marks are actually quite a big deal. Were this a course in persuasion and grovelling, you would be making a good case for yourself. But as it stands, I'm not paid to give grades out like some sort of pedagogical Santa. (well, it could be argued that I am, but that's another conversation...)

What's that? You're getting angry with me now. I see. Since you can't accept the polite refusal, allow me to expand upon it a bit. First, how dare you try to pin an entire term - five courses worth - on my class? It's an average, moron. And it's all yours.

Second, you wanna know why I never bump grades for sob stories like yours? In my very first year of teaching, I had student who was very dedicated. She worked her ass off, and I got to know her a bit. I learned that she was caring for her mother who was dying of cancer, she had to work 30 a hours a week to pay for school, and that her father expected her to fulfil all the household duties of cleaning and cooking that her mother no longer could. Near term's end, this student looked like she had one foot in the grave herself - she was utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally. But you what? She stuck it out and finally earned a C. She never asked for any special treatment or consideration.

Thinking back, I should have bumped that grade to a B or something. It's one of the few regrets I carry around. And it's one of the big reasons you can take your begging and tantrums and get the fuck out of my office. And let me get back to being an agreeable fellow...

This Is the Reason We Carry On. So We May Someday Find Pointless Polly and Beat Her With Our Liberal Arts Degrees.

I happened upon your blog whilst browsing for commentary on Ratemyprofessor.com and I must say I am thoroughly entertained. I knew the internet was an angry place but, my God, you guys are in a league of your own. And to think, all this rage pent up inside my beloved professors...quite the eye opener for a student such as myself.

This blog is full of criticism from professors. While interesting, I think you're pretty much stating the obvious...over and over and over again. Come to class, do the homework, take notes, pay attention, etc. Duh. I believe any serious student knows these things.

So what's my point? I really don't have a point. Maybe I'm just putting another students point of view out there, maybe I just enjoy internet bickering. Who knows? I sure don't. If I did have a specific thought I think it's this: There are students who appreciate you. We may absolutely hate your very soul, but we respect you.

That being said though, come down from your ivory towers and put down your liberal kool-aid once in a while. Ivory is easily stained you know and there's a lot of fucking dye in kool-aid. You might want to get real about the whole higher education sham, people pay money to buy a degree, that goes for the majority of Liberal Arts degrees, I'd think you guys, of all people, would realize that.

And don't tell me you aren't liberal arts professors, your writing oozes with the tripe of multiple liberal arts degrees, let's just be honest. Oh, and keep the fucking socialist hippie, look at me I'm an atheist and I hate Bush, crap out of the classrooms, it's very tired. I know, a futile request, but I thought I'd try at least.

My Friend, My Douchebag.

It's a sad, sad day in my little RYS sub-compound. Last fall, a much-respected and beloved colleague was promoted -- elevated to the rank of Dean. This was a glorious day for the hallowed halls of our faculty center. Finally, someone who was certifiably "one of us" was in a position of power.

Things would be done! Wrongs would be righted! There would be someone -- someone!-- to bring our concerns and grievances to the administrative altar and lobby on our behalf!

Over the course of the spring semester, our friend morphed into an unrecognizable, glad-handing sack of shit. Gone were the days of complaining about plagiarizing students and class-skippers. Hearty laughs at the expense of student fell by the wayside as several of us no longer felt comfortable in the presence of our colleague. Suddenly, it was all about "maximizing student satisfaction," and "powering up our admissions numbers..." The words, "They're our best resource, and so we really have to work to ensure their comfort and happiness" came out of his duplicitous face.

This morning, prominently featured in the college's online newspaper, was a picture of our former friend at a tea party (croquet and croquettes!) with several members of the Board of Trustees.

God help me -- I've seen a friend become an Administrative Douche bag.

Patty from Petaluma Submits Her 3 "Favorite" Plagiarists.

• My 3rd worst Plagiarizing Pupil was so lazy that she could only be bothered to retype the first page of the paper she stole. That way, at least her identifying information would be on the paper. Unfortunately for her, though, this was not enough. She was caught at first glance for two reasons: 1) she didn't choose a matching font for her retyped first page, and 2) someone else's name was on the rest of the pages.
  


• My 2nd worst Plagiarizing Pupil submitted, as her own, a sample student essay from the class text I had assigned them to read in preparation for that assignment.
  


• And quite possibly most dim-witted plagiarizing pupil I have ever had is the student who, for an OPTIONAL revision of her first paper (which she had actually bothered to write), submitted another student's paper on a completely different topic. Unfortunately for her, I recognized the paper as someone else's because the student she stole the paper from was also in my class that term--the very SAME class the plagiarizer was in, a small workshop class with only 18 students! Making her odds of getting caught even worse, the plagiarizer and the student she stole the paper from were 2 of only 5 students in that already small class who chose to revise that paper.

Boycotting Barry from Bellingham Stirs Up The Faithful.

• I don't see why you'd let that buffoon from the second part of yesterday's "Same As It Ever Was" post have a voice on this site. He's been boycotting the site, but has taken the time to come back to tell us how shitty it all is? What a complete ignoramus. Don't give time to assholes like that.


• I'm with whatever his name is. The rebellion, good God, the rebellion. Has RYS softened their stance on the rebellion? Oh, wait. What rebellion? Another nutjob who thinks his point of view is freighted with import.


• You don't like the posts, AND there are too few of them? Brilliant. Back to the boycott, okay?


• Do you have a working mouse? Click something else, dipshit.


• You may have to clue the rest of us in, but was the second poster from "Same As It Ever Was" actually a correspondent on the site, as in, did he get to tell his sad smackdowns regularly when the rest of us had to wait in line? I guess it's good he took time off. But sniping at the newer writers strikes me as fogeyism. Cut him/her loose. RYS is not shitty; it's the shiznit, and if he/she doesn't like it, there's lots of porn - or so I hear - elsewhere.


• I have to chuckle at yesterday's post about the guy who's "pleased to disassociate himself" from RYS. Where on earth did he find the time to send in a post? And why didn't he just send it to the Chronicle or a Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum or something. Go suck a rock.


• I call bullshit on yesterday's post, the guy who's boycotting RYS. Another attempt of yours to add fake drama to the site? Ditch that. Just let the voices rock on. Get Walter on weekly. Mix it up with sad, tragic, funny, and scatological. Just don't hype the drama. Oh, a boycott!!! How exciting!!!! I bet there's a new t-shirt coming out of this.

"Same As It Ever Was."

• I've been very critical of this site in the past, and you've always been kind enough to "invite" me to visit other blogs where I might be happier. So I did. But I keep coming back because I'm a glutton for the kind of student smackdown that you folks sometimes do well, and I can put up with some of the b.s.. A colleague told me about your "Dateyourstudents" page on April Fool's Day, and when I stopped by I ended up reading a couple of months worth of stuff. Hat in hand, I say, "Well done." I'm still a little annoyed when professors belittle students for things they most likely did themselves when they were undergrads, but I feel that there's been a bit of a change in management or something there because so many posts are actually funny. I also have always thought mere complaining would get very old, so some of the more useful posts are a great tonic. I especially thought the Alice/Hillary issue was handled well...funny, but also on point with what's wrong in our classrooms. So, if you'll have me back, I'm back.
  
  


• I'm taking a time-out from my boycott to write the routine "this site has taken a shit lately" email. We all know that this thing runs in cycles, and I thought I had seen it go round enough times to stay the usual post of this kind. But really, either the 'pounders or the posters are shitting the bed beyond the usual. First, let's talk about the new blue backdrop. It's a joke, right? I now feel like I'm in McDonalds when I'm reading along, and sense that this color is supposed to pacify or otherwise condition me to supersize my handbag order. Then there are the reduced number of posts. And let's not forget about the poor quality of these. This idiot over here wants his students to off themselves? You can sleep at night writing and posting this crap? When I first came on board as a correspondent, I thought I was a part of something worthwhile. Lately, I've been as pleased to disassociate myself. Maybe I've changed or maybe the 'pounders have less quality posts to deal with or not enough time to pick the best ones. It's some combination, I'm sure. But this desperate plea for new correspondents? And the uneventful outcome of same. The horror, the horror. I would honestly prefer to read some of my first year student papers than many of these recent posts. Why don’t you just fuck off and do it, you ask? Well, I have been. But I feel like in addition to being on the front lines of a deteriorating student body, I'm also seeing the deterioration of the rebellion. Professorial apathy is nothing new, to be sure. Will our time also witness the fall of RYS? I'm not going to jump on the blow-Walter-wagon and beg him to come on home, but I do think you folks need to acknowledge the problem and consider ways of getting back on track. For the love of God, try to at least put together a few good days. How about a little effort to earn our readership or business? Or have we resigned to shameless merchandizing? Are the readers so high from your baby blue background that we don't even notice this shit? Can I get a hot apple pie with my boxers?

"Welcome to College!"

On the first day of the semester, I stand up in front of my classes and say the following:

Every day that you walk into my class prepared to give an honest effort - not to do perfectly every time, but to try your hardest - I promise you my very best efforts on your behalf. I will give you every bit of enthusiasm, knowledge, and skill I possess.

However, the first time you decide that you're too cool for school, or that you're just too clever for this class, I want you to drop out. Yes, I want you to drop out, and return the next day with your Burger King application. I hear Burger King is looking for people as cool as you. I will be a reference for you. I will lie and say that you're a good worker. I will even help you fill out the application.

If you plan on sitting here and doing nothing, staring at the walls and not bothering to do your work, you are a waste of my time. My time is valuable to me, and more importantly, to your fellow students who come here eager to learn. They will get my best effort. You will get nothing.

Debbie is Not Alone. Dick from Dallas Dreads the Derelicts.

I wish I could disagree with Debbie from Duluth. I have not been able to find any way to motivate (punitive or otherwise) my upper-level class to read a damn thing. They unapologetically hand in pop quizzes that have nothing more written on them than their names. They no longer even guess at answers or write cute little notes to make it appear they are filling in answers ("Gee, that's a great question, but I didn't have a chance to read the chapter for today. Sorry :)" ).

But as you know, it doesn't end there: After quiz-time, they sit waiting expectantly for me to condense the day's reading into a tasty little milkshake. I'm beyond showing my frustration and disappointment with them as I proceed to explain each boldface item in the book to them and provide examples. I've stopped trying to make up new examples, because I know that I can just regurgitate the ones from the textbook and they're none the wiser. And at no point (once the obligatory quiz is over) does it occur to any of them to press pen to paper and record any of this. It's like they're in Sunday School--they sit in faux-politeness (because their parents told them to do so) while I teach the Golden Rule, but once my time is up, they go right back to ignorantly tugging on each others' pigtails in the church pews.

I did attempt Debbie's former practice of letting students individually lead discussion a couple of times during the semester. All it accomplished was getting each discussion leader to read about 12 pages (total) for the semester and to foster the sense of injustice that they're somehow "doing my job for me."

I realize that I'm hardly portraying myself as "Teacher of the Year," here, but they have worn me down. Are they young enough to never have seen "Dead Poets' Society"? Maybe next semester I'll just rip off some of that Robin Williams bullshit that turns a bunch of spoiled derelicts into independent thinkers in 90 minutes. So what if the most promising one offs himself in the final act?

Debbie Drama From Duluth Posits That It's the End of the World. Haven't You Been Paying Attention?

A colleague and I were recently discussing the value of students working in groups, as well as employing more constructivist approaches in our classroom. It's got me thinking about how much more I lecture today than I did ten years ago.

When I began teaching, I would tell my students that I expected them to read the assigned pages and come to class prepared for activities that would apply what they read. I would also assign groups, and give each group a topic they had to "teach" the class, in addition to other types of presentations and in-class activities.

However, over the years, the quality of student work continued to decline and it became harder and harder to expect students to do any of these things at a level that made it worthwhile. I suppose we could blame the k-12 system, and most certainly the NCLB mandate that places more value on test scores than actual learning so these students come to college only knowing how to take tests with answers they've been given, but I can't help but think that I have also contributed to the decline.

Instead of tackling this lack of preparedness and thinking, "I'm not going to let you slide through. You're going to learn how to do this," I found it easier to just spoon feed the material. It became less stressful for me to just come to class, plug in the PowerPoint, and talk away, than to cringe as the students, obviously having not read the assigned material, sat and stared at one another.

This decline in student performance (and their seeming lack of concern about it) has made me become very bitter. Sometimes I feel (as do my colleagues) that we in the college teaching profession are actually first-hand witnesses to the decline of civilization. Melodramatic, I know. Please convince me otherwise, I beg you.

Bathroom Billy Ducks His Drollery Duty‏.

I was in the men's room minding my own, when this student runs in and flips open his cell phone. He shouts into it, "This is not a joke. I need you to do something for me. Look up a math joke, I am so not joking. No, seriously, you have to do this right now. I'm late for class and he's gonna kill me if I don't have a really funny joke. Yeah, read that one. No, read the next one. What's the next one. *Slight laugh*. Ok, what's the next one. Man, I gotta go. Just text me a good one. Google funny jokes, and text me a good math one. I gotta go."

And then he dashes out. While I'm not convinced of the pedagogical merit of assigning math joke homework, It takes a special class of loser to cheat on it.

The Gold Standard.

I don't understand exactly how this works, but I'd like a reply to my question below. I'd like to remain anonymous but think the names you give are a little childish. You should call me Linda from Toledo if you need to have a name at all.

I know it's not Thirsty Friday yet, but my question really needs an answer as soon as possible. I teach what's called Weekend University, even though it's just a junior college. (I have more air conditioner repairperson majors than I do English majors, for instance.) And these people are adults.

So my Thirsty Friday question is: What's hard about adult students that's not hard about college students. And vice versa.

When will you send me my answers and how many can I expect to receive? Please send them to XXXXXX@hotmail.com as the email I'm sending this from is my daughter's and she won't want to be bugged with anything to do with school.

Thank you,

Jeanne

Is Someone's Daddy On The Phone? Is It That Time of Year Already?

Missy has been under-performing for me all semester long, and even though she was in a real jam, I didn't predict this.

I received a voice mail message from her father, asking me to call him to discuss my “unfair” treatment of his daughter. Since she’s an “adult” and since only identified himself as "Missy's Dad," I didn’t bother to return the call. I figured he didn’t *really* want to hear about how his precious angel had the wrong edition of the text, didn’t participate in class, was two absences shy of automatic failure, had been significantly tardy several times, had a D quiz average and an F test average, and had only turned in 60% of her homework.

Besides, the “unfair” treatment consisted of my applying the same course policy (as clearly stated in her course outline) that I apply to the rest of the students: if you show up late for class and miss a quiz, you don’t get to make it up. Hell, I even drop the lowest quiz grade, so it shouldn’t make a difference. The next morning, the student withdrew from my class, so I was finished with her, right? Then yesterday I received the following e-mail from her:

I couldn't believe it when you told me I couldn't make up the quizzes I missed. Your heartlessness and total lack of concern for me was unacceptable. I already told you that there was a lot of construction on the roads between my apartment and campus, and that's why I was always late. I don't know how you think I'm supposed to control construction!

I only do well in classes where the teacher really cares about me, and isn't just faking it like you do. I'm so glad I dropped, because now I'll have a teacher next term who has real care for me, and I know I will do great.

And then the worst thing you did was blow off my dad, who called because he's genuinely concerned for me. He was going to work it all out with you, so that I could stay in the class, but by being rude to him, that was the final straw. He says, and I agree with him, that you will learn a good lesson from this. I hope so.

Wow. Just....wow. Thank you for enlightening me. The scales have fallen from my eyes. Clearly, I need to stop seeming to care. I sure do wish you luck in finding a teacher who conforms to your oh-so-reasonable expectations. Happy travels, Missy. Say hi to your dad for me.

Grouchy Gerta from Glendale Wants this Cheerleader To Save Herself, Not the World.

Cheerleader Charmaine is your garden-variety, over-scheduled Hot Mess Walking.

Having spent most of her life overwhelmed in extracurriculars thanks to Super Helicopter Mommy Who Lived Vicariously, she got to college and immediately joined every single club and org she was even vaguely interested in. She's the social butterfly with the maniacally cheerful demeanor, who is on every welcoming committee and working with outreach group. Whether it's a social or service organization, CC is there with her veneers at maximum sparkle and her bleached-blonde curls at maximum bounce.

Now, she's got a super-developed sense of social justice and a flair for campus activism. Clearly, she watched too many episodes of "Captain Planet."

She's so busy with extras that she regularly misses class and fails to turn in papers. All of this combines into a "D-" in my class. When I counseled her on attendance and homework, she told me that she couldn't possibly drop any of her activities. They're too important because the fate of the world is clearly in her French-manicured hands!

When (gently) told that her priorities might be better shifted towards academic work, rather than extracurricular activities, she was shocked --- SHOCKED! -- that I might value "inconsequential" grades in the face of saving the world.

When told that a fair balance needed to be found between activities and academics, she was outraged. What could be more important than crusading against global warming, social injustice and inequality?

When told she would end up failing if the quality of her work didn't improve, she collapsed into tears. Don't I want to help my fellow man -- don't I care that humanity is on the brink of utter destruction and only WE *meaningful squeeze and stare* can make the difference?

When did social conscience become an acceptable substitute for actual intelligence?

Eleven "Big Thirsty" Readers Are Ready to Save Hillary From Herself, and Send Alice Packing.

• Abysmal Attendance Alice is often trapped in the same body with Sucker You Suzie. From her previous experience she expects you to do exactly what you are now planning to do. Of course she is “unconcerned” – she has always had others to clean up her messes and rush to her rescue.
  


• Your intentions are good, but, alas, you're limited in what you can do. Abysmal Attendance Alice has obviously decided her priorities, and they don't include your course. Perhaps Little Alice in Wonderland has received the wrong message and assumes that you will give her a pass. Don't be so awed and shocked by her chirpy exterior. She's playing you. At this point, a somber Hillary might take her aside and show her the bleak numbers. In red. 72-point font. Bold. Then forget about her.
  


• Helpful Hillary, you are in need of saving here. Alice is not. If you must save something, save the whales. Or the polar bears. Or whatever species is currently in need of saving. Alice is not endangered. There are thousands more like her, and they seem to be reproducing at a pretty good clip. Leave Alice alone. She chose her own priorities, and you need to realize that your class is not one of them. Let her face the consequences of her missing assignments. I promise you, Alice will benefit a hell of a lot more from NOT being saved than she would profit from what I bet would be the hundredth intervention by responsible adults to save Alice from herself.
  
  
• What can you do for her? Give her the grade she's earned. Period. First, it's not fair to anyone else in the class who might not have been as stellar a contributor, but put their head down and did the work. Why should she get an opportunity they don't, especially when she so blithely dismisses your concerns? Second, this approach may very well have worked for her in the past. She may very well expect to get over based on her participation, even with what sounds like a cavalier disregard for the rest of your expectations. Give her another chance, and you're telling her it's okay to do this, that she really is above mere teacher expectations. If she's as bright as you say she is, a cold slap of reality might teach her the best lesson she can learn: At some point, nobody's going to care how goddamned charming and nice and insightful she is if she can't stick to schedules and do what's required.



• I was a bit like Alice long ago. I had expected college to be full of new and exciting intellectual challenges, but what I found when I got there was that I could do quite well doing very little work. And that is exactly what I did. Coursework and attendance became low priority,while watching kung-fu at 2 a.m. took precedence. That all changed when I finally met a professor who didn't reward me for half-assed work. Getting that first low grade was a revelation for me: suddenly the quality of my work *mattered* again. That professor became my advisor, and she kicked my ass whenever the level of my work dropped.It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and part of the reason why I'm now a college professor myself.
  


• I have failed many promising and talented but incredibly lazy and irresponsible students, and most have come back to thank me. It doesn't matter how smart, charming, talented, etc. they are if they don't do the work. Besides, if she hasn't turned in two major projects, how smart can she really be? You have no idea, because you haven't seen the work. If you really want to help her, fail her. Coddling helps no one.
  


• Hillary, you could be more helpful to this student if you were to give her the grade that her work — or her lack of work — has earned her. Here's what you're missing: this student's success in the class appears to be far more important to you than it is to her. To me, she sounds glib — a student who can talk a good game but does little that would show genuine dedication. I wonder how much she relies on being "fascinating" and "high spirited" in other classes. She's missed two major projects? Of how many? If you're going "help her out" (as students say), when she hasn't even asked, what are you going to do for those students who've been doing the work with so-so results? Are they less deserving of a hand?
  


• I see myself in Alice, when I was a first year college student. With that attitude I did learn a very valuable lesson, no matter how brilliant you are if you fail to do the work it will cost you. I got my first “gentleman C’s” (an anachronistic term used at a very overwhelming male school) that first year and almost lost my scholarships. However, the lesson I learned in professional and personal responsibility was invaluable. Alice may need to learn this lesson now rather than learn it the first time this occurs outside of academia.
  


• Sure, go ahead and give Alice a special status in your class. But please, don't call it helping. The word you're looking for is enabling. What I'm really curious about is how you plan to explain your Alice-specific course requirements to your regularly-attending, deadline-meeting, less spectacular students--the ones who meet your non-Alice requirements. If you can't do this, then don't do that.
  


• Do you really, sincerely want to help Alice? Then flunk her. (Or give her a D if she manages to eke one out. Whatever.) If she really has as much potential as you think, then helping her out of this mess when she's completely unwilling to help herself will take her farther away from that potential, not closer. She needs to learn that half the battle is showing up, and that people won't cut her slack just because she's brilliant. If it takes an F to wake her up to this reality, then it's a small price for her. In ten years nobody will give a damn about her college grades anyway.
  
  
• While I admire your desire to put Alice back on the "right path," my bet is that (if she's as awesome in class as you say) she's perfectly capable of doing so herself and would do so if she wanted. Since you've already said things to her and she's nodded politely but not altered her behavior in any way, then Alice is doing exactly what she wants to be doing. Give her a smile, let her know that you think she could do better, and then let her go. Save your energy for the students who want to be saved.

This Week's Big Thirsty. Helpful Hillary Wants To Save Someone. Can She? Should She? Does It Ever Work?

I already suspect that most of your readers will tell me not to bother, but I wanted to ask for advice about a student who's almost sunk herself so far.

Yes, I still want to help. Maybe I'm naive for doing it, but this is a student who I think has real potential. She's just scattered and busy, and loving college much more for the fun than for the classes.

Abysmal Attendance Alice has exceeded the number of absences on my syllabus, she's failed to turn in 2 of the main projects, but when she is there, and when she does take part, she's quite spectacular. She's very smart, voices her thoughts well, is considerate of other opinions, and when she's attended her special groups meetings, she's been a valuable and valued member of her team. She's high spirited, fascinating, and I think she's missing out on what she could become.

But she's down to 4 weeks left, and the grading math just doesn't work for her. I've had a couple of quick conversations with her about attending and the missed work, but she's just polite, friendly, and always scooting off to something else. She doesn't seem freaked out about what she's missing, and doesn't seem to care that she's not getting the work done. Yet, I hate to simply let this go.

Don't roll your eyes. Maybe I see some of myself in Alice, and I had folks come to my aid when I didn't deserve it.

Q: Assuming I'm not a complete fool for taking it on, what could/should I do to help her make up the work and move on to the next level with a little steam and encouragement?

A: Send replies here.

Modest Marty from Michigan Just Wants Boobalicious Barbie To Put Her Breasts Away. (What a Boob! {Rimshot.})

I'd like to talk to you about something that's been bothering me. Specifically, your breasts, and how much of them I see.

Now I have nothing against your breasts. I'm sure they're both lovely and functional. What I would prefer, however, is that they no longer be pushed in my face. Also, a top that properly covered them? That would be a good idea. If you're a bit short this month, I'll be happy to kick in to some sort of 'Buy A Top That Conceals The Twins' fund.

A few other things. You're a good student. I enjoy teaching you. But I am not going to meet you for a drink to discuss the course material. Instead, I have office hours. In a well-lit room. Without wine.

Also, the hugs? They can stop. Believe it or not, not every male academic speeding towards middle age wants to hump his students. I think of 19-year-old girls the way I think of Ferraris. They're nice to look at, and I can understand why someone might want one, but I'm not in the market myself. I'm happily married, and enjoy my comparatively uneventful life. A life which has no room for you or your pair in it. Also, when we run into each other at the supermarket, and you hug me for a little too long, the Mrs. gets a little cross. And fair enough. So, maybe less of that. In fact, how about none of that? Would that work for you?

So study, read, ask questions, and cover those things up. Nothing against you, but my life would be happier were there less of your cleavage in it. I am under no delusions that this is about my rugged good looks. I suspect that flashing the pair at a prof or two in the past has worked out well. But not with me. In fact, if you looked closely at the handbook for the course, you'd see that your grades are based on exams that are graded by others.

So no matter how spectacular a rack you may have, there's nothing I could do even if I wanted to. Your breasts are being used in vain. Sorry.

Harried Harriet from Hagerstown Jerks Some Reality Into Justified Josh.

Justified Josh is one of those students who, on the surface, looks like he will be great. He heads out to conventions and rallies, and is a big proponent of diversity issues. He talks about social justice, and believes in equality and fairness and ethics. Cool, I’m sure he’s going to have some great insight when we start discussing issues in the classroom. Except no.

You see, Justified Josh is very upset about the C grade he has received on an opinion paper he wrote on the issue that did not provide any opinions. He is also distraught that one of the TAs very cruelly explained to him why he received such a grade, instead of understanding that grades are negotiable. Also, this TA, being an evil points miser, did not realize that as long as you explain what you MEANT to say in a paper, than clearly you should get that point back. Josh now feels that he is being oppressed, and he simply cannot abide by this TA grading any more of his work, because he doesn’t trust this TA and cannot openly discuss issues anymore.

In our discussion together, he let me know that he wants… nay, expects! me to adjust his grade to accommodate the explanations he has provided. He would also like me to curve his failing exam score up to an A or a B because he did not understand the questions. Of course, he knew he could ask me to clarify, but sadly he is too terrified of asking questions in front of fellow students. Clearly, I should have anticipated that taking an exam in the presence of 60 other people would be far too traumatizing for me to expect students to take responsibility for their learning.

Josh, this is my message to you, sent with the greatest of intentions. The world does not stop for you. When you turn in crap work to your boss, but explain that you meant to do better, he will care less than my TA did. When someone asks you for your perspective on an issue, regurgitating what other people have already said will not get you credit. When you go to grad school, and you tell your advisor that you feel oppressed when she criticizes your terrible writing, she will eviscerate you. If you are unable to provide evidence of your expertise on a topic because you are scared, people will move on and find someone who can.

And when you ask me to make exceptions just for you, or when you ask me to grade you differently than other students because you took the time to come see me, and other students who can’t do so (because of frivolities like other jobs or dependent family members), you no longer have the right to claim you are doing this in the name of justice or fairness. You are doing this because you want something you are not entitled to, and you don’t give two shits about how this will turn out for anyone other than yourself.

The Return of the Love Professor!

Dear Love Professor,
I think my Math professor loves me. How do I know for sure?

LP: Get up close, darlin’. Say, “Is that a slide rule in your pocket or are you just glad to see me.” If that doesn’t elicit a response, check out the TAs. Math TAs never get any sex, so they’ll jump at the chance.

Y Y Y

Dear Love Professor,
I want to impress my English professor. What poem should I write in calligraphy for him?

LP: Hmm, how about, “There once was a sophomore from Nantucket?”

Y Y Y

Dear Love Professor,
I have several young honeys in my class. I’m 50ish, but look 35, and I’ve never tasted the forbidden undergrad fruit. What do you recommend?

LP: A warm glass of milk and a nap, honey.

Y Y Y

Dear Professor de Love:
I’m more handsome than most undergrad men since I’m from France. I’ve already bedded most of the comely freshwomen, and now want to move on to some professors. You certainly seem an experienced older woman, with much knowledge in these matters. What could you tell me that would help me in my quest for a Sophia Loren type?

PdL: How about this. Le Fuck Off.

Y Y Y

Dear Love Professor,
Help us settle a bet. We’ve always heard that Anthropology profs get the most sex. But that can’t be true. Who has the most sex on campus?

LP: Well, on my campus, it’s the Dean, who’s always sticking it up someone's ass!

Y Y Y

That’s all for this week, honeys.

The Love Professor channels

all of her mail through Emily Sloth

in the Anthropology department of

Central Michigan School of Beauty.

This Week's Academic Personals.

• SWF (Sophomore with an F) seeking mentoring, tutoring, and, like, you know, sex, from older (obviously) Registrar's office staff person. I don't think you're all retards, like Ryan says. I've seen some real hotties go in that office. I'd like to really get to know you, have a lot of, uh, sex, with you, and then maybe spend all night in your office, with the computers and everything. I got screwed - not literally, you bad boy! - by my Spanish professor, and he gave me an F, even though I worked a whole summer at Taco Cabana. It's just a grade. My roommate says nobody gives a shit. So, if you're up for the third best cheerleader from 2005's Rancho Carne squad, and you have the password for the grade change software, let's, uh, you know, do it like we're on Animal Planet. Heather in Hughes Hall.
  


• DWP (Didactic White Professor) seeking nubile Nadia Comaneci-type teaching assistant. You: height/IQ proportionate, passionate, wispy, flexible, eager. Me: Powerful, well-read, slightly overweight, bald, a genius, fraught with insecurity, beaten down by career, filled with self-loathing. If you like Foucault, we’ll read him in the original language AND in the nude. Send your photo and GPA to: Disciplinarian in Denver.
  
  
• SFF (Single Freeway Flier) seeking casual conversation and bonking from educated and friendly companion. Must live somewhere on I-78 between Muhlenberg College in Allentown and Widener University in Harrisburg. Ideally you’d be a great cook, too, and might offer minimal laundry service. If you’ve ever read or graded student essays, much the better! E-Z access to both you and the freeway makes this a done deal. Your photo gets mine: Freeway Phil!
  

Pedagogical Pete Takes On the "Written Comment." How Do We Reach Out And Connect With Our Students Through Grading?

Pedagogical Pete here again. In this week's column we'll talk about the "written comment," one of the most vexing parts of grading for new instructors. It's important that we provide timely, supportive, but correct feedback for our students, and when they spend several days or even weeks on an essay or paper, it's even more important that we take the time to prepare an insightful and useful written comment. See what you think of this real world example from one of my colleagues. Does he provide enough concrete examples? Does he make an attempt to connect to the student?

Megan, this is a first rate essay. I believe you’ve accomplished what you intended with it. The thesis is strong, and your analysis of the text is thorough, but not overwhelming.

I also love the font. It tickles me. It’s just, I don’t know, fun. You’ve done a great job with the margins, too. Broad, bold. Lots of room for me to really get my pen in there and move it around. The opening is really inviting. The narrative really flows.

What’s missing, however, is a firm hand. I’d think someone could really take these ideas and mold them, shape them. Your ideas need structure, sort of an old soul to really help them fly. I’m still not sure of the grade, though, and I think we need to schedule yet another individual conference to discuss it. My office is getting painted (again!), so let’s just meet at the Coffee Klatch on the west side of town. It’s so quiet, and their biscotti is so yummy.

See you, okay, at 8 pm on Wednesday? Do you still have your roommate’s car? Do you need a ride? I could pick you up if you need a ride, say, at the corner across from the Kroger? You know my car, don’t you, the Nissan, the big one, the SUV, leather seats, Satellite radio. I’ve really been listening to some of those bands you wrote about in your first essay, The Chins and Arcade Four. Really ROCKIN’. So, okay, Megs, this is like the end of my comments. I can’t wait to see you soon.

Your pal,

Dr. Wiggelsworth

So, now that you've read the comments on Megan's paper, please answer the following questions on your own.

1. What essay elements did Dr. Wiggelsworth put his focus on?
2. Will Megan know what revision strategies to use based on these comments?
3. What brand and model stun gun should she carry?