We barely kept the page alive over its past few months, and the last moderator with the keys to the compound had exhausted all reasonable options to continue the site when he closed it down.
In the end we were just not able to generate enough of a workforce to manage the mail and content, and to do the page in the way that we think it deserved to be done.
We have tremendous regrets about closing down, but we no longer felt that we were responsible enough to carry on what "The Professor" started out to do in November of 2005.
Without sounding too much like complete and utter doofuses, we have been honored to have been able to provide a place where so many modern proffies have worked out the angst and ennui of their academic careers.
Those of us who have worked the page feel a sincere closeness to many of you, longtime writers and readers who have opened their hearts and minds to us. We thank you so much for your trust and collegiality.
But we are no longer active; we are no longer accepting submissions. We've left a pared down version of the voluminous and scandalous archives to the right. 1000 of the original 4000 posts are still available to be read, admired, and wondered at.
A good number of former readers ran a blog for six years called College Misery. It was a terrific site with more than 6000 valuable posts and 70,000 comments.
In the end we were just not able to generate enough of a workforce to manage the mail and content, and to do the page in the way that we think it deserved to be done.
We have tremendous regrets about closing down, but we no longer felt that we were responsible enough to carry on what "The Professor" started out to do in November of 2005.
Without sounding too much like complete and utter doofuses, we have been honored to have been able to provide a place where so many modern proffies have worked out the angst and ennui of their academic careers.
Those of us who have worked the page feel a sincere closeness to many of you, longtime writers and readers who have opened their hearts and minds to us. We thank you so much for your trust and collegiality.
But we are no longer active; we are no longer accepting submissions. We've left a pared down version of the voluminous and scandalous archives to the right. 1000 of the original 4000 posts are still available to be read, admired, and wondered at.
A good number of former readers ran a blog for six years called College Misery. It was a terrific site with more than 6000 valuable posts and 70,000 comments.
), we provide this quickie list of 20 you might enjoy:
. I never once thought my job would come to this. Once upon a long time ago, I taught college composition and the MLA-formatted research paper.
, in which case, your formatting for letters such as "q," "y," "f" and "g" may fall to the space directly below the blue line you're writing upon.
.
. I said that was not possible and asked her why she "had to" miss it. Court - followed by TMI. I told her "You can take it the Tuesday before." which seemed agreeable to her.
to work
including: 2000, 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2010.
are allowed to use. I never intended for you to actually be able to access the document. But since you figured me out, you get an A for the term, even though you know nothing about chemistry and you were an asshole to your lab instructor."
, 
, whispered comments. And then I curtly, quickly explain to them why I did so, that it wasn't an accident, and move on with discussion. They get the hint pretty quickly and while few of them join me over on the cursing side of the line, they accept it and start acting a little more like the adults I expect them to be in the process. 
and tackle life after that. And while it's good to see the school stand up for the instructor for once, everyone knows there are certain professors and instructors that are just bat-shit, ones that propose the stupidest things or who have a Napoleon complex. This was more about her feeling defensive about the grade that was given and whether the student thought he deserved it than whether said kid cursed in the hallway.
from a classmate BEFORE the exam. I am sure Pouty McPuppy-eyes ran to his coach and told everyone he knew what a horrible, nasty, meanypants I was. I just wanted to smack those sad eyes right out of his head.
impression. Yeah, that's gotta be it. I tossed her from class, but I wish I would have made her sit up in front of the class like she was in kindergarten. Maybe she would have cried. That woulda been fun.
in the assignment instructions. He skipped the warning and listed consequences in the syllabus. No, no. No one had ever told him he couldn't do that! NO ONE. Sadly, I believe him.... I cut him a break and let him re-do one of the papers; he whined and groaned and protested (repeatedly) that he would then have to do FIVE papers for the class. I thought this approach might actually teach him how to avoid plagiarism in the future; I doubt it worked though. I should have just failed him for the entire class just for being an asshole, er...I mean plagiarist. 
, an utterly hellish combination. When she did come to class, she sat in the front row, smiling and nodding compulsively like a bobble-head doll on crack. When she didn't—which was ALWAYS on a day when there was an exam or a major assignment due—she invariably had some heart-wrenching excuse: she just HAD to organize that letter-writing drive to free those Taliban hostages! She HAD to take those poor, poor under-served kids to the museum! Couldn't I see that she was making a real difference in the lives of others, and this was SO much more important than my trivial problem sets?
got picked as their representative. And of all the 168 hours in the week following the tragedy, the only possible time she could spill her guts to the media about her precious feelings was during MY CLASS!
, flip flops and Skoal cap might make him feel slightly underdressed for the occasion.
, so it's ok. Depending on the liveliness of the celebration, you may wish to rise an additional 5 minutes early in order to wash the detrius of the festivities out of your hair. It look bad in the pictures.
and dip does not look so good at 20 feet high.
merit a 7.5/10 or an 8…” And what is the metric by which a qualitative thought gets transformed into a quantitative measure anyway? After a few years, it still seems more than a bit incongruous to me. But that is all just by way of introduction here.
.
and Melville and Emerson, well, I kinda come to love the l’il bastards. I mean, I’m not one of those freakshows who wants to be friends and hang out after class and shit and have them over to my house to drink wine and bake cookies. I like to keep it professional. But I feel a certain type of intellectual intimacy; we reveal a lot about ourselves when we critically analyze the works of others. And that brings us together, and I am sad to see them go. And I love ‘em and I want to give them As. And as much as I get kicked around all semester long, at the end of the day, I get to give them whatever the fuck grade I want (and, honestly, I could give the worst student an A and justify and the best student an F and justify it – not that I ever have or would, but to know that I could is enough). Giving a grade is really the only thing I have complete control over. And I have never once had students protest to the dean that I grade too easy. And I have lost some time regretting giving a student a grade lower than they deserved. It has weighed on me and I have felt guilty and wished I had just given them that extra little bit. But I have never once handed in the grade sheet and thought, “Fuck, I should have given 
a lower grade, that bastard.” That’s not how my mind works. The good sticks with me and gets better as memory does its work, and the bad just fades away into the dark realms of oblivion.
."
. It's all better now."
, and (this is the most important part) fail every one of them that needs to be failed. 
on their ass. It makes you look like a pompous jerk. (You ARE a pompous jerk, but it’s best if you don’t let your students find that out.) You showed me that email you sent your “offensive, rude” student, an email in which you cited the “proper” way to address one’s professor, and berated the student for not coming to class. 
about it and post it to their blog. Or they had to make profligate use of their fake ID. Your tirade is not going to improve their attitude. It’s just going to make them think you’re an asshole that never gets laid. (You ARE an asshole that never gets laid, but it’s best if you don’t let your students find that out.) 
or 
or that Robin Williams imbecile in 
. 
is too dumb to read the fucking syllabus. 
as "Nero imaging" five times in the first paragraph was about to push me over the edge--however, it's not as bad as T, who spelled neuroscience as "neourscine." Thank you both for making me want to run right for for my emergency bottle of 
.
." 
. They cannot write a professional email, much less a report. AND PLEASE DO NOT EVEN MENTION DATA ANALYSIS!!! Data = Numbers = Kryptonite to a Letter U grad.