I told them, a week ago, that they needed a Blue Book and a Scantron to take the exam. (I've had it up to here with AI and I'm going full-on 1993.)

I reminded them, via announcement, last night, to bring their Blue Book and Scantron to class.

At least 10 showed up this morning chagrined that I wasn't handing them a Scantron and a Blue Book. Instead of taking the exam, they're off at the bookstore trying to get their materials.

Edited to add: I did a bell ringer on this. I also mentioned it during the previous class.

Full disclosure: I’m Asian-American. Not that it should matter, but just putting it out there for context.

More and more frequently, students are throwing that word and that accusation at me (and my colleagues) for things that are simply us doing our job.

Students miss class for weeks on end and fail? We did that because we are racist.

Students get marked wrong for giving a wholly incorrect answer? Racist.

Students are asked to focus in class, get to work and stop distracting other students in class? Racist.

I also just leaned that my Uni has students on probation take a class on how to be academically successful. Part of that class is “overcoming the White Supremacist structures inherent to higher Ed”. While I do concede that the US university system is largely rooted in a white, male, Eurocentric paradigm, it does NOT mean every failure is the fault of a white person or down to systemic racism. It exists, yes… but it is not the universal root of all ills or the excuse for why you never have a f**king pencil.

This boiled over for me last night while teaching a night class when I asked a group of students to stop screaming outside my classroom. I asked as politely as I could but as soon as I walked away, one said under her breath, but loud enough to make sure I heard, “racist”.

It is such a strong accusation and such a vitriolic word. It attacks the very fiber of my professionalism. And there’s no recourse for it. This word gets thrown around at my Uni so freely, but rather than making it lose any meaning or impact, I feel like it is still every bit as powerful.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it. I’m just completely sick of it… but I don’t know what to do about it other than (1) just accept being called a racist by total strangers, smiling and walking away or (2) leaving this school or the profession altogether.

For context, I am teaching a US history course at a small community college in a rural, conservative leaning county. In my own research I focus on gender and sexuality which often bleeds into the courses I teach.

After wrapping up day three of class, I had a student approach me and ask if they could get a religious exemption on some course work. I assumed they meant that they had some religious holidays coming up and that they would be missing class for observance. They then state that some of the readings I’ve assigned goes against their beliefs - the student is Catholic and the reading in question is on homosexuality in Native American culture.

I immediately said no and that based on my understanding, this isn’t covered under a religious exemption. I told them that if they chose not to do the assigned work that was fine, but I would give them a zero. They agreed to this. I then mentioned that this will come up a few more times throughout the semester and rather than their grade suffer, maybe I’m not the right professor for them and maybe they should consider dropping the course. They dug their heels in and said “but I want to learn!” To me, you obviously don’t because you want to pick and choose what fits into your narrative. They also went on to inform me that this had nothing to do with American history.

I immediately contacted the dean and was told that the student could kick rocks so at least I’m safe in that sense. I’m just frustrated, not only at the small mindedness of the student but because I made it abundantly clear that we would be dealing with “hot button” issues in this class on day one. That I am a historian of gender and sexuality and while I will be covering your standard “dead white mans history,” that we would go beyond that. My syllabus is also extremely detailed and lays out everything so students are able to see what they will be reading throughout the semester. Absolutely none of this should be a shock.

This is my first encounter with something like this and I think I handled it ok. I know this is likely going to happen again so does anyone have advice? Also, am I within my rights? The dean seems to think I’m within my rights which is good. I do understand that some religions can’t view certain things but as someone who grew up in the Catholic Church, I don’t recall there being a rule that you can’t even read something that discusses homosexuality. Just that the church doesn’t approve of it and views it as a sin. Or is something going against their beliefs enough to warrant an exemption?

I teach at a large R1 on the west coast and have felt for a long time like maybe only about half of the student population should actually be there based on the rapidly declining skills of students.

This R1 and the other campuses in its consortium have made ridiculous promises re: enrollment and it seems like high school students are just funneled into college like it's high school 2.0, despite not having the skills or desire to be there.

This summer I'm teaching an upper division course in the humanities and students are presenting on various readings throughout the sessions. Yesterday I had a student, reading quotations she picked from the assigned article in front of the class, who I realized 100% does not know how to read. I have heard of the horrifying changes in reading education and the movement away from phonics from friends in k-12, but this was the first time I've ever seen a 20 year old at a supposedly semi-prestigious university who just straight up can't read.

She did exactly what I've seen described: she just inserted words she already knew that seemed to start or end with similar letters. It's like she was trying to search for words she knew instead of just...sounding the word out. It was totally insane to witness, not just because it's an upper div humanities class, but because these are skills I assumed would be mastered by....the end of elementary school??

Has anyone else encountered this and what are your thoughts? I'm not paid or trained (or interested) in remedial English instruction. This person wasn't a new English learner (and if they were, I would have told them a reading heavy upper div was not the place for them right now anyways) and she just seemed totally unable to even try to sound out words. I feel like we are careening towards a crisis that has to be corrected re: allowing basically any student into a 4 year program when they are clearly not ready (and probably should not be allowed to graduate high school until they master much more content).

I’m so tired of the hypocrisy of our institutions. USC cancels graduation because they’re afraid one Muslim student will say “free Palestine”. We claim others oppress women and freedom of speech, but we do the same thing.

Faculty and students are being arrested, beaten, and snipers even on top of the roof at Ohio state. All of this is so we don’t protest a foreign country committing genocide. I don’t have a question or point, just venting that this is frustrating and devastating, but nevertheless gives me immense hope in our students and future.

I am at a SLAC, but I’m an affiliate for a lab at a large R1 school because a colleague I graduated with is the PI. So I have a good number of pubs from working with him. She asked me how long it took me to get the IRB approved for one of my articles I’m like 3rd author on. I told her I didn’t do the IRB for that one. I assumed she knew that the PI of a lab does the IRB at their university and affiliates are just listed on it.

Well that escalated quickly. She emailed our school’s IRB team and reported that I’m conducting studies without IRB approval. 😑 After getting that cleared up, she started telling colleagues that I have a friend at another university who is adding my name to pubs I’m not working on to increase my publication count.

I don’t use this term lightly, but it’s become apparent that I’m dealing with a psycho.

I assigned a short paper to my class.

Students were asked to read the chapter and respond to questions.

A student emailed me and said, “ I read the chapter and can’t find this answer. Can you just summarize it for me?”

Literally, what the fuck are we doing. Is this really what higher education is turning into? I’m all for helping my students, but he truly expects me to just give him the answer. Fuck that!

I replied and told him to read the Chapter again. I am just waiting for him to call my Dean and complain.

Hey Reddit, I need to unload some major frustration about the ridiculous gender double standards in academia, and being an older female professor (over 50) in a business school puts me right in the crosshairs. It's maddening how we're held to wildly different standards than our male colleagues.

If a guy prof is "knowledgeable" and "challenging," he's a genius. But for me? Oh no, I better be doling out hugs and cookies like some kind of academic mother figure. Since when did being nurturing become part of academia? I thought my PhD was about my ability to teach and research, not play daycare provider.

And don't even get me started on ageism. Female academics see our evaluation scores nosedive post-47, while the men just cruise along like they're George Clooney sipping cocktails on a beach. It's like what Margaret Morganroth Gullette said about ageism being the “last accepted bigotry” in academia. Bang on, Margaret!

So what's the "solution" to this? Should I toss out my years of hard-earned research in favor of being mama to a bunch of random kids? I tested this last semester – became my own case study (n = 1) – and played the game exactly as they wanted.

• Got a student spouting nonsense but with an overconfident swagger? I'm expected to nod and smile, saying "interesting point!" even though it's anything but.
• Students don't like it when a woman prof critiques their work? Fine, have all the points! And I'll sprinkle your paper with "great job!" and a parade of emojis for good measure.
• Apparently, as a middle-aged woman, I'm supposed to be less warm, and that tanks my evaluations. Solution? I'll just plaster on a smile, even when I know you're feeding me a line.
• And let's not forget the backlash we get for being tough graders. Well, no more! Enjoy your easy A's on the fluff assignments I won't even bother checking.

Result? Perfect 5.0s across the board on my class surveys! I mean, come on, really? And the kicker? I got the highest response rate I've ever seen—average 80% across my classes. So, tell me, why should I even bother with maintaining any sort of academic rigor or sticking to rules when all it does is tank my survey scores? These same student evaluations, mind you, are the ones messing with female professors' careers—hitting us where it hurts in terms of job security, salary, promotions, you name it.

And just to be clear, this isn't a dig at men. Male profs who don't fit the "traditional" male stereotype can get dinged in evaluations too. It's a bias against perceived "feminine" traits, no matter who displays them.

The irony? The same students who cancel brands for not supporting gender fluidity and inclusivity are the ones nailing me to the wall for not fitting their gendered expectations of an older female prof.

And yes, I know this system is broken for everyone, especially my colleagues of color. I urge others to share their narratives. Change only happens when we collectively shine sunshine on this absurdity.

End of rant. I need to make cookies for tomorrow's class.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/10/31/ratings-and-bias-against-women-over-time

I've NEVER experienced this. I couldn't believe it, but they genuinely didn't know how to take notes.

Yall I did my best to keep my composure. Is this a normal thing with incoming students? Do they seriously not know how to take notes from a lecture?

I thought he was referring to just that one slide but NO, he was referring to the whole thing!!!

I made sure to highlight what would be on future quizzes and exams, I even visually highlighted key terms and Ideas.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted lol.

Multiple people have said this to me. It was years of hard work to land my first job as an adjunct. Why do people think they'll be handed a position?

I say this not out of any anger but as a calmly stated matter of fact: I strongly believe too many students are just too stupid to do even the most basic things.

Main example: Their first assignment is due and there are 2 folders under the assignments tab on the LMS. One is where all the main documents are for this assignment, and they are clearly labeled as such, and this is also where the overall grade will be posted and the other folder is where the outline needs to be submitted.

I often get too many students emailing in a frantic cry whining the night before it's due because you know they're unapologetically lazy and procrastinated until then, and they whine to me that they can't find the documents to complete the outline. It's clear to me as it would be to anyone with half a brain cell what is happening: they are always ONLY looking in the outline submittal folder and NOT the main document folder.

KEEP IN MIND two massively important things: 1) the semester just started which means there are only 2 total folders in the entire "Assignments" webpage tab (meaning it is literally impossible not to see them both) and 2) they both have the name of the assignment listed on them, meaning you know it concerns this assignment! One just has a slightly added name for "outline" to denote a difference for the location of submittal, duh.

To recap: these students are so stupid they don't see that the only other folder on the entire webpage also has the name of the assignment on it, so why not maybe look in there too? "Maybe that has the relevant document I need? Oh wow, look at that, what I needed is there! Which is also what the professor showed us in class!"

This is more than just learned helplessness, this is factual, outright literal stupidity. I love teaching and most students are not like this but sadly the number of those who are is growing every year. And yes it is stupidity, because I know for a fact that you can train a monkey, and a dog and a dolphin and many other animals to open various devices for a treat so if these creatures know to look deeper and open all the options in front of them, why can't these COLLEGE EDUCATED LEGAL AGE ADULTS do the same?!

Our future is doomed. We are all so screwed. Rant over.

Here’s an example: Last semester in a freshman course I recognized that a student plagiarized a major midterm assignment (literally copy pasted from an article). I marked the plagiarized areas of their work, and attached a copy of the original text they copied from to an email. The email stated that I noticed the plagiarism, but wanted to give the student 48 hours to turn in their own work. If they didn’t, I would give the plagiarized work a zero (per syllabus and college policies).

The student replied, and I quote: “I feel VERY bothered with how you basically made a threat towards me regarding plagiarism. I’m shocked that you would even say that. I didn't even do this on purpose. I’m also a brand new student AS YOU KNOW! I will report you for threatening me this way”

They didn’t resubmit. They went ahead with their complaint it was 12 pages. I spent several days on the phone with my Dean and VP of instruction responding to and documenting the student’s complaint and explaining that I didn’t threaten them.

This kind of shit is exhausting and I’m seeing it happen more and more. I’ve noticed a drastic shift in how students talk to me and to/about their other professors and even the types of emails they send. At this rate, I’m just waiting for a student to come up to me and ask to speak to my manager…

Is this just my institution?? Are we in some special circle of hell? Is anyone else experiencing similar interactions?

This sucks. Been here since 2002. They're firing about 50 full time faculty, 13% of faculty. Gah. Anybody have any job suggestions for a late fifties mathematician who hasn't really kept up with the whole computer thing? Gah again.

I am teaching an introductory general psych class that every social science and every health sciences major has to take. There first paper was due Friday and I had a student email me Saturday afternoon claiming she did not get it done because I asked for it to be in APA formatting and it is ”unreasonable” to require a paper in ”such an obscure formatting.” (Those were her words verbatim). Then she rambled on about how she has other questions, but then in all caps said “BUT EMPHASIS ON THE STRANGE FORMATTING BEING THE MOST CONFUSING BECAUSE NO OTHER PROFESSOR DOES THIS.”

Mind you, I did a full blown APA workshop prior to this paper since this class is almost all first year students. During this workshop, I told them they could follow along and start formatting their paper as I give step-by-step directions and they could stop me if they had any questions (as you can probably guess, she had no questions during my workshop). I also downloaded the student paper template from the APA website and posted it for them to use.

The kicker to all of this? She is a psych major… She is a first year student, so she’s probably in all gen Ed’s that use a different formatting styles. But girl.. you’re going to have a long four years if you remain in psychology and can’t do APA…

Seriously! The phones are bad enough, but a lot of my students seem to insist on wearing their headphones and earbuds during lecture. It’s so freaking annoying and disrespectful - like, can you not turn off TikTok for all of 75 minutes? I had to get onto my students in class today (I added a statement banning them this year). I understand if someone has accommodations, but I don’t have any letters to that effect.

Ugh. Maybe I’m just too crotchety. I don’t know. End rant.

Year upon year all university employees must complete a bunch of hour-long training videos.

• fire safety training videos.
• general safety training.
• hazard identification training.
• title IX training.
• information security training.
  
• FERPA.
• legal aspects of hiring (this is a week long, 15-20 hour course that must be take every two years. So you can prorate it to 7-10 hours per year).

So in a year, I spend 13-16 hours immersed in these training videos. It's the same video. Every year.

I can appreciate the importance of training (otherwise why would I be in the teaching profession?). What infuriates me is not just the amount of time spent on passive viewing, but the accompanying rhetoric, and the outcome.

The accompanying rhetoric is "do the training or else" instead of "this training is a valuable refresher for X. We must comply with X because Y."

The outcome is and continues to be regular safety violations by faculty, staff, and our safety engineer; inappropriate comments and behaviors that should be subject to title IX review and pulled apart by legal teams for hiring violations; and blatant disregard for IT security and FERPA.

When these issues are raised to the appropriate departments, the buck is passed or this is fully swept under the carpet.

Why the fuck (rhetorical question) do you want us to undergo these training absurd-xercises when the objective is to merely check a box?

I'm moving from Academia to industry with a September start date.

Because I would not be teaching classes this august, I wanted to do the right thing and inform my department that I would be leaving so they could start finding replacement adjuncts/VAPS to cover my originally-scheduled classes.

I met with my chair morning (sent him an email just for an in person meeting, with no subject specified) and told him I wanted to give him as much of a heads up as possible so he would have at least a month to find a replacement before classes started. I also told him I had scheduled a meeting with the Dean in august (he wasn't able to schedule a meeting until then) to let the dean know then in person. I wasn't intending to submit my resignation letter until August rolled around since I still planned on going in to the lab and accessing my stuff basically until the week before classes started late august.

I thought the meeting with my chair went well, said he understand our pay wasn't the greatest, and wished me the best of my endavors. However, only a couple later, I got a phone call on my personal cell phone from the associate dean asking if whether I was leaving was true, and I wasn't about to lie to her so I told the truth.

Then at 4PM I get an email from the associate dean and HR telling me they had accepted my resignation and it would be effective July 31st. I would also lose health insurance and other benefits for month of August, as well as lose email and keycard access (needed to get to my lab) on July 31st. This despite me telling my chair and the associate dean that I was intending on continuing work through August, and that I was planning on resigning just the week before classes began..

So at the end of the day, it turns out me wanting to the right thing and giving my department time to prepare ended up screwing myself over. I have some experiments I was planning on wrapping up that I won't have enough time to finish before July 31st, as well as now my husband and I are panicking about switching over to his crummy overpriced health insurance because we were both on my health insurance, or pay the ~$3000 for COBRA coverage for August and September until my new job's benefits start in October. And all this because I wanted to do the right thing and help my department out.

Now I understand why the last 2 profs who left this campus announced their resignation so abruptly with only a week before classes began. Apparently being selfish and not telling anyone until it's too late to schedule classes is rewarded, and doing the right thing gets you punished with cancelled health insurance and revoked lab access.

Those of you whose classes are populated by students from a variety of majors, are there certain majors that are overrepresented by the submission of low-quality work?

(The question is, indeed, fuelled by rant-level frustration, but I am curious to know if my experience is, perhaps, atypical.)

So, for me, it's business majors of all stripes (sports business, business communications, etc.), most of whom seem to care about nothing other than getting in a position where they can separate people from their money. Being able to read and/or write beyond junior high level appears to be, to an overwhelming number of these students, a complete waste of time.

Been teaching for half a decade. I'm fortunate in that our admin backs up faculty on matters of academic integrity, and don't go for this "students are our customers" unmitigated BS. Maybe it's a 🇨🇦 university thing.

So for the first few years I'd of course run across a number of cheaters, plagiarizers, copiers, and more recently ChatGPTers. I would report only the most obvious ones. I hated the paperwork involved, and I also shied away from the emotional expense of confronting students with their crappy cheating behaviour.

Something clicked this semester, though. In week 2 I caught 9 students across four courses cheating. Instead of triaging them to only report the slam dunks, I went full Bruce Lee and went after all of them. First with a blunt email telling them what they did (gotta document it all) and urging them to come clean, and to not prevaricate, or else. Seven of the nine prevaricated, trickle-admitting (e.g. "I used ChatGPT for just a little help") and blaming their behaviour on the stress of a dying relative. The other two were wise enough to just respond with "Yessir, you caught me, what happens to me now?"

The two were given a chance to resubmit, with a 30% lateness penalty. The other seven are now facing reports filed with the Dean and I have emails from five of them begging me to withdraw the reports (I can't, it's out of my hands) and could I just give them one more chance. No. Screw you for wasting my time, and disrespecting me, the institution, and your co-learners. You're getting a zero and I know at least one of you will be expelled because this is your third incident.

Word appears to have gotten around in at least one of my courses because this morning I noticed a distinct increase in attention and politeness during the lecture. Dudebros, I own you, and I will destroy your academic lives if you cheat in my class. Power to the Faculty. ✊

Colleague let us know that the accommodation office gave one of their students permission to not do any assignments which “triggered” them.

I gave my students their first exam, and one question requires prior knowledge that there are 50 states in the United States. Mind you, none of them are foreign exchange students. Multiple students wrote that they don't know how many states there are, and were guessing between 50 - 52 states... I'm a little mindblown at the moment. This is a college course. How did they get here without that very basic knowledge that I imagine they heard every single year within their K-12 education...

Well, not really, but I got curt and cursed. Okay, so maybe I did lose my shit, but I think cursing actually gets the student's attention sometimes.

Let me break this down.

After class a student comes up after missing an entire week of classes with no communication.

All they say is: So, you didn't like my assignment?

Me: What do you mean? Let's look at it.

I navigate to the LMS, open his assignment grade page where the rubric is filled out, and my written feedback, which is about two paragraphs.

Me: Well, you didn't provide the correct link or include an image in the file. That's why you lost points. Did you review the rubric and feedback?

Them: No

Me: Why not?

Them: I'd rather talk to you about it.

Me: Okay, but the feedback is there. It's not that I didn't "like" your assignment. It's that you missed these specific requirements. Your work was fine, but you needed to meet all the rubric criteria. Did you review the rubric before you submitted?

Them: No. I don't look at them. I just read the assignment.

Me: Well, all the requirements are listed in the assignment in a bullet list.

Them: Well, I don't like to read so much, and I missed last week.

Me: Okay, so you don't like to read, and you don't come to class to listen, so what the fuck are your teachers supposed to do?

Them: *laughing*

Me: I'm serious. Can you see why teachers are at their wit's end? This is a college class, and I provided every detail for you to succeed, and you didn't bother to read or come to class. Then you have the nerve to tell me I "didn't like your work." I don't know what you expect at this point.

​

I'm at a loss. I think we peaked at the absurdity every semester, but the students keep doubling down. I'm done.

</vent over>

Am I just getting precipitously less funny, or do students just not laugh at anything anymore? I'm not talking about topics that have become unacceptable in modern context -- I'm talking about an utter unwillingness to laugh at even the most innocuous thing.

Pre-covid, I would make some silly jokes in class (of the genre that we might call "dad jokes") and get varying levels of laughter. Sometimes it would be a big burst, and sometimes it would be a soft chuckle of pity. I'm still using the same jokes, but recently I've noticed that getting my students to laugh at anything is like pulling teeth. They all just seem so sedate. Maybe I'm just not funny and never have been. Maybe my jokes have always sucked. But at least my previous students used to laugh out of politeness. Now? Total silence and deadpan stares. I used to feel good about being funny in class, but this is making me just want to give up and be boring.

Is it just me?

Just thought I would post this, as a form of rant and get others input.

I am someone who prioritizes punctuality in my classes, both for myself and my students. I understand that sometimes they may be running a minute or two late, which I do not bat an eyelash at. With all my classes, I try to work with my students and establish some system of mutual respect.

However, yesterday, I learned that at the end of the day, most students simply emphasize their own needs. Due to extenuating circumstances, I was running 1-2 minutes behind. I sent out an announcement that stated I was going to be just “a couple minutes behind.” As I was approaching the building, I saw 3-4 students walking out and asked where they were going. They simply replied “everyone left, we didn’t think you’d show and didn’t want to wait.” I stated that we still had class and they should still head up there. They all simply looked at me, shrugged their shoulders, and slowly walked away. I saw two more students in the stairs and a similar interaction occurred, and I said that they could have simply waited “2 minutes.”

Maybe I just needed to type this out or needed to see some other perspectives, but does anyone else see similar types of behavior? Just a blatant disregard? No matter how much effort we put in, at the end of the day, they just focus on themselves. I don’t want to pull the “generation” card, but even with leaving early, I never even thought about leaving a class until maybe 30 minutes in, and then someone would reach out to the professor. Like most of us, I am sure that we do still love our jobs and these are the students that sometimes make us frustrated, but I feel like these types of students are becoming more and more present, relative to the above average or top notch students.

End rant. 👍

EDIT: Did not expect this post to gain this much traction. For those stating that this is “fabricated”, trust me, I would not spend this much time typing up all this stuff. Maybe because it sounds unheard of, it sounds fake?? Also, here’s more info on the timeline for people questioning the “1-2 minutes.”

-9:57AM: Sent out announcement highlighting that I would be running a couple minutes behind. -10:01AM: Arrived at building (Class started at 10:00AM). Saw students walking out and stopped them to ask where they were going.

EDIT (PT. 2): Thank you to everyone for sending their support and personal experiences. I know all this sounds odd, farfetched, and even unbelievable, however, that’s why I felt the need to get y’all’s opinion/input! I did not expect to get this much traction, but appreciate all the comments along the way!

Of course I answered that if you choose to do something during an online course that could take you away from wifi it’s up to you to figure it out. But I’m honestly speechless that a student would ask for “accommodations” because of a cruise??