Every so often there's a student that I want to kick out of my field, if not the whole university. Today I witnessed the following exchange between an extra special snowflake and the professor I'm TAing for.
Dull Danny: Umm.. are you the professor?
Profie: Yes
Dull Danny: I need to get into this class and it's full.
Profie: It's the 6th day of class. We've covered three chapters. How come you are just now here?
Dull Danny: I'm a Biology major, and I took first semester biology before and got a D, so I need in.
Profie (to my shock and dismay): Fine. Write down your information and give it to me after class.
Dull Danny then schlumps to the back of class where he spends the first 15 minutes of lecture looking up the information for the class he supposedly wants to get in, then, nothing. He sat there starring at the list of course numbers the rest of the period.
I foresee another D in Danny's future.
I've had Danny in class! He had written the wrong class number down when I asked him for his Add slip. Turns out he didn't even want to be in MY class; he wanted to be in another class that met down the hall at the same time.
ReplyDeleteFresno is in California, which is facing some painful budget cuts this year. During our beginning-of-semester faculty assembly, the president of the university announced this. The chair of the math department then asked, "Why don't we cut the bottom students?" The president didn't know what to say.
ReplyDeleteAs the math chair said to me later, "We get over 200 students taking remedial math every semester. They're costly. Why don't we just raise admissions standards, and not take them?" If anyone objects that it isn't fair, is it as unfair as penalizing the student who can do math at college level?
"Why don't we cut the bottom students?"
ReplyDeleteTwo words: Social Promotion
Welcome to the previous two weeks of my life.
ReplyDelete"But I need to take this class this semester to gradute from my university this May!"
Really? You, a senior, need a freshman-level course from outside your university to graduate in May? Is this the same university where you are carrying a GPA that is significantly less than a 2.00? (Thanks for faxing us your transcript, by the way.) Because you would be the first non-athlete (a-hem) in the history of ever to graduate with such prestigious accomplishment.
By all means, I didn't realize with whom I was dealing. I would be more than pleased to assist you. That is, as long as you have the blessings of the instructor and the dean. By the end of the day. In writing. And send me a shrubbery while you're at it.
Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery, only slightly higher so you get a two-layer effect with a little path running down the middle...
ReplyDeleteNi!
ReplyDelete"Why don't we cut the bottom students?"
ReplyDeleteBecause they pay tuition just like the rest of the students. In fact, they may pay more tuition because they won't be eligible for as many scholarships and other discounts.
Hmm... if we send all the bottom students on a quest for shrubbery, maybe they'll quit school and become landscapers!
ReplyDelete