Tuesday, January 14, 2014

An Early Thirsty from Prof. Poopiehead. "Was I Too Harsh?"

I'm currently teaching a Statistical Analysis of Hamsterology course, at the graduate level (MSc and PhD students), and for the first time (for this graduate course) I had a student email me, about a week into the course, with "I can't find any resources on my topic, can you please direct me to some?"

Well, I fired up the 'ole Let Me Google That For You website, and sent him links with different keywords taken straight from the topic title (each Google result produces oodles of reputable academic links to explore content on the topic).

My question is:

Q: Was this too harsh? I don't have a problem doing this to an undergrad, but I kinda felt like I should have provided more "mentorship" in helping the grad student, but this sentiment was overshadowed by the more prevailing one of "Jesus Christ, you're not going to last here long if you're asking snowflake questions like that."

- Prof Poopiehead

32 comments:

  1. If a grad student can't handle a little meanness from a professor, that snowflake will melt by the end of the semester. I'm not sure I agree with you that undergrads could handle that better. Maybe seniors but not younger students, in my experience.

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  2. It's a good question. But, sheesh, I'm so sick of students being determined not to do anything for themselves. Any grad student who asks you that is just a whole pack of lazy.

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    1. Also, doing what you did is better than using some snark in public. That could damage a young grad student's rep!

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    2. Did anyone click the actual graphic. I didn't know you could do that.

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    3. I didn't until you pointed it out to me. Cool!

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  3. If it is debatable that an aggressive response to a grad student query *might* not be good for a grad student, it almost definitely is not a good approach for an undergrad.

    I don't know the specifics of the student in question, nor do I know anything about how to do statistics, and those specifics likely inform the context that determines whether your response was appropriate. I do wonder whether the grad student's definition of "resources" was similar to what you had in mind. Maybe he/she meant primary resources, or vetted resources, or whatever, and maybe he/she simply didn't realize that Google, while serving as a good referee when it comes to disputes that arise over a game of Trivial Pursuit, could also refer people to legitimate resources.

    Finally, and perhaps I'm cranky because I'm a newly minted former grad student. But it's also important to keep in mind that these "snowflakes" are paying your salary. And although as an adjunct, your salary may be far less than it should be, you would not have your job without your students, even the clueless ones. (I won't harp on this too much. This is your blog, I'm a newcomer, and the theme seems to be more about venting--not necessarily a bad thing--than it is about the type of discussion I'm bringing up.)



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    1. You're being needlessly literal-minded here. An online search needn't be Google. We disguise disciplines here, most of the time, so this might not be appropriate, but Academic Search Premiere, Chemical Abstracts and Pub Med are standard databases that any institution with a graduate school will have.

      Every graduate student should have been through an orientation to their institution's library resources. Even Freshmen get an orientation to the library. This includes the concept of "reference librarian," a rather useful resource for answering this sort of question.

      Learned helplessness is to be stomped on whenever it is encountered. LMGTFY might be a little over-the-top (I say, I say might be, boy) but the concept is sound.

      And if you want to get folks around here riled up, keep dropping that "pay your salary" line. The 'flakes most emphatically do not pay our salaries. If anyone does, it's the U.S. taxpayer -- most of these kids are there courtesy of loans and grants, not to mention federal and state support for a substantial majority of our institutions. Furthermore, our ultimate customers are those who will eventually hire our students. And failure to produce someone who can actually figure simple stuff out for themselves is shortchanging both those who pay our salaries and our customers.

      See also what Beaker Ben said.

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    2. Is poopiehead an adjunct? I don't remember, but I'm interested that you assume he(?) is, especially since he's teaching a grad class (and does so on a regular basis). At least in my department, that's one of the few perks pretty regularly reserved for TT faculty (of course, my TT colleagues would have some of the same salary complaints you name, and with reason -- which doesn't mean that their non-TT colleagues, both full- and part-time, aren't even more badly underpaid. )

      The "pay your salary" line gets complicated, at least at my state university, since state support has eroded so much over the past few decades. It's true that tuition is providing a larger and larger part of university revenues (and Pell grants offset that less and less. Loans do play a role, but students and/or their parents have to pay those off, so they don't count as government support in my mind). It's also true that a smaller and smaller proportion of the university budget is going to pay for instruction, especially instruction in intro/gen ed courses (while more and more is going toward administrators, physical plant, student services, athletics, publicity, etc., etc.) So perhaps students have a point with the "I pay your salary" line, but it would probably make more sense for them to use it on a sub-sub dean, or an athletic coach, than on a professor, especially an adjunct professor. The adjunct professor might, with fairness, reply "and the size of my salary relative to the total tuition brought in by this class subsidizes your dorm, dining hall, gym, counseling services, career services,library resources, and smaller upper-level courses. I'd be better off financially doing almost any other kind of work for which I'm qualified, but if I and all my fellow adjuncts left, you'd be paying much higher tuition,and/or sitting in much larger classes with even less personal attention, because administrators are unlikely to cut something else in order to hire full-timers"

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    3. Pierre can't be real. Is it someone putting us on?

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    4. This is the dead giveaway: "the theme seems to be more about venting." You cannot make this shit up.

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    5. I don't want to jump on your case about students paying my salary but I think it's worth pointing out that students in general do pay my salary but not necessarily these particular students. If my current students don't like the way I do things, they can go to another school. They will be replaced by other students, mostly just as qualified as they are. Nobody would know the difference.

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    6. I should thank you for all the comments.
      @introvert.prof

      First,the OP specifically mentioned Google, and that's why I mentioned Google.

      Second, your comment here:

      "The 'flakes most emphatically do not pay our salaries. If anyone does, it's the U.S. taxpayer -- most of these kids are there courtesy of loans and grants, not to mention federal and state support for a substantial majority of our institutions. Furthermore, our ultimate customers are those who will eventually hire our students. And failure to produce someone who can actually figure simple stuff out for themselves is shortchanging both those who pay our salaries and our customers."

      I agree with the last two sentences, and especially the last one. I'm not suggesting instructors simply hold the students' hand, worry obsessively over their self-esteem, and them give them an A- because, well,"you tried hard."

      And you and contingent cassandra (and beaker ben) are also right that to say "the students pay your salary" is not quite right and perhaps raises more questions than it answers. Yes, most public institutions are heavily subsidized by the state. And at least some students' tuition is subsidized by grants (and in community colleges, I understand, it is often true that "a majority" benefit from grants). And although I'm inclined to adopt contingent cassandra's point that students must pay back loans. Even there, I admit loans are in a sense an aid to students. The loan system has its problems, but submarket, partially subsidized interest rates and easy credit can be very helpful.

      Still, I did not say the "students pay your salary" quip to be combative. No matter how heavily subsidized the school, an instructor would not be an instructor without his or her students. And in my experience, as a TA and sometime instructor (several years ago, in the mid to late 2000's), I noticed a lot of discussion of students that bordered on contempt. Even now, I have friends who are instructors who, in my opinion, violate their students' privacy on facebook or on blogs by quoting from papers or exams some so-called ridiculous comments they made. At least for these people (and I admit my evidence is all anecdotal), it might be helpful for them to act as if their students are the reason they have jobs and at least to rise what I consider a bare minimum level of respect.

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    7. I should thank you for all the comments.

      @contingent cassandra:

      I'm not sure why I assumed the instructor was an adjunct. It might be because I came to this blog via a comment you made at Dean Dad's blog, and I assumed all the authors here were "contingent" as your name suggests. I do know of at least two institutions that sometimes hire adjuncts to teach graduate level classes, but I'm not sure I had those in mind when I wrote my comment.

      @hiram:

      No, I'm not putting you on. I made my comment in good faith. Whether others believe that is up to them. I will say that my comment about venting was also in good faith. First, I think there is a place for venting. As much as I become a tut-tutting nelly in situations where my friends talk dismissively of students, I don't think it's always inappropriate to vent about "students these days." And being very new to this blog (seriously, this is the first post I've ever read here), I wondered whether it might be a blog dedicated to venting. In fact, the blog is called "college misery" and the "about college misery" snippet suggests venting may be a big part of what the blog is about ("College Misery is a dysfunctional group blog where professors get the chance to release some of the frustration that builds up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.").

      @beaker ben:

      Thanks for the comment. I think I addressed most of your point above. Where I see it differently is that students might sink a lot of time and effort at one institution and it's not always easy to leave. Still, nothing and nobody is forbidding them from doing so, and if they are dissatisfied, that's a strategy they might take.

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    8. Welcome, Pierre. The page is MOSTLY about venting. When it's not, a little puppy dies.

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    9. Welcome, Pierre (especially since I seem to have lured you over here). This is a strange and wonderful place, inhabited by everything from grad (and a few undergrad) students to tenured professors, attending/teaching at everything from community colleges (and, in a few cases, high schools) to R1s. One of the things I like most is that we can talk honestly to each other about our mutual concerns, without some of the same strains that inevitably arise when faculty who inhabit very different places in the academic power/privilege structure at the same institution talk face to face. We sometimes manage to hurt each others' feelings nonetheless, but I think we learn something about each others' perspectives (and thus the perspectives of colleagues with whom we deal in real life). That's a valuable thing.

      The other nice thing is that, when we're talking about the joys (and otherwise) of pedagogy (and/or dealing with administrators), it's pretty easy to forget who's an adjunct, and who's a full professor. At that level, our experiences are often remarkably similar.

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    10. thanks for the welcomes. I'm not sure exactly how I count as "in academia." I'm a "visiting" (read: contingent) "faculty member" at a library at a research university, even though I don't teach. (My actual background and grad work is from history, but I've migrated over into librarianism). At any rate, I look forward to reading future posts.

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  4. It's possible that the student ment "I don't have enough perspective on the field or topic to tell the good from the crap, can you give me a hint"... Or, they might have just been lazy.

    My response might have been something like 'Google provided me lots of options, why don't you start there and come to me with a more specific question'... Because I suspect the lazy alternative above and I wouldn't do the sorting process for the, (hell, I don't do it for my CC freshman). That answer would let them practice a crucial research skill..

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  5. In my field, google would be more likely to hurt than help, as I have the chance to ponder at my leisure when I grade research papers (even though I do attempt to school them in appropriate and inappropriate sources.) but something like Inside's approach sounds right to me. A student with gumption would feel appropriately shamed by that. A lazy one would at least get the message that you aren't going to do hir work.

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  6. I'm assuming that, since the student had a topic, he also had an assignment, and I'd expect that assignment, class activities leading up to it, or both to include at least some guidance on where to find appropriate resources. I suppose it depends in part where in the program your course fits (gateway or advanced), and I've never taught on the grad level, but from your description (a combination of Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, a fairly broad course title, which I realize might just be part of the disguise), I'm guessing that it comes fairly early in these students' grad careers. I'm also guessing that grad programs in most places enroll a pretty wide variety of students, from recent recipients of Bachelors' degrees to people returning to the classroom after years or even decades. If I'm correct about the above, then it's understandable that your students might need some guidance about how to locate and choose among appropriate resources. The next question is whether you already provided that elsewhere, or whether the students' question is an indication that you need to beef up that part of the class (or contact your local librarian, who I'm sure would be happy to provide assistance in doing so, or perhaps take on the task entirely. That's where I'd point a student who asked that question, with the reminder that the help will be more effective if (s)he takes the assignment along -- or sends it, in the case of virtual help).

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    1. Please forgive apostrophe misplacement above. I seem to be having trouble with singular vs. plural possessives this morning (and I can't even blame reading too many student papers, at least not lately).

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    2. I hate when my bucket of apostrophes spills all over the place. Those lil suckers are hard to catch!

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    3. Indeed. They tend to blend into the rug (or the text, as the case may be).

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  7. My answer depends somewhat on how specialized the topic is. But if a first- or second-year grad student were to ask me for sources on almost any standard research topic in my field, I am confident I could come up with a short list of references (books or original papers) more authoritative than a typical Google search would turn up. Google is not yet at the point where it can compete the overview that comes with 20+ years expertise in a field, which in the end is what grad students count on.

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  8. It also depends on your relationship with the grad student. If your class is a relaxed environment where people engage in some friendly give-and-take, then LMGTFY is fine. Otherwise, there are better ways to handle this, though what you did wasn't unacceptable by any means.

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  9. Nope, not too harsh. If they meant to ask what kinds of sources they need, then they need to learn to phrase their questions in that way. Simply saying they can't find anything smacks of flakery, and at the least, this helps them to learn to be more specific in their overall requests to us.

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  10. I don't think you were too harsh. But then, I've been yelled at by my department Chair for telling an undergraduate, "Do you own homework." I will confess that was at least once said to me when I was an undergrad, and I didn't go crying to anyone, but sat down and did my homework. This is harsh:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wOUMd3bMRI

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    1. So why do my students look like they could be the CHILDREN of these ones in this clip?

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    2. Frod:

      I had something similar happen to me at the tech school where I used to teach.

      A student once asked me how to solve a quadratic equation. I was bewildered by that as I learned how to do that in junior high more than 40 years ago. He had graduated from high school and all my students had to take at least one math course the term before, so, presumably, he should have known what to do.

      Unfortunately, the assistant department head was sitting in on that lecture and he wasn't happy about it. That resulted in a dressing-down in front of the students.

      Like you, I was told to get my act together when I was in a similar situation. It was embarrassing but I did what was required. For me, it was part of growing up and part of learning how to be a professional.

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    3. @QWV: During the much too frequent times my college students ask about middle-school (or elementary-school) material, I get a taste of how Mr. Spock felt when he said, "...I am well aware of human characteristics. I am frequently inundated by them, but I've trained myself to put up with practically anything."

      Also: Did you used to post to CM under a different name? Another electrical engineer who used British spelling did about a year or so ago. Among other woes, one of his idiotic bosses showed no interest in his wearable ham radio receiver.

      @CC: Since they think and act like such young children, it doesn't surprise me that they start to look like them, too.

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    4. Drat! I've been found out. That'll teach me to write something here without wearing a proper disguise like a set of Groucho glasses.

      Yeah, I used to post here a while back with a different ID. I figured I was spending too much time here and deleted my account to remove temptation. I guess the siren call of this site was too much for me to resist, so I started a different account.

      It wasn't my ex-boss who had a dim view of my amateur radio activities--it was someone on CM. (I wasn't a ham while I was teaching but he wouldn't have been impressed if I had been.)

      Your reference to Spock reminds me of the last scene in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". After Kirk states that Decker and Ilea became a new form of life, McCoy says that it will also possess "a lot of foolish human emotions". Spock's reply is: "Quite true, Doctor. Unfortunately, it will have to deal with them as well."

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  11. I was myself just about to ask if Quarter Wave Vertical had been No Longer An Academic. The back story (idiot boss, etc.) and "voice" were curiously similar.

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