I just read this and I had to share.News from Texas, with shocking, straightforward language (leave it to Texas to shoot from the hip):
“Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to ‘chill out,’ ‘get out of my space,’ ‘go back and teach,’ [been] called a ‘fucking moron’ to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students…. None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level…. I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade.”
I need to know: What would you do if someone in your Department pulled this? Cheer? Shake your head? Run away? Comfort the students?
IS THIS GUY CRAZY OR A HERO? (or both?)
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The real question is "why doesn't this happen more often?"
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when Wicked Walter gives a speech at the state-wide faculty development retreat.
ReplyDeleteI think I was at this retreat.
DeleteI would suspect that there's a backstory here, where previous experience suggests that admin will do absolutely nothing to deal with cheaters, and so "a statement is being made". Otherwise, I find this rather inexplicable (i.e. also failing the students who did no cheating).
ReplyDeleteThe click2houston.com article says, "Dr. Patrick Louchouarn, the vice president of academic affairs at the university made it very clear that although they respect Horwtiz, his failing grades won't stick."
ReplyDeleteThat's actually a strong statement in support of the proffie. If the administrators had disagreed with Horwitz, then they likely would have had "no comment" or tried to distance themselves from him. It sounds like an incredible victory for Horwitz--and for rigor, standards, and integrity.
But I'm just guessing.
I cheer this guy as I cheer Ferris Buehler: appreciating a fantasy. But Ferris lied, changed his grades and skipped school, and Horwitz abandoned his class and his contract. So he's not a hero. He could have written a great CM playlet or animated short on -- Extralife? Sorry, brain fried and using phone.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the counterparties didn't hold up their end of the deal in this contract, and that the proffie therefore had a legitimate reason for backing out.
DeleteWhat if the students had been urinating on the proffie during class--and the administrators had been aware of it without doing anything to stop it? Then no reasonable person could have insisted that the proffie continue to be bound by that contract. There are, in fact, very good reasons for a proffie to walk away before the semester ends.
This is why it's important to note that the VP of Academic Affairs made it "very clear" that they "respect" the proffie. That's pretty amazing. Usually the school publishes a terse note that says, "We are unable to comment on personnel matters." Or, "Mr. Horwitz is no longer affiliated with the school."
If the published reports are correct (and, of course, they might not be), then it seems like this proffie was in the right.
Then he's my hero -- especially given the details below from Frankie Bow.
DeleteThe account at Inside Higher Ed is less biased than the one at Gawker.
DeleteXtranormal.
ReplyDeleteI think he's showing courage in the great tradition of the Alamo. The results for him will probably be similar, but I am cheering. Don't mess with Texas.
ReplyDeleteRemember the Alamo!
Delete"Horwitz said that "a few" students had not engaged in misbehavior, and he said that those students were also the best academic performers. Horwitz said he offered to the university that he would continue to teach just those students, but was told that wasn't possible ." So apparently he wanted to continue teaching the appropriately-behaved students, but he wasn't allowed to have the disruptive students removed from class.
ReplyDeleteI've been tempted, but usually more in relation to individual students than a whole class (though there have certainly been a few classes I was glad to see the last of -- and, if the evals were any measure, vice versa). But we do have a responsibility to the individual students, and even if all he had were a few students quietly doing an honest job of producing mediocre to terrible work, he still had a responsibility to issue them their C-s (or B-s or A-s or whatever a reasonable balance between local standards and his conscience produced) and let them graduate. Even if students are behaving terribly, one still has to grade the work (as long as the work was actually done by the students. Cheating is a special case).
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly nice to hear a school being even mildly supportive of a professor. However, I'm inclined to suspect that's a function of one or more kinds of privilege. According to the linked Inside Higher Ed article, he's not exactly your average contingent professor; he has taught extensively elsewhere, and "relocated (to a non-tenure-track position) because his wife holds an academic job in Houston, and they have had to work hard to find jobs in the same area." It would be interesting to know what position(s) he has held in the past, and what position she currently holds, as well as what their professional networks are like. He is, after all, a b-school proffie; I'm getting a don't-want-to-rile-somebody-with-some-power vibe. I'm also getting the sense that he doesn't really have to work as a b-school proffie (either because he doesn't have to work for money at all, or because he could easily get work in the corporate world). That's making me lean more toward seeing this as a temper tantrum by somebody who didn't want to follow through on the job he'd promised to do, however difficult it might be, than a heroic action (and it's not crazy, but also considerably less admirable, if he doesn't really have much to lose). If he has as much power as I suspect he has, I'd like to have seen him stick around and thoroughly prosecute all the cheating cases, while giving the honest students, however incompetent and/or rude, the grades they deserve. *That* would be heroic (especially if supposed-to-be-graduating students and their parents started squawking about their actually being held to standards).
I feel for the "good" students. A long time ago in one of my graduate classes someone plagiarized their grant proposal. The instructor informed us "that someone had plagiarized their proposal and that the everyone in the class was going to get an incomplete" until the asshat came forward. I was pissed and I wanted the plagiarist kicked out of school and I still have a bad reaction to plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteIf Horwitz did this to make a point good for him, but if it was temper tantrum (as CC mentions) then boo on him. As for myself, I have had horrible classes that make me regret getting up in the morning, but I plod onward for the one or two good apples. I cannot let the good students down.
Also from the Inside Higher Ed piece:
Delete...Horwitz sent [an] email to the senior administrators of the university telling them what he had done, and predicting (correctly) that students would protest and claim he was being unfair. The students are "your problem now," Horwitz wrote.
In most of his career, he said, he has rarely awarded grades of F except for academic dishonesty. He said he has never failed an entire class before, but felt he had no choice after trying to control the class and complaining to administrators at the university.
I think he did it to make a point to administration that they need to back up their instructors. And as Frankie Bow pointed out, he tried not to throw the good students under the bus.
If Horwitz did this to make a point good for him, but if it was temper tantrum (as CC mentions) then boo on him.
DeleteI'm not sure it's either-or. I've heard more than a few colleagues talk about the productive effect of losing one's cool with a class that's not being cooperative, productive, etc. It's not my natural mode, but I've cancelled class in disgust when students were unanimously unprepared... and walked out of meetings when faced with grossly uncollegial behavior.
I agree that a blanket F is unjustifiable. I don't agree that emotional responses and effective pedagogy are completely separate things.
I need to clarify. I mean if he did it as a tantrum because he does not like the position/job he has committed himself to doing. If the tantrum occurred because the students were being assholes, then bravo.
DeleteI think this guy is a hero because he has made this a point of discussion at universities across the country. Administration really must back up instructors, and search committees should make sure they recommend scholars who also demonstrate an ability to teach. Far too many PhDs are clueless in classroom management. In an age when every idiot expects to go to college, most universities can expect a growth of the public school experience -- they need to provide resources accordingly.
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