The Whole, Final, Miserable History.

In the beginning there was RYS (Rate Your Students), a blog started by "The Professor" on November 3, 2005. It was a slow grower. "The Professor" handed off moderating duties when it got busy. Lots of national press. From 2008-2010 Compound Cal joined as a moderator, and was the last man standing when he shut the place down on May 28th, 2010. (Famously, Cal wrote a great piece for the Chronicle that provides RYS-specific history.)

A number of RYS readers approached Cal about keeping that page alive, but he did not want the name to continue. Fab Sun (aka Fabio Sunshine, I'm not shitting you) got the nod, and College Misery started on June 24th, 2010.

What differed the most between the pages is that comments were turned on at CM, allowing us to flail madly, get off track, insult each other, and (more than occasionally) raise the roof on good ideas.

A number of conceits existed with the community, some that came from RYS, and some that were all our own.

• The blog was always run at a "compound" somewhere. In the RYS days, it was a desert location, filled with ravenous wolves, barbed wire, tar pits, and townie redheads. CM started in a shed on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, moved for a time to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where the large cache of compound guns caused less suspicion, and then after a hiatus in 2014, relocated at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. In March of 2015 the community took their weed, guns, leathers, and canned meats to Oilmont, Montana. In December 2015 they relocated to a non-descript strip mall site in Orlando, Florida, their final resting spot.
• There was always a hookah, but past RYS "personality" Compound Cash was likely to steal your weed.
• The page was dying. It was always dying. We were always teetering on extinction, and we liked it.
• Everything on here was written by 4 people. We were lonely. We had cats instead of families. We hit refresh all day to inflate our page counts. We made millions on the ads, when we had them, and then took that money, invested it, and now have spent it on trash.
• The graphics sucked.
• The moderators were always fucking things up, changing fonts, blurring images, capriciously picking and choosing who got to have a voice. Fab used to get hammered for being too big a dick swinger, and then the next day for being too much of a woman. Leslie K would occasionally generate lustful love letters and then misogynistic rants. She treated them all the same, just like she did her hubby, daughter, and son-in-law, with disdain. Terry P. had at least 2 recognized nervous breakdowns during office hours. The moniker "RGM," or Real Goddamned Moderator got used occasionally to depersonalize the position. Hiram ran the page one day, and you can guess how that went. After the 2014 hiatus Terry P. took over again and ended his tenure in mid March 2015 with the remarkable "Mediocre Reveal." Both Ben and Kimmie ran alternate pages during CM hiatuses.
• Thirstys were questions. Thursday was the Big Thirsty. There were others. Nobody but Cal ever knew what they were or cared.
• There was Yaro. Read this. Or this. Or this. Or this.
• There was Katie.
• Everyone drank.
• We didn't invent the term, but we like to say we popularized "snowflake." 
• Our ethos was always, "Don't care more about their education than they do." (Yet all evidence shows we didn't quite measure up.)
• We solved all the problems of academe, and then we broke it again.
• In the 2371 days since the page first went online, we published 6346 posts, hosted 73,780 comments, were visited almost exactly 11 million times, and really really really wanted everyone to stop making cookies for their fucking students.
• Everything we did was out of love. 
• There was a duck. The duck was popularized in CM lore by Terry P. It was often evoked to change the topic, defuse a tense situation, or because it was such a good looking fucking duck. The duck, as you must know, has left the building.

Observations

Some observations on the semester that is almost (finally; thank goodness) over, arranged by buzzword:

Retention:
This hasn't been my best semester. I started it tired; I tried something new toward the beginning of the semester and waited too long to bail on the parts that weren't working and regroup; I was trying to teach 4 sections of the same class on 3 different schedules, which is surprisingly difficult, at least for my middle-aged brain, and requires disproportionate amounts of energy and attention to be directed toward simply keeping track of things, where things may = activities, assignments, schedules, deadlines, students, and/or myself. If lost, I could usually be found in my office or apartment, or, failing that, my car, or maybe church. I'm less sure of where a few of my students were, including (especially) during scheduled class meetings.

Oddly, despite my occasional confusion (and some students' more-than-occasional absences), retention has been better than usual. There were a few withdrawals, but only a few, and I actually received a final paper from all but one person in each section. I haven't graded all those papers yet (and I didn't see some of them in conference, despite repeated invitations, which is a bad sign), so some of them may be completely unresponsive to the assignment and/or plagiarized, but they exist, which is better than I can say many semesters when I feel that I did a much better job of reminding, explaining, etc., etc., especially for the fully-online students. So maybe, despite the usual advice, I should remind, explain, cajole, etc., etc. less? Or maybe Computer Science majors (who made up at least 50% of my students this semester) have qualities that allow them to succeed with less reminding, explaining, etc., etc. than average? Or maybe, as I all too often suspect, what I do or don't do has a lot less effect than I'd like it to?

Engagement:
Engagement throughout the semester may be the holy grail of pedagogy (and just as (un)attainable), but engagement seems to be pretty easy to achieve when final deadlines, and final grades, loom. All of a sudden people I haven't heard from all semester are reading assignments and comments carefully, asking substantive questions, and generally doing their best to produce satisfactory work (and, I hope, developing a few useful, transferrable skills in the process). This is good, and suggests that students do have the ability to engage with schoolwork when they believe the occasion requires it. However, I'm not sure I know how to produce (transfer?) this effect earlier in the semester (and I doubt all the gurus and edupreneurs crowding my inbox with engagement "solutions" do either).

Development/Application of Transferrable Skills:
"Since the beginning of history, researchers have sought to improve [technological thingie which is a decade old at best]" really doesn't make sense. I've also seen the claim that "throughout history, man has sought to create a self-driving car." Really? Do they even think about what these phrases mean? I guess I should be glad that they've internalized the concept of common rhetorical tropes, and are attempting to apply it, but thought and logic, not to mention the selection of effective/non-cliched tropes, are also desirable. 

 
I think I've mentioned this before, but engineers are surprisingly bad at simple mathematical tasks, like allocating a set number of participation points among the members of a group. Some try to sneak a few extra points by me (okay, worth a try, except that years of grading things using various point systems have kept my basic math skills, which were reasonably robust to start with, pretty spry), but others leave points on the table. Like Hiram (hi, Hiram! Are you out there somewhere? We miss you!), I'm baffled.

Also, like Amelia, I'll clearly do anything to avoid grading (and thus discovering just how bad some of those final papers are).

--Cassandra

From IHE: My Best/Worst Semester Dropping from full-time to a single course reveals losses and gains.

by John Warner

6. I miss being part of an institution.

Periodically, over the course of the semester, things would crop up where I thought I could be of help, but I had to force myself to not participate in order to not be even more culpable in my own exploitation. As the department begins to discuss possible changes to the first-year writing curriculum I know that I could be a voice in that conversation. As they worry about declining majors and figuring out how to help students bridge their educations to careers, I know that my experience outside of academia allows me to provide a useful perspective.

But I am no longer a member of that team, if I ever was in the first place.

The reality of the contemporary university is that much of the potential of faculty of all stripes to make a positive impact on students is simply wasted. Call it the inefficiency of efficiency.

The rest.

Brief musings about finals misery and a Big Thirsty to Boot!

Clearly Dr. Amelia is doing ANYTHING to avoid grading:

1. "In our world today" was on our list of banned phrases for the class because Dr. Amelia hates it, she does. So, why, Why, WHY am I seeing it in every tea partying essay exam answer today?

2. The students get hot chocolate and therapy dogs to deal with the stress of studying for finals. Where are my puppies? Someone needs to get on this immediately.

3. Yes, you still have to do a final presentation, even if you don't want to or aren't prepared. You will be embarrassed by not having prepared, and I understand that. It's a natural consequence. Life is full of 'em.

4. I commute an hour to my workplace as a two-body problem solution. Could you people please stop scheduling one 30-minute meeting in the middle of a day when I don't give a test? For the love...

5. You "Studied together" and the part Jimmy Bobby was responsible for summarizing was wrong and you just studied his summary and therefore got that essay question bass ackwards? Too. Darned. Bad. Either pick better friends, or do your own work. DO NOT tell me things are not fair.

And a mini fill-in-the-blank thirsty for youse guys:

I don't always get this angry while grading finals, but when I do...

Irene in Iowa. Finding Out the Truth.

After three wonderful years post-doc at my PhD school, I took a tenure track job this fall a hundred miles away at a sorta of notoriously lousy college. Sue me. I needed dental for my growing family of crooked-teethed children! I wanted a living wage, too, and a real office, and a title, and all the things that we are told are part of the academic dream.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a lovely spot with reasonable enough weather (I know where I live!) My colleagues were pleasant and welcoming. I became friends with them and their children and spouses. And my kids loved their new schools.

And then I started teaching. I taught two weeks of church camp 10 years ago to middle school aged kids. That's what my new job was like. They were boorish and impatient, unable to focus for even a minute at a time. They didn't buy the book let alone read it. I flunked 60% of them on the first test (short answers, 1-2 paragraphs each, about fairly easy textbook and lecture stuff.) They moaned. Why wasn't it multiple choice? All the other kids get multiple choice!

And it didn't get better. My classes started with 30-50 students, and now in the afterburn of finals week, I'm averaging about 60% of the students still left, and only about 50% with reasonably safe passing grades. (I've got a big bunch across all my classes on the D/C border, and after talking with some colleagues - who have been alarmed all semester at my attrition rate - I'm going to bump some of them up.)

These students won't work. My post-doc years were at the state's flagship school. The undergrads I taught or TA'd were bright, inquisitive, and above all, at least willing to try. I had no idea how special they were until I got here.

I had my last final today, and across from my classroom is a small lounge area mostly used by students. I started my students off on their test and took a cup of coffee to the lounge and just stared out the window. (Snow's coming; I love snow.)

Anyway, I heard a blend of conversations during the hour I sat there. I was pretty unobtrusive and I look young. I was half hidden by a piling and there was nothing forced or odd about the casual chatter I heard. (I only recognized one student I knew, but he was a long ways away and I never heard him talking.)

Some of the things I did hear:

• "I have a 135% average in my math class. My teacher said as long as I got over a 50% on the final I'd get an A. Then she just said skip it. 'You're not going to get a 50!'"
• "My roommate hardly ever makes it to class. He's got a 4.0 like me. Our whole floor is pretty much 4.0."
• "With the calculator it's easy. It's all multiple choice so I just try it with the calculator and then bubble in whatever number is closest. I'd be screwed if I had to write something down."
• "That bitch made me rewrite my paper. I didn't fix anything but put in new margins and a new font and she bumped me from a B to an A. Stupid bitch."
• "This class is so much easier than high school. I swear, I'm in a 200 level class that is easier than my senior History."
• "My teacher made everyone cupcakes and during the final we talked about how she was getting married and wasn't going to teach for a year."
• "We only had 2 essays. The rest of the time we just watched videos."
• "We had a textbook reading each week, but then he'd always read the important parts to us on Mondays and tell us what parts were on the quiz. And then the quiz was multiple choice and pretty easy."
• "My professor took us to the gym and we shot free throws to see who'd have to do the extra problems."
• "I told her I had my period and then I went to by boyfriend's mom's place. She was so worried about me she gave me an extension. I wasn't even going to write the paper, but I had extra time after that."
• "Just email your essay and say you couldn't work SafeAssign. Then she can't check you for plagiarism."
• "Don't get a paper off the internet; get one from someone in your dorm. If it's recent enough it won't get caught. My roommate and I both used the same nuclear power paper. But I got an A- because I didn't even have a bibliography."

Yes, I know students love to talk and are given to hyperbole, but these students talked like my own students acted - anything to avoid work. Happy to avoid work. Glad to get the easy grades and the easy classes. 

I've had such a sad semester. My kids keep me going, and their own classes feel rigorous to me at a distance. I sit and watch them do homework - as I do mine. And I get called Dr. Irene and Prof. Irene, and I bought a car and a duplex and my kids teeth are straighter! The town is cute, and big and small enough at the same time. And I just am lucky lucky lucky lucky, far luckier than many of my grad school cohort.

But this college! These students! These awful students!

Before I wrote this post I started reading final exams. I held out hope that 15 weeks of learning by osmosis might have revealed itself in the final exams. But no such luck.

When asked for specific examples, it's generalities. "There are many essential parts of study in Xxxxxx and its important to study them from back to fornt using all of the history of the great study of Xxxxxx and how essential and interesting it can be for people who want to spend their careers in Xxxxxx doing good work to make the United States a leader in Xxxxxx and a pagan to the rest of the world."

Yeah, so there's that. That's 25% of the final grade there.

I'm home now. The kiddos are in their last week. There's an actual goddamned chicken in the crockpot and potatoes and carrots and my oldest helped me make sugar cookies. We're going to have a good night, and then tomorrow I'll look at the rest of these finals.

Comments Caught in Spam.

I am finding 1-2 legit comments in the spam filter every day. I will try to check there more regularly. Sorry if a comment of yours doesn't appear timely.

The RGM 

Oh, hey, here's some misery...

The faculty union at Orange Coast College is squaring off against a student who shared a secret recording of a professor's in-class comments about Donald Trump on social media.

The recording starts mid-sentence; the professor was apparently responding to a student who asked her to her to "talk about how she felt" about the election.

The recording was published on Facebook, and a student group has now filed a formal complaint against the professor.

The student might be in trouble too; secretly recording the class was apparently a violation of the student code of conduct, the California Education Code, and the course syllabus.

The comment section is the usual parade of geniuses.

I'm just thankful that whatever my own misery, at least it doesn't include my unsatisfied customers students suddenly having a platform to complain about me on national news.

Frankie