Dean of Under Achievement is now Dickish Dean. A Followup From FML.

So into eternal quest to accommodate students and their learning styles I have reassigned past assignments so students have the opportunity to earn more points on them per my Dean of Under Achievements "request." (I am told this is entirely up to me but the tone of voice indicates otherwise) Well, surprise surprise, some of the little angels did worse the second the second time around.

I send an email to the Dean of Under Achievement telling him this and asking if he wants me to change the grade to the new grade or leave the older higher grade. Dean calls me irate yelling that he will "NEVER approve giving a student a lower grade." I tell him that is fine, I didn't think that it was a good idea but wanted to check before I posted grades. I was rewarded by a ten minute tirade about accommodating students.

I am not sure if he is only this big of an ass to me or if he has some kind of disorder. I can't even deal with this anymore. Time to start gathering my documentation, get things in writing, send out my résumé. Maybe if I can jump ship I can report some of their less ethical practices to their governing board.

- from FML

God Save Us.

Puppy Room At Dalhousie: University Brings In Dogs For Stress Therapy

The Huffington Post Canada  |  Posted: 11/28/2012 2:33 pm EST Updated: 11/28/2012 5:09 pm EST

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The end of semester can be a tough time, with students feeling the crunch of big assignments and cramming for exams. Add to it the lack of sleep, eating badly and more than a few drinks, and it's pretty easy to get stressed out.

And we know, there are plenty of ways to fight stress — but Dalhousie University is trying out a new way: Puppies.

The Halifax university is creating a puppy room for on December 4th, 5th and 6th to help students cope with the stress of exams and end-of-term assignments.

Not surprisingly, news of the puppies has been met with excitement. A Facebook post published to the Dalhousie Student Union's page on Wednesday has already been shared more than 300 times in two hours.

"My major paper is due at 4 PM on the 4th... I will beeline it to the Puppy Room," wrote Dal student Jimmy Tennant.

Exterminate!!!!!!!

You, ASSHOLE ANDY-----go to HELL, douchebag.  You got a D+ in Comp I the last time you took it, and were lucky to squeak by then!  The wonderful prof who gave you that grade was a bit too much of a sweetie, though, so I think you did not deserve even that D+. And YOU my asshole friend, were probably instrumental in her early retirement (God Bless Her----I am so jealous right about now).

You know what, ASSHOLE?  I mentioned your name to your academic adviser.  The first words out of her mouth?  "WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!!!!"   I mentioned your name to the coordinator of your program?  The FIRST words out of his mouth, with no coaching at all? "WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!!!"  You can't get along with anybody, can you?

But actually, I found out what I needed to know from them, and it was NOT that you are an incredible ASSHOLE.  THAT, I figured out by myself.  No, Andy, what I clarified with your other friends here at the college was that you CAN graduate with that D+.  Yep.  You entered this college so goddamn long ago that you are grandfathered in and you don't NEED a C or better.  I've wanted you OUT of my class ever since your started to torture me on about the second day.  And now I find out that you are here just for your health, you stupid fuck!

So, and with my blessing, GET THE FUCK OUT!  I'll process the paperwork, make it so it looks like you never even entered the goddamned class.  Just GET THE FUCKOUT!  And listen to me,  you miserable son of a bitch, you are FAILING this time, hear me!  FAILING!  You'll have a big fat F on that ugly transcript of yours.  So don't give me shit about how you wanted to take it again for a better grade. If THAT was your goal, coming to class on time maybe even once, doing assignments, handing in a portfolio, and not ARGUING with me about every goddamn thing would have been a better game plan.

In which Edna sounds off about student presentations.

With all due respect, Monsieur Sartre had it entirely wrong: Hell is student presentations.

For the love of all that is holy, dear snowflakes, do not EVER count on technology that does not belong to you to make your presentation run smoothly.

In fact, don’t count on technology for your presentation, period.

Dear snowflakes, you have laid your very own eyes upon the computer set up in our classroom. Does it look like the kind of machine that can run the most recent Flash player? Does it look like a machine that can handle that ADD-approved presentation software that zooms and bleeps and makes all of your poor proffies’ heads spin?

No, dear snowflakes, nothing about this machine has been high technology since I was a college freshman. Your shitty presentation doesn't speak its primitive digital language.

Whither Bradys? Today's VidShizzle.

One of my pet peeves about teaching is how out of date I feel every time a calendar moves a smidgen. Culturally, aren't we always tied to our own youths?

Yesterday in class we were discussing how a single act by a character can ruin a reader's understanding or perspective on the text.

As an aside, I said, "It's like when the Bradys went to Hawaii. I just felt like I didn't understand that show or any of the people in it after that."

"Who are the Bradys?" one student said.

"Brady Bunch," I said. "From TV. Greg, Marcia, you know, the Brady Bunch?"

"What channel is it on?" asked another.

Of course I know the show's been off for decades, and most of my freshmen were born in 1993 or 1994. Of course they don't readily know the episode I'm talking about...but, the Brady Bunch? Who doesn't fucking know the Brady Bunch?

(I won't even go into the argument I had many years ago with an adult student who swore Rock Hudson played Bob Reed's role.)

Anyway, I was so blue that when I went home I recorded my version of that lovely, aching theme song.

Wanted: Writing coach (Durham).

Date: 2012-11-26, 10:39AM EST

 bvc6r-3435358124@job.craigslist.org^[?]

---

I am a doctoral student and I have a lot of writing to do. I am not a great writer. I am not sure if my problem is organization or flow. I am looking for someone who can help me with my papers. I need someone who writes well; someone who can review my papers tell me where I have gone wrong, suggest corrections and provide helpful tips. I am seeking my doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration. The majority of my course work is writing. If you are familiar with doctoral writing, it may not be beneficial for you to work with me. The average paper length is ten to twenty pages. The topic is always related to higher education. I am not looking for a ghost writer. I will write my won paper. What I need is someone who can help shape my paper and keep the paper on topic, help me 'does this make sense' part of the paper. I typical do not have grammar issues. I may have typos but not grammar issues. I have received comments on past pays like 'this awkward and unclear' or 'this is extremely vague'.

If this helps you understand my need, please reply. I have two more papers before December 10. Each paper is fifteen pages in length. APA is absolutely necessary. Much of the grade is how well you cite both in text and references.

Thank you.

• Location: Durham
• Compensation: $15.00 per hour
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID:3435358124

Handling Snowflakes.

Probably the only movie ever made that has homological algebra in it
while also featuring the masterly handling of a clueless gradflake via Ars Mathematica. ...

Regards,
Vog3lfr3i

We Didn't Eat The Duck.

Harvard. BDSM. Misery on Purpose.

College Approves BDSM Group

By NATHALIE R. MIRAVAL, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Published: Thursday, November 29, 2012

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The duck will need
two sets of furry handcuffs.

It started last October with a meal in Currier dining hall with a handful of friends who shared something in common: an affinity for kinky sex.

More than a year after the group first began informally meeting over meals to discuss issues and topics relating to kinky sex, Harvard College Munch has grown from seven to about 20 members and is one of 15 student organization that will be approved by the Committee on Student Life this Friday.

Michael, who was granted anonymity by The Crimson to protect his privacy, is the founder of Munch, an informal lunch or dinner meeting for people across the kink community.

For him, the recognition will provide a sense of ease for current and future members, knowing they are receiving institutional support.

“It’s a little hyperbolic for me to get teary-eyed and paternal about sophomores, but it’s really a joy to see the experience they will have now,” Michael said.

MORE. Please.

The Misery Has Moved.

As instructed by Fab, I've packed up the only remaining computers and moved Leslie K's operations to Ogden UT. She'll now run the page from The Tech Ed building on the campus of Weber State. It's the fucking Beehive State, after all, and this way Yaro can come and visit when those mountain roads to his cabin are clear.

Below are some photos of Leslie K's first day in the new office space. I know it looks deserted, but we're going to try to hire some crack grad students to fill those empty desks, read the insane mail that comes in, and to eventually take over the blurring of photos and the endless font fixing that takes up so much of our days.

Of course it's not the same as the old RYS compound in the desert, or the two shed affair we had in Oxford OH, but it's home. Sure, there will be some adjusting. Leslie K said, in fact, "I'm not fucking moving to fucking Utah. Can't I telecommute?" But once I took her downtown for some caramel bread pudding at the Union Grill, she was coming around.

If you're ever on campus, you'll be welcome to come and visit.

Room 211 in the Tech Ed Building at Weber State. Nobody knows we're here yet.

Ogden UT, the new home of College Misery.

Cal showing Leslie K the new digs, and then,
apparently, going out dancing.

It's come to this.

If I give even a single fuck about anything related to my course, I am officially caring more about their education than they do.

In fact, we have entered the territory where even giving zero fucks is STILL caring more. Based on the steaming pile of assignments in front of me, their level of fuck-giving is now measured in integers.

Fuck.

My.

Life.

DiaMC

PS: Now what? No, seriously.

45 Year Old Finola With a Big Thirsty On, Errr, "Mature" Students.

I’m in my mid-forties and have been raising kids and working for the last 21 years. Now I’m going back to university. My first degree was done on a tiny campus; the student numbers were in double digits and we regularly socialised with the lecturers. My new campus is one of the largest and most prestigious in the country. The Internet was Not A Thing the first time I was studying, so I have little knowledge of tech etiquette.

In short, I have no idea how to conduct myself at a large modern university. I desperately want to avoid being an Accidental Snowflake. Some things are obvious: address the lecturer by title and surname unless invited otherwise, be on time, do the work, don’t text or Facebook in class and RTFS. Is there any other advice you can give me?

Q: If you could design the perfect mature age student, how would she act?

I'm Baffled That I Got Promoted.

Well, just a little. I've done my time, done my work. I'm liked, but not well-liked, if you get me.

But today I got the promotion and heard about the money bump. I have a new title. My clothes are still shitty.

My students, too.

On FML today

Today, my husband quit his job as a university professor and picked up the graveyard shift at a rat farm so he could have more time during the day to play World of Warcraft. FML

Anyone else wondering if the rat farm is hiring?

Dr. Amelia Opens Herself Up to Advice On How to Make Teaching-Focused Work For Her.

So here are We'llBeGreatSomeday U., we are teaching focused. That means, among other things, that student evaluations are of paramount and frightening significance in determining the future prospects of faculty.

Dr. Amelia is probationary. And it's the time of the year when students are asking if instead of turning in the paper they are supposed to be writing, they can post a video on YouTube "on the same stuff." Or, since Dr. Amelia is lucky enough to teach the required first-year course in YouAreSpecial to freshmen, can they just count any old random thing they did go to ("I went to a local liquor store. That's local culture!") as a required campus event.

I so want to say "You're kidding, right?" But instead, I feel the need to placate the little dears. So they rank me higher and I can keep my job.

Which is better:

a) Smile, and say "Yes, darling, whatever YOU think is best because it is YOUR education" and plan on learning how to cowboy up after P & T.

b) Gently say "No, darling, I'm sorry, but here's why a liquor store isn't the same as a campus lecture" and let the chips fall where they may.

c) Say "Um, no." and pack my office, but like myself in the morning.

Here we see Beaker Ben completely losing his mind. As if this isn't bad enough, now he's all out of insults and curse words.

The left-aligned graphic
confirms that he's gone
completely ape-shit crazy.

You fucking morons.

You little fucking shits.

You can’t write a God damn lab report without copying word-for-motherfucking-word from another source but when I want you to simply define a term on the exam, you can’t remember one effing fact.

I’ve busted so many of you scumbags for plagiarism this semester that I suspect the rest of you probably did it too but the worthless lab instructors are too lazy to check Turn It In.

The worst of you assholes are the ones who plagiarize work that I don’t even require you to do.  You don’t need to write an introduction to your report.  Why?  Because last summer I was briefly in a good mood for a single afternoon and decided to make your life easier.  What the Hell do you do to repay my kindness?  You cut and paste a bunch of background information from Wikipedia.  Son of a bitch, I hate you.

Of course, every one of you pieces of shits needs to meet with me to discuss my unwarranted charge of plagiarism.  Surly, each of these innocent misunderstandings can be resolved by consuming thirty minutes of my afternoon.  Allow me to summarize the verdicts.

No, dick, you cannot put quotes around three paragraphs copied from your lab partner’s report, cite it and call it your discussion section.  I don’t give a damn if you didn’t know it was wrong.  Idiot.

I don’t give a rat’s ass if you are not fluent in English and copying other people’s writing is the only way you can string three sentences together that make any sense.  That doesn’t mean I don’t pity you and want to help you.  The douche bags in admissions probably figured that since you can only write four-word sentences that you must be the next Ernest Fucking Hemingway.  I hope this little incident reveals to you that you’ve been screwed.  There.  See?  I tried to help.

We now come to the last float of this turd parade.  You cannot copy a lab report that your girlfriend turned in last spring.  What’s that?  Oh, you actually wrote it for her.  It’s funny that you think that means you didn’t really cheat.  Not as funny as the look on your future ex-girlfriend’s stupid face when I tell her that I’m reevaluating her grade based on your statement.

Singing the Rat-Ass TA Blues

Some early-career CM posters have, with good reason, complained about abusive greybeards, chairs and the like. But tenured professors can have misery too, and I will share mine. today. Here, in far-flung former colony, we follow the system of our former colonial masters, where there is little formal training and much one on one mentorship. Your PhD supervisor is basically a one-man band, with (or so you would think) total power over you. Well, my rat-ass TA chose somebody else as his PhD supervisor, somebody with the potential to be a little more famous than me, but who didnt give a rat's ass about anyone but himself.

So rat-ass TA survived by milking sympathetic fool me for advice on a topic, references, and did a minuscule amount of data collection to get on one of my publications. Well rat-ass TA is now a tenured professor in his own right and how did he thank me? He spread lies about me, IN WRITING to my Chair with copy to me (the fool). My Chair responded by saying that we, the only R-1 institution in far-flung former colony, will never hire some so unbalanced as rat-ass TA. I know he will read this post because he spends an inordinate amount of time online, to avoid writing the worthless papers that he is only able to publish in worthless online journals. So here is my message to him: 

Rat-Ass TA: That's all you will ever be. Look in the mirror. See a man that will never ever publish a worthy paper in a worthy journal without help. Help that you will never get, because I told everyone what you did (backed up by the email you sent my Chair, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a raving, narcissistic lunatic). F you. Its too bad some poor woman allowed you to impregnate her and pass on your disgusting genes. I hope your purgatory is class of 1000 filled with the whiniest, dumbest, most spoilt losers that our fellow miserians tell us about, and that you have no TAs of your own to help you deal with them.

Deleting / Ignoring Student Emails. An Early Thirsty.

A number of emails have come in this week about some earlier posts concerning student emails.

One reader writes:

I was having Thanksgiving dinner with a few professors from different universities, and talk turned to poorly written and unprofessional emails from students. Most of the others said that they simply delete emails that are poorly written or that ask for last-minute extensions, and I have to admit that I was a bit horrified at the thought of this. I've never deleted a student email without sending a response, even if the response was tearing them apart for being irresponsible. I just feel like responding to student emails is part of the job, and ignoring emails from students is terribly unprofessional. I realize that many of these messages from students are unprofessional, but we should have higher standards for ourselves, especially when we're setting an example for students who need to understand the importance of good communication.

Another says:

I have to reply to student emails. When I don't, the students send emails to my chair, and in one case, to a Dean. The chair called me on the carpet and said, "Don't you want to help your students? I can't imagine an instance where a question from a student wouldn't be welcomed by any professional!" I'd rather not sometimes, especially when they're so poorly done, or about inane things already on the syllabus, but I've been scared shitless.

Q: So, for realz, who does and does not respond to student emails, and what's the threshold?

Forget critical reading, get them to read at all.....

Ancillary Adjunct's conversation with student: 

AA:  Yes, I'll be happy to wait in my office where you think I sleep for you to come and make up your quiz.

Slacker Sam:  You keep sending out emails about office hours.  I keep telling you I have a class at 5, but you say you're only there from 5 to 6.

AA:  No, if you read the email you'd see I'm there from 9 until 6, so you can come in the morning.  (Trying hard not to roll eyes or facepalm.)

SS:  You're there in the morning?

AA:  Yes, and have been for the last four weeks.

SS:  Oh.  I guess I'll see you in the office tomorrow, then.

AA:  See you then.  (Thinking, probably not, since you haven't come for the last four weeks.)

SS leaves.  AA sighs deeply and thinks maybe it's time to go back to Corporate America. 

****My schools all want us to get them to read, write and think critically.  I think it's time just to make sure that they actually read and understand the words at all.*****

Blessed Bob

Ahhh, it's students like these that make my day! Office hours early Tuesday, usually I water plants and make coffee the first 15 minutes. Bob, Master's student, is camped outside my door.

Dr. SquareState, he addresses me properly. I'm in your X class. I have an opportunity to go to for seven months and teach hamster fur weaving as part of for disadvantaged kids. Would you give me some tips as to where I can find good information on teaching hamster fur weaving and teaching kids? 

We speak for 10-15 minutes until the floodwaters of students needing my signature on something or other washes in. I explain, and he takes notes. He asks questions. I suggest he register for independent study and get some credit for what he is doing. We speak of target groups and structures of instruction and I literally see the jigsaw puzzle pieces of what he's been learning in X class falling into place.

He thanks me by email in the evening for giving him so many good ideas for material to read.

If I get one of these a semester, I can tolerate the rest. Well, with the exception of the 5 snowflakes I am currently grilling on the grounds of turning in Wikipedia articles as their own work....

We're Getting Out of Ohio in the Nick of Time.

Baldwin Wallace University students arrested for reportedly operating drug lab

By Karen Farkas, The Plain Dealer 
on November 26, 2012 at 5:00 PM, updated November 27, 2012 at 7:06 AM

BEREA, Ohio — Four students from the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music led dual lives -- successfully pursuing studies in voice, piano and violin while operating clandestine drug labs to manufacture the illegal drug Ecstasy, officials say.

Lauren Pajerski

Benjamin Knight, 24, Lauren Pajerski, 22, Max Cickovskis, 22, and Jonathan Beckwith, 23, were indicted Nov. 16 on numerous charges, including assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs and cultivating marijuana. Knight and Pajerski were also charged with theft and burglary.

Public records and interviews with police are filling in details of an unusual drug case that made news with the arrest of the students last month.

"I am just grateful nothing blew up and no one got hurt," said Berea police Detective Dennis Bort, the lead investigator who spent months gathering evidence. "The moral of this case is book-smart, street-stupid."

THE REST.

An Early Thirsty.

I found out recently that several students have posted my lecture slides on sites like Course Hero despite my requests for them not to do so. These sites give me a hard time when I request they take down this material. I feel like complete strangers are making money from my hard work.

Q: Is this a concern for anybody else? If so, how have you dealt with it?

Spreading the Cheer across Campus

Scene: Monday after Thanksgiving. The Contemplative Cynic's cubicle-office. Phone rings.

"Hamsterology Department. The Contemplative Cynic speaking."

"Is this Dr. Cynic?"

"Yes. How can I help you?"

"This is Jenna at the Career Center. I have two of your students from Hamsterology 101 asking for feedback on their final essays. Did you send them up here? They claim you sent them here."

"No, why would I send them to the Career Center? I told them to go to the Writing Lab."

"That's what I want to know. We're doing a workshop on resumes and they show up with their essays instead of resumes."

"I told them to go to the Writing Lab. Please direct them there. I'm sorry my students are too lame to realize that the Writing Lab is not the Career Center. Don't tell me who they are because I'll likely give them a lower grade on their essays."

Professor ChrryBlastr With some Snowflake Mail.

Dear Professor,

My name is Slacker. My student number is _______. I am in your class. I know it is last minute. But can I get an extension. I have 4 essays back to back and work as well. I was sick last week so, I could not start early on any of my assignment's or projects. I have put my work on hold and focusing more on completing the final project. I will not be able to finish the cct essay on time.

I am sorry if I cause any trouble but this is important to me and that is why I have contacted you as soon as I could. Please, would it be possible if I can submit the essay by sunday night or monday morning and not lose any marks in the process.

*Delete*

[+]

Hi CB!

This is Excuse Girl. I submitted my assignment right now, however I just wanted to mention that I changed myy topic the last minute as I was really panicking and wanted to do my best in the assignment. I also wanted to mention something about my first test, as I think I should at least let you know.

I got perfect in all my labs and did pretty well in my last test, but I only got a 57 in my first term test. That week my grand father passed away and he used to live with me thus, I was really out of my senses and also I had another exam at the uni the same day and an assignment due the next day. Maybe, I should have told you earlier this anyway but I just didnt know how to. However, my counselor in the office of the registrar told me to at least inform my profs about my situation, specially the ones that were not in my hand.

Actually I due to some really unfortunate events such my parents separation and a few deaths in the family, I did really bad in the previous two semesters and if I do not have a GPA of 2.5 this semester, I would get suspended for three years from school, which I cannot afford at any cost. Therefore, I still tried to do all the assignments and tests on time so it does not affect my study, despite my grand pa's death. For the upcoming assignment, I also did my level best with whatever I learnt in this course, as well what I learnt cause of my own interests. I know I did my best, still its my humble request to you to be a bit lenient , if possible, considering my situation, as well as the fact that I got good grades in regularly in all my labs and the last test.
Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Excuse Girl

Hmmmmmmmmmm....I didn't realize that we were on a first name basis. So you mean to say that the onus is now on me and that I am responsible for your success? I'm thinking too bad so sad.

*Delete*

E-mail misery - Your guess is as good as mine.....

Hi professor my question how to put show on the research that u got the info from your article in parentence?
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Post script:  this was sent at 11:51pm last night.  I am collecting the horrid thing this morning.

Mini Thanksgiving Misery (Flashback to Maybelle's past)

I've shared this story with other colleagues, so I hope posting it here doesn't "out" me. Here goes nothing.

Back in the dark ages of my graduate TAing career, I went to Far Away from Family School which only gave two days for a break. I had a graduate seminar on Wednesdays, and despite the rumors that Kindly Old Professor usually let classes out early that day, my family and I weren't willing to risk me missing a flight home.

The painful decision was made that since I would be home in three more weeks, it wasn't worth flying me home on Thanksgiving proper either. I was going to stay at Far Away from Family School. It was the first time in my life I would not be with my family. I was heartbroken, but I knew I had bigger responsibilities.

The professor I TAed for scheduled exams for the day before Thanksgiving. (Another reason I did not leave early, even though all the in state grad students were willing to swap Wednesday TAing for Monday with the out of state grad students for that week.) It was not a surprise; it was on the syllabus from DAY ONE. I also warned them every month to plan their travel schedules accordingly as "leaving early for the holiday" would not count as an excused absence, plane tickets or no. (Besides, an exam the Monday when you return from Thanksgiving is just as bad for the little brats as it "ruins their holiday.")

One of the more obstinate little bastards decided that an exam before Thanksgiving was the end of the world. He was sullen and surly. The week of Thanksgiving, he tried to incite an insurrection in the discussion section I was leading, sans prof. He started saying that it was "bullshit we had an exam the day before Thanksgiving." I said, "Watch your language. It has been on the syllabus since the first day of class. It is not a surprise."

Sharing the Misery

Thanksgiving is over.

You know how you see that block of 4 days off and you think: Wow. I am going to be SOOOO productive that weekend?

It's been a feeling I've had every year since I was a Freshman so long ago. I'll write all my final papers! I'll finish my reading! I'll make a final study schedule! And later, in grad school: I'll grade all those papers! I'll finish my Master's! I'll prepare my prospectus! I'll finish my dissertation! And now: I'll write my conference papers, my new journal article, my final exam rewrite, my online re-design, my sabbatical proposal!!!

None of it. Ever. Gets done.

Yet I fall for it year after year. This year, I anticipated doing the following:

Finish polishing 5 book chapters to be submitted Dec 1
Redesign final exam (since last year's ended up online)
Begin my 6 conference papers. Because I have one conference every month for the next 6 months
Grade 55 10-page essays.

And here it is, the final day of the weekend, and I am only now just finished with tomorrow's lecture notes. That's all I've done!! Feasting and drinking and toeing the family politics line -- I didn't even travel anywhere this year. They came to me. And I still didn't do a damn thing.

Surely I am not alone in such folly?

There's no way around it. I've said yes too often. My next 4 weeks are going to be TERRRRRRIBLE.

That's the misery. Coming soon: Snowflake Roundup!

The Culinary Arts Institute Flashmob VidShizzle Everyone's Been Waiting For.

A Big Finish For The Lame Ass Way I Ran the Page Over Thanksgiving. I'm Likely in My Car Arguing On the Phone With My Sisters, But Here's One More Old-Ass Post Before I Get Back to the Computer Tomorrow. It's a Double Feature. Thanks For Your Patience. Or Has Fab Already Come Back and Thrown my Duffel Bag in the Swamp Outside the Compound Gates?

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2008

If 12,000 Proffies Typed For 12,000 Years, We Could Never Come Up With this Shit. Penny the Parent Sends a "Boo Fucking Hoo."

Is there a site where parent's can rate their student's teachers and colleges ? I feel cheated... my kid can rate You on RateMyProfessor ... you can rate my kid on RYS ... where can I go?

Once upon a time, in the Way Dark Ages of the 70's... I served as a student appointee on a Re-appointment, Promotions and Tenure Committee. I don,t know if they do that any more, and I was at an "alternative college," but if Administrations don,'t, they should. Now that was rating, right in the $$ book. I hope they still do it, but naturally, I'd want a say too...

I appreciate that my child might not be a rocket scientist, may think morning is 1 PM, etc. But College child got Out of High School with an 89 average and No Micro management on the Parent's part. We wrote nary an essay, filled out no application... so the Student is where the Student should be on the Student's merits...

But this parent is worried. The Student has one of those Unfortunate schedules and one of those Intractable (but hot, according to RMP) fascists, I mean teachers who is making that Thanksgiving getaway darned near impossible. The only way for the Student to get out of Uni town is Greyhound... the Student will arrive at the Crossroads of America (NY Port Authority) at Midnight, because hot teacher INSISTS ALL Students attend afternoon class or be penalized grade wise. The Student is worried.... The Parent ? The Parent is mighty pissed.

So, can you good folks send me to a place where I can vent ? Where what I have to say may actually make a difference? Because I know that the Student is going to be miserable for the short time the Student is home. And so, really, the Parent wonders if having a day of Thanks is really appropriate, when the Student will still be recovering from the trip home and will be resentful in that surly vacant way that students are these days... The Parent is even beginning to wonder about the wisdom of letting the Student attend an Out of State Instituion. Maybe the Parent should have said... "No Way.." Our State or No State... One would think State Schools would be Overjoyed to have Out of State Students and that they would care if these $$$$$ machines are happy...

Maybe the Professors would like to ponder this. Do you ever think about the folks who essentially pay your salaries? Do you have any feelings for your "employers" and their offspring (besides contempt ?) I mean, do you like being a College Professor ? (I admit it, I read just some of the blog...) Can you honestly tell me that we are getting our money's worth, or do you teach to support your_______________ habit ?

Just curious...

Here's hoping you get that well deserved rest you need over the Thanksgiving break...

The Not Happy Parent...

Then, this happened.....

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2008

Penny the Parent? Now a Pinata!

We've never had an outpouring of mail like this. We're over 800 pieces of mail in less than 8 hours, and it's not slowing up. Penny the Parent has certainly touched off some issues, and we only regret that our reduced moderator staff will make it impossible for us to do our normal editing and cleaning up. Below are the "best" items we've seen, and we've only had a small chance to go through what is still piling up in the sand outside the compound's door. (See, the mythology still lives.) Penny the Parent? Here you go. Oh, and one extra delicious detail. It's a TUESDAY afternoon class this week that's causing these problems.

• Let’s replace Thanksgiving with a Pity Party for poor Penny the Pissed-Off Parent. The folks who pay my salary are hassling me to have their kids learn less? To let them skip class? Hassling me to fall down on the job by blithely canceling class when it conflicts with their offspring’s delayed process of differentiation from their own over-protective psyches? Bwah hah hah hah. You jest, surely. It’s the registrar that schedules the class sessions, not me. I am required to be there. You’re worried about your truant teenager’s grade? I am punished salary-wise if I miss that afternoon class. If I don’t require – really require – attendance on that last day before Thanksgiving, they will not show up, and I will be left lecturing to an empty hall. Not a cozy holiday feeling, let me tell you. Apropos of which, I’d like to get out of state to visit my parents on Turkey Day too. They are getting on in years, you know. Do you know how I make your slacker spawn show up? By making the essays due in class that day. Oh, cruelty! Oh, wait: that means they’ve been freed for the holiday from the Term Paper of Damocles while I brace myself for the massive impact of 80 idiotic incarnations of "X and Y are similar, yet different ... different, yet similar". He’ll sleep on the bus; I’m grading on the plane.
  


• If Penny Parent got wind that any prof was regularly cancelling classes, arriving late, skipping out early, taking vacations during the semester, she'd want that prof's hide. 'How dare that prof not respect the fact that I pay his salary? I want what I'm paying for - classes for Kiddo!' Penny reveals what she really wants -- puppetmastery. Profs should only cancel classes or suspend attendance policies when it makes sense for family planning (I mean, employer planning, oops).
  


• When your child picks a college, look at the schedule before sending your deposit. If the college is open that day, the professor has the obligation to have classes. End of story. Since when is a fascist someone who has class on a scheduled class day? Geez, mom. Every frigging day I think of the tax payers that are paying my salary. Every day. I make sure my students meet the course objectives. I flunk them when they don’t. My colleagues and I are educational bargains as state employees. Our salaries divided by the number of hours we work each week is a great deal. I think every day about the current and future tax payers my students will be serving as nurses, teachers, engineers. I want these future employees to to be educated. That is my job and I do it well and proudly. Students can’t learn if they go home early to give thanks. Wake up and take responsibility. You should have seen this coming. My son wasn’t home for 4 college Turkey days. We knew Thanksgiving wouldn’t be an option when he chose that school. I missed him so much it hurt. I gave him an extra hug at Christmas and cherished the time together even more.



• Get over yourself, would you? It is very clear that you believe your child's life revolves around you. Are you really concerned that they won't have a good Thanksgiving because it's going to take some time for them to get home? Maybe you need to ask yourself the question, "Why did my child want to go to college so far away from me?" The answer is staring you in the face. Attendance is part of going to college. Going to class is not optional. First, you complain that we're going to make them come to class and not waste your money. Then, you complain that they can't come home early enough to spend as little time with you as possible, find their high school friends to hang out with, get drunk and then go back to college to complain about you. And, by the way, our salaries come from a variety of sources: endowments,grants, and tuition (which is often subsidized by sizable financial aid packages including scholarships, grants, loans, etc.). In other words, any actual amount of YOUR money that lands in MY pocket is minimal. If you don't like our "product," go elsewhere.
  


• You mean—class is scheduled and the professor actually wants your student to COME? Or there will be CONSEQUENCES???? OMFG! Call out the marines! Get a clue, lady. It’s on the calendar the university/college/whatever publishes long before the beginning of each academic year—heck, my college publishes its calendar long before I get one from my “real” job that tells me what holidays I get off if I’m lucky. Speaking of which—will you be freaking out if your little one gets a job out of state and has to work the days before and after Thanksgiving—or *gasp* on Thanksgiving itself? Try looking at the calendars and planning your lives accordingly, then get a clue.



• If there is a place on God's green earth where what you have to say--you Pissy, Privileged, Poor-ass excuse of a Parent--"may actually make a difference," then I hereby resign from said green earth. Where the fuck do you get off? Yes, I teach to support my _______________ habit. You got me. With all this dough rolling in, I can afford _____________ up the wazoo, as long as ______________ refers to tap water, white bread, or dented cans of soup. I want to work extra, not blow off class, and stare at the sleep-smeared face of your obtuse offspring because...oh, wait. If I were doing this only to support a ______________habit, I would probably just not give a fuck, and your student could go spend his day with his fam at the "crossroads of America" (isn't that Indiana, by the way?) where he would never have to learn one god-forsaken thing. (But if he didn't have hot, fascist professors, you might have to start blaming yourself for that snotty, self-absorbed little attitude of his - and who wants that?) So maybe, just maybe, your logic is a little flawed. Maybe we care more about your precious progeny's future than you do. Maybe we don't want him to grow up to use commas in his contractions. Maybe we want him to be able to sustain a logical argument. And maybe we are trying too, too hard to keep him from becoming a frightfully self-absorbed atrocity of a human being. So sorry if this ruins your day of thanks. I, for one, am thankful that despite my students' many flaws this term, I haven't heard one sound as disrespectful and ungrateful as you.



• You're right. Your kid is not getting your money's worth. But not for the reasons you think. Your kid is not getting your money's worth because you are bent on passing on the idea that education is something that someone is supposed to ladle into her little brain while she sits around passively accepting it -- and when it is convenient for her to sit there passively accepting it. And you can't get an education that way. You get an education by fighting for it. You claw at the books to get everything you can out of them, and you sit up front so you can hear everything the lecturer has to say, and you do problem after problem in the skills classes and write essay after essay in the theory classes, and not because these things are assigned but because that's how you learn. And that's even before you consider the many people who have to work 40 or 80 hours a week to be able to afford to go to school in the first place, before you consider the many people who cannot go to school at all and spend hours searching through sites like MIT's OpenCourseWare to figure out what books are within their intellectual grasp but will extend their reach.



• You ask whether we at state schools think about our "employers." I assure you we do. We are paid to show up and teach a class session on the day before the break begins. Good taxpayer money funds our salaries as well as the support services needed to keep those buildings open and running. You paid tuition for a set number of contact hours designed to achieve measurable learning outcomes. How can we possibly be good stewards of the public's funds if we don't do our jobs on the days we are scheduled to work? If I'm scheduled to be there to teach, Snotley is scheduled to show up to learn. Did you ever for a minute think that some profs might want that day off for travel to visit OUR families but won't take it because we take our responsibilities seriously?



• Since my Dean has said on more than one occasion that there is no correlation between increased enrollment and faculty compensation, I have a hard time believing that Penny's ilk essentially pays my salary. Even if you buy into the consumer model of higher education, why are you insisting on getting LESS for your money? Speaking of the Dean, if Penny is looking for a special outlet for her bitching, why doesn't she join in with the rest of the PTA and call him/her? She seems to have a cursory knowledge of the workings of academia, I thought she'd have thought of that. In the meantime, she and her snowflake-in-waiting can suck it up and honor their end of the academic agreement. While the professors and the mass transit authority seem to be conspiring against you, Penny, it could be a lot worse. There are plenty of folks who DON'T get to take 5 days off this week.



• I must say that after inflation (mainly in her opinion of herself) Penny's two cents (or sense as the case may be) are not worth much. Bad puns aside, I can't imagine what hell she and her brat create for the profs, but I've had similar little bastards who are the spawn of similarly deranged helicopter parents (seriously, referring to yourself as "the parent" over and over?). If I understand it correctly, momma's little snowflake wants to duck out early, get wasted, and take the typical snowflake schedule (i.e., wake up at 1, arrive late to classes from 1-3, leave early to take nap 2-6, drink thereafter...), and momma both bemoans the teachers for not teaching and for wanting her brat around to teach. There's a reason no one picks up a Penny off the street anymore--they're worthless. University positions are not the "service" industries you believe. Only half of my time is contractually bound to teaching. The other half is to research--with a third of my total time to service too (we know it doesn't add up, but quacks like Penny who sat on advisory boards somehow made 50% + 50% + 30% = 100%). Guess what the most important part is and what I actually get evaluated/promoted on? Here's a hint: it's not dealing with you or your high-school grade inflated B student (who's failing now by the way). At any rate, the truly insane part of your post is that by all accounts the teaching is up to snuff. You're not complaining that the teaching is bad...you're actually complaining that they're trying to give you what you, yourself, bitch about paying for? Wow, just wow.



• Thanks for teaching your little bastard snowflake to take revenge and throw a tantrum when one of us actually does our job and teaches. Good values you're imparting. I'm guessing that whole hit them in the "$$ book" comment is indicative of both how you taught momma's angel to spell and write and also how to fill out evals if you don't get to skip class. By the way, we know your snowflake is not a "rocket scientist," we were just hoping "the student" could at least master hygiene--next class we teach tying shoe laces. I guess "the student" will miss that one to ride the bus--at least you can give it a bath when you see it.



• We of the faculty are so sorry that your special little snowflake will come home surly because THEY HAD TO GO TO FUCKING CLASS LIKE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO! Oh boo fucking hoo! It is parents like you that make “Intractable (but hot, according to RMP) fascists” like us want to jam dull butterknives into our ears so we don’t have to listen to shit like this. As for some of the “points” you bring up I will answer in kind. “Maybe the Professors would like to ponder this. Do you ever think about the folks who essentially pay your salaries?” The college or university where I am employed pays my salary NOT you. That is unless you are the president of KissyFace U. and it is your lovely signature I see on my paycheck. “Do you have any feelings for your "employers" and their offspring (besides contempt ?) I mean, do you like being a College Professor ? (I admit it, I read just some of the blog...)”. To reiterate, I am employed by my college or university. My students and/or their parents ARE NOT my employers. Get a dictionary or just talk to someone in higher ed to find out these simple facts. Maybe the hippie school of “Love, Peace, and Unicorns that shit Skittles” that gave you a degree (I’m making a big assumption here because I usually type the contraction for the words do not as don’t) let you run the show but that isn’t (notice the proper contraction usage) what it is like now. By the way, I LOVE my job but I HATE hearing from parents who think they know what should go on at all levels of a college so that their special water molecule (note the snowflake has melted because of the big, bad fascists have made it gain some surliness and in the process it melted) can show up all happy and shiny with tales about their 3.5 GPA that they may or may not have really earned. Since you only read some of the blog, try some more and then maybe you’ll get an idea of what it is like for those of us “teaching” right now. If you STILL don’t (damn, got it right again) get it, watch Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” and then come back and read some more. And last but not least, “Can you honestly tell me that we are getting our money's worth, or do you teach to support your_______________ habit ? “ My “habit” seems to be a concoction of eating, sleeping, teaching, preparing for classes and labs, grading absolute shit that single-celled organisms think is pathetic, and occasionally seeing my spouse and our pets. I lead a pretty fucking boring life because of my “teaching” habit. I think that I speak for almost everyone who teaches on this site when I say that, “Yes, you are getting your money’s worth”. The bigger question that you have to ask yourself is does my precious water molecule own up to the dumb shit that they do? It is always around this time of the semester that terms like “extra credit” and “bonus points” start to grate on me but I’m sure your drip isn’t one of those now are they?