Friday, November 30, 2012

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

17 comments:

  1. I'm glad you're plotting an exit. This Dean is way, way too involved in your day-to-day classroom business. If you can anonymously report problems after you leave, good, but keep in mind you may still need a reference (or at least work confirmation) from someone there. In the meantime, I'd be tempted to keep my head down, and try to fly under the Dean's radar. It may not work, but it's worth a try.

    P.S. Where in the world is your chair in all this? Or aren't there chairs in your institution's structure? I just can't imagine discussing grades on individual assignments with a dean (or even my chair), but clearly we're working in different contexts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you have an HR director with a spine? That's another option as well. Damn, I'm so sorry about this. I can only imagine the stress this produces.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like the "with a spine" qualification. There do, indeed, seem to be a fair number of invertebrates working in administration these days.

      Delete
  3. I've thought about recording some of our conversations and showing them to HR but am foggy on the legalities of this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always make it clear ahead of time to students that they can do worse on certain "make-up" work: some do and get the lower mark. They don't like it, but they can't say they weren't warned.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always make it clear ahead of time to students that they can do worse on certain "make-up" work: some do and get the lower mark. They don't like it, but they can't say they weren't warned.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I, too, if I offer an option to redo, make clear that if they do worse on the second attempt, that grade will stand. But it doesn't sound like you'd be able to do that anyway. I rarely get anyone redoing an assignment.

    In the future, rather than surmising what the dean wants of you, is it possible to get in writing exactly what it is he wants you to do so you don't end up unprotected?

    Your dean sounds a lot like EMH's dean... quite the hands-on picky administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I agree, your work life sucks.

    Micromanagement and shifting directives are hard enough to deal with (been there), but yelling at an employee over the phone is abusive and unprofessional. Certainly let HR know, but only after you've talked to your union (Faculty Association) representative, especially if you're an adjunct.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Not sure why any dean would believe that he has the right to yell at someone. If one of the dean's ideas doesn't work out as he had hoped, so be it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Please, please tell me the moderator has seen this crazy post from Doris and is going to remove it. It adds nothing to the discussion.......except maybe to make us think you should hire a witch doctor so your Dean can be exorcised from office???

    FML, I am so sorry for you. I too have worked with crazies and all you can do sometimes is bow and exit gracefully stage right to get away from them. It was all I could do for in an entire year not to lose it with a particularly odd colleague. She'd be nice to you one moment and scream at you in the next. Maybe she was a multiple personality, I wasn't about to get close enough to find out for sure!

    I hope that you get a far more awesome position. Sometimes living well is the best revenge!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looks like spam to me. Well, either that, or a former colleague of mine with a somewhat similar name has gone way 'round the bend.

      It took me quite a few sentences to figure out that "spell worker" =/= a misspelling of "spell checker." I don't often think about that kind of spell. Like Philip, I'm inclined to think that we may be a more promising market for witch doctors than we might initially think. Maybe FML needs to construct a voodoo doll of the dean in question, and experiment?

      Delete
    2. As soon as I got word about spam, this one and another one on an older post, I took them down. I am not on the page all day, but welcome your tips via email if you need to report something.

      Leslie K

      Delete
  10. Hiring a witch doctor seems like a good idea to me. It's more likely to produce results than finding a HR director with enough spine to stand up to a crazy Dean.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I would be asking "why is giving them a higher grade being accommodating?" This will confuse him. "I thought honest feedback would be what most improves their learning."

    Best done in public, conversationally and friendly, with witnesses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh, I like this. But it might be a good idea to get that replacement job first. People who throw nebulous buzzwords around do not react well to requests for precise definition.

      Delete
  12. @FML: Do you know and/or trust Dickish Dean's boss? Perhaps you could communicate with hir?

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.