Slashdot Mirror
University Overrules Professor Who Failed Entire Management Class
McGruber writes: After a semester of disrespect, backstabbing, lying, and cheating, Texas A&M Galveston Professor Irwin Horwitz had all he could take. He "sent a lengthy email to his Strategic Management class explaining that they would all be failing the course. He said the students proved to be incompetent and lack the maturity level to enter the workforce." Professor Horwitz's email cited examples of students cheating, telling him to "chill out," and inappropriate conduct. He said students spread untrue rumors about him online, and he said at one point he even felt the need to have police protection in class. "I was dealing with cheating, dealing with individuals swearing at me both in and out of class, it got to the point that the school had to put security guards at that class and another class," said Horowitz.
However, Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Patrick Louchouarn made it very clear that the failing grades won't stick. The department head will take over the class until the end of the semester, according to school officials.
However, Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Patrick Louchouarn made it very clear that the failing grades won't stick. The department head will take over the class until the end of the semester, according to school officials.
With so little information it's hard to take sides. Is it wrong of me to think that maybe this professor is incompetent AND the entire class still deserves to fail?
No, while I agree with the sentiment, the key lesson they have failed and perhaps the single most important one: don't get caught. Clearly the professor is correct, these students have not demonstrated mastery of the material and need to retake the course.
Why bother with classes? Just give everybody a passing grade.
Isn't that all the entitled youngsters care about anyway - good grades, not actually learning anything?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is actually quite the opposite. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single person in the back of class just trying to get their work done and get out. Not everyone swears in their day to day life, let alone at authority figures. Not everyone cheats. Not everyone lies.
Getting caught is ok, think of how many managers get caught and at worst they're sent off with a golden parachute. And they even learned a valuable lesson: Even if you get caught, someone will come and bail you out.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yet "that won't stick". Too much tuitition to fail?
All it takes for this strategy to fail is that the most disruptive students being in some way "special". And I'm not even meaning that they're retarded or belonging to some minority and failing them could get the PC crowd breathing down your neck. All it takes is that the parents of such an asshole student are "important" because they donate money into the school's coffers, basically buying their precious little dud a degree.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I get the feeling that the Professor is the one with the issues. Not the students.
From my experience, it sounds like it is his first time with undergrads.
I have found professors who are fresh out of the trenches often fail to comprehend, the following.
1. These students are taking more than just His class.
2. Chances are the class is required. Meaning most of the students don't have too much interest in the class.
3. The students are filled with other concerns then just that class. Finding a girl/boy friend, trying to keep on on what he should socially be.
4. Because he specialized in that topic for so long, there isn't any empathy on the fact that people just don't get it, the first time.
When students are in such a class, they will collaborate with each other so they can piece together all the stuff they learned, this is often done with homework assignments, this can be considered cheating. Being that these are student, who are paying for an education, if they feel like they are being bullied by the professor they will talk back, to defend themselves.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Depends on your criteria for success.
My friends tell me they're amazed and jealous of my career, and consider me a beacon of success in a corporate environment.
I'm in a corporate environment so I know many people more successful than me, and work for some of them. They're going higher, faster, and earning more money. Some of them are arseholes, some are not.
I'm always trying to be nice to people, make constructive relationships and not be an arsehole. Hopefully sometimes I get that right.
But my personal achievements and those of the people I see in management positions above me do show that you can achieve success without being an arsehole.
Maybe not Steve Jobs level of success, but frankly I don't want to be a Steve Jobs level of arsehole either. There's a happy compromise, and it's making me happy enough and successful enough and people don't accuse me of being an arsehole. Often.
These might just have really *BEEN* some of the coming entitlement generation kids, the same ones that always got a trophy growing up just for showing up at a game or whatever.
Maybe they all did deserve to fail?? I hope they at least have to take the class over and aren't all given automatic passing grades whether they deserve it or not...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They fucked up, got caught and prevailed - seems to me that they passed the exam.
If all of the people coming out of your school have diplomas, but no clue ... eventually people look at diplomas from your school as being worthless.
Oddly enough, people expect diploma actually translates into "has received an education".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I used to be a part time teacher since I am an animation/computer specialist and the schools hire me for the things they can't teach.
One of those things I've noticed is that the teachers doesn't have any say anymore, it's all about the money and how happy the kids parents are. The happier the parents, the more attendance they get. And if they get a lot of attendance, then the government will increase the schools income and support. This breeds a new kind of school, an unhealthy school system where teachers are constantly burned out, have to suck up to kids and their parents instead of concentrating on the real job at hand, teaching!
Teaching AND learning demands a lot of focus, and focus demands discipline.
Kids are NOT stupid, they will figure out that they can get away with whatever they want and will naturally do so - kids being kids, testing new grounds.
We need to give more power back to the teachers, and educate parents to discipline their kids into wanting real achievements instead of "whatever they can get away with to party every night". Discipline never hurt anyone, it helps you to FOCUS.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Sorry, what? 2-4 amount to "waaah, I don't want to actually learn the stuff I'm taking in school because it's too hard and gets in the way of my social life".
The answer to this is "too fucking bad".
Everyone else who got an education had to deal with this stuff too.
I'm afraid I have zero sympathy for a bunch of kids who think it takes too much effort to complete their education.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yes well the Vice President of the university certainly did not fail his management course!
He recognizes that most University students today are someones precious little snowflake. That someone might stop sending checks, students may transfer and worse the best prospective students might choose other institutions where there is not a perception their on-time graduation plans might be derailed by capricious professor.
I am sorry unless you have hard evidence of a major and specific conspiracy that everyone of your students participated in you CANT fail an entire class. The reality is there was probably a few students who are innocent or whose infractions don't justify an automatic failing grade, so its punishing the innocent. The optics of that just are not appropriate for an academic institution.
If the professor was at all smart, he would have identified the worst offenders built a solid case for them and crucified them before an expulsion board to send a message to the rest of the students, and any one taking his class in the coming semesters, that he isn't to be 'fucked with'. He probably would have gotten support for the university and the public for doing so rather than tossed under the bus. Like it or not politics and perceptions matter, you'd think a business professor would know that.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It's really too bad he didn't hang in there until the end and give legitimate supportable F grades to most of the class while showing good faith by giving appropriate grades to decent students. Getting an F that sticks stings a lot more than making news while your professor melts down and having your grade adjusted by the university.
I'd love to see a world where professors hand out failing grades more liberally. I got really sick of seeing cheaters and whiners get their way when I was in college.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I have found professors who are fresh out of the trenches often fail to comprehend, the following.
1. These students are taking more than just His class.
2. Chances are the class is required. Meaning most of the students don't have too much interest in the class.
3. The students are filled with other concerns then just that class. Finding a girl/boy friend, trying to keep on on what he should socially be.
4. Because he specialized in that topic for so long, there isn't any empathy on the fact that people just don't get it, the first time.
And what the students fail to comprehend is this:
That's. Their. Problem.
This isn't Kindergarten. Nobody is there to hold your hand. Just because you paid for the class doesn't mean that anybody owes you a passing grade. If you can't be bothered to pay attention to class, or don't think it's important, or just don't like the professor, then _you_ get to deal with that. If you can't, then you're going to fail.
And if "But I have other classes!" is the best excuse that you can come up with, then you're going to deserve it.
Maybe you should click the link to his CV, he's been teaching in some capacity at universities since 1994. So I rather think its more the entitlement culture of the children he had the misfortune to teach.
Seems to me they were only there to pay for a certificate, not an education.
The worst offenders could have been on sports teams or from a family that donates.
The "coming entitlement generation" has been on its way since at least the late 1980s when it was supposedly my cohort...and probably much, much longer. Although you can always find a few examples of entitled brats--and that's nothing new, of course--the whole "kids these days" thing appears to me to still be as much of a myth as it always has been. From https://www.insidehighered.com... : "Asked if the decision to fail every one of the 30-plus enrollees was fair to every student, 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 he felt he had no choice but to fail everyone and leave the course." "A spokesman for the university said via email that 'all accusations made by the professor about the students' behavior in class are also being investigated and disciplinary action will be taken' against students found to have behaved inappropriately. The spokesman said that one cheating allegation referenced by Horwitz has already been investigated and that a student committee cleared the student of cheating." It looks to me like the instructor had a melt-down and attempted to combine rage quitting and collective punishment. I'm sure some of the kids were a-holes, but not all of them were, by the instructor's own admission.
This is what happens when the educators and the test administrators are the same people. The university looks bad if too many of its students fail, so it has a direct incentive to pass them even if they don't deserve it.
Universities should teach, but not certify. Certification should be done by a separate organization that does not also teach.
The "coming entitlement generation" has been on its way since at least the late 1980s when it was supposedly my cohort...and probably much, much longer.
Those articles started to appear in the 1880's. Every upcoming generation has been described as some sort of variant of entitled, lazy or "me first". It's the "get off my lawn" version of a newspaper editorial.
It's the American way, the administration bails you out if you pay their salary.
We don't bail out people, if there is not something in it for the people doing the bailing-of-out.
We bail out large investment banks that donate to political campaigns and swap managers with the treasury department, but we don't bail out people who can't pay their mortgage.
Actually...sad.
These might just have really *BEEN* some of the coming entitlement generation kids, the same ones that always got a trophy growing up just for showing up at a game or whatever.
Maybe they all did deserve to fail?? I hope they at least have to take the class over and aren't all given automatic passing grades whether they deserve it or not...?
Yup. Millennials plus affirmative action equals this. I bet the douchebag prof won't even get the irony of his voting for leftist candidates every election either.
Indeed. If the university administration had any stones, they would let this stand. This way the only thing the students learned is that their behavior is entirely fine, including getting caught, and that they just need friends in high places and any measure of incompetence on their part will not affect their career options at all.
This thing is what makes a country lose ground internationally and eventually end up on the 3rd world trash heap. You can prop things up for a wile by importing skilled people and stealing industrial secrets from "friends", but that goes only so far.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.