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.

Comments

Should use "Guerrilla Teaching"

[Mahldcat]

He didn't approach this in the correct way--rather than announce what is going on, he should "adjust" his curriculum on the remaining tests, projects and labs. First make the students sign a (re)acknowledgement about the school's policy on cheating & plagiarism. Next adjust the projects/labs--make them "in class"---you can work with people (including seeking info from the instructor/teachers assistants), but no internet, only allowed to use the course material etc. (I had a teacher who did this--and was interesting approach as you actually learned more than straight lectures). This mitigates plagiarism. Next bring in half a dozen people for the exams to proctor it (if this is where the bulk of cheating was happening). If you are caught, then it's a dead to rights thing, and you are turned into the university. This mitigates cheating. Finally, from personal experience, in some cases if you get a "D" in a class, you have still technically "passed" but most of the time you have issues later on if you try to use it (most universities won't accept it if you transfer for instance). Change up the tests (and curve) enough that the class still passes, but with a VERY low mark--enough that the majority of the students have a "D"

Re:Fast track

[bradley13]

"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'."

Exactly this.

It sounds like Prof. Horwitz did just about everything wrong. He wasn't objective, he didn't grade students individually, and he blind-sided the school administration.

You do get crappy classes once in a while. I had a class a couple of years ago - it's a class that I teach every semester - but this particular group of students was just special. The social leader of the class hated the subject. He convinced most of the rest of the class to follow his lead: skipping lectures, or coming to class only to surf or game, not doing assignments, etc.. He was a total pain in the a**, and most of the class followed his lead.

Fine. You buckle down and teach. You focus on the students who aren't being idiots. At the end of the course, you write a final exam of exactly average difficulty, make extra sure that the questions are clear, and that the grading criteria will stand up to a formal review process. You warn the administration of what is coming. Then, you fail everyone who deserves to fail, based on absolutely objective criteria. In my case, it was 3/4 of the class.
Importantly, those students who resisted the peer pressure - they did just fine on the exam.