Professor Issue

  • Thread starter Thread starter mandajane
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mandajane

Guest
So I recently started taking college classes, and I’ve run into an issue with one of my professors. I’m curious how I should handle it.

In my Computers for the Arts class (aka, How To: Adobe), my professor is an art director for an advertising firm, who teaches this class two days a week in the mornings. He assigns VERY large amounts of homework, compared to other classes at the school, especially when you consider that they require expensive programs to complete. We normally have the option of checking out computers from the campus to use in the library (you can’t take them out of the building), but the entire college was closed this weekend because of the NATO summit. Thursday, he assigned another major project, that is due today, yet campus was closed friday through monday.

The instructor also doesn’t teach very much. He spends 15-20 minutes explaining what the homework is, and then sits at his desk watching youtube videos, chatting up students, and working on his business emails. When other students came to me for help because I have a little experience with other image editing programs, he became angry and accused me of trying to teach the class, berating me in front of the other students. Later that day, it came out that I was Catholic, and quite a few people made cracks about that meaning I was old fashioned, sexist (against myself?), and some implied I was racist. The professor ignored it, and when I explained that I didn’t appreciate the comments, and was there to learn, not defend my religion from people who refuse to research it, my professor said “They bring up some valid points.”

I was very angry, and when I got home from class I prayed a rosary for the other students and the professor, but I’m worried this will happen again. What should I do?
 
The guy sounds like an idiot that is trying to make some money on the side because he is not successful at his job. He also does not appear to be a good teacher either. It does not sound like you can get an intelligent response from him, my suggestion is to keep it quiet and try to complete the class without any fights. If people ask what you think about the class you tell them the facts, they will speak by themselves.
 
Welcome to college.

regarding the limited compute availability, you can download a 30 day free trial of Adobe products from their website. I suggest if you come up against a constraint again, this would be a back up plan.

regarding your professor’s non-teaching: that is college. It happens a lot. It is not acceptable in my opinion, but it is the way it is. However, I have found that many schools-- especially the ones that are for profit or tech schools-- WILL take action against adjunct faculty slackers. I suggest that at the end of the semester you contact the dean of the department. If they don’t do course evaluations as part of the course, then ask to do one or ask for a meeting. Be professional. The things I would focus on are the non-teaching and reading of emails and watching of You Tube. Forget complaining about amount of homework or unreasonableness of assignments. The dean is not going to repsond to that. But paying adjunct faculty to sit on their butt and do nothing, they will probably care about that.

Regarding the Catholic comments, ignore them and don’t engage. You will get nowhere.
 
Report him to the Dean of the department for being a slacker. Do it matter of factly, if you are too emotional, ask one of the other students to help you do it. In fact, if more than just you is exasperated with this fool, get a group together and go to the Dean’s office. Ignore the swipes against our faith. We know better, they are just trying to get you riled up. Yanking your chain.
 
mandajane said:
So I recently started taking college classes, and I’ve run into an issue with one of my professors. I’m curious how I should handle it.

In my Computers for the Arts class (aka, How To: Adobe), my professor is an art director for an advertising firm, who teaches this class two days a week in the mornings. He assigns VERY large amounts of homework, compared to other classes at the school, especially when you consider that they require expensive programs to complete. We normally have the option of checking out computers from the campus to use in the library (you can’t take them out of the building), but the entire college was closed this weekend because of the NATO summit. Thursday, he assigned another major project, that is due today, yet campus was closed friday through monday.

The instructor also doesn’t teach very much. He spends 15-20 minutes explaining what the homework is, and then sits at his desk watching youtube videos, chatting up students, and working on his business emails. When other students came to me for help because I have a little experience with other image editing programs, he became angry and accused me of trying to teach the class, berating me in front of the other students. Later that day, it came out that I was Catholic, and quite a few people made cracks about that meaning I was old fashioned, sexist (against myself?), and some implied I was racist. The professor ignored it, and when I explained that I didn’t appreciate the comments, and was there to learn, not defend my religion from people who refuse to research it, my professor said “They bring up some valid points.”

I was very angry, and when I got home from class I prayed a rosary for the other students and the professor, but I’m worried this will happen again. What should I do?
Click to expand...
For an Adobe illustrator (will you teach me? I am with GIMP!), here it comes:

http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=1524875&t=w

Please answer this question:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=677822
Thanks
 
1ke said:
regarding your professor’s non-teaching: that is college. It happens a lot. It is not acceptable in my opinion, but it is the way it is. However, I have found that many schools-- especially the ones that are for profit or tech schools-- WILL take action against adjunct faculty slackers. I suggest that at the end of the semester you contact the dean of the department. If they don’t do course evaluations as part of the course, then ask to do one or ask for a meeting. Be professional. The things I would focus on are the non-teaching and reading of emails and watching of You Tube. Forget complaining about amount of homework or unreasonableness of assignments. The dean is not going to repsond to that. But** paying adjunct faculty to sit on their butt and do nothing, they will probably care about that**.

Regarding the Catholic comments, ignore them and don’t engage. You will get nowhere.
Click to expand...
Agreed!!!
 
I am in an online college masters program in nursing.it is very stressfull to attend college and work full time with a family.I have had poor instructors along the way.I had one in particular that was downright awfull. I went to my advisor and got great results.Most students have some type of guidance counsellor.If you are not aware of who yours is you can ask the department you are recieving instruction from.Good luck in your endeavors and goals.
 
Be very careful of guidance counselors. Not to derail the thread which is a valid concern, I feel the need to share my experience. I had one who was a PhD and gave me bum advice. My first year, he told me that based on my test scores, I should take liberal arts courses. I barely passed them. Next year when he saw my grades, he asked who told me to take liberal arts and that I should be in math and science!

One of my courses was cultural geography. The professor assigned us a project to map out properties in a city square mile and search the property owner information in the hall of records. Turns out he sold real estate on the side and was using the information to save him some work.

Generally, the administration will take the side of the professor, no matter how bad. After all, they hired him. How would it reflect on their judgment if they sided with you? This is especially true as far as the faith issue is concerned because academia is currently hostile to Christianity, even so-called “Catholic” institutions, so I would not appeal to their sense of fair play.

I would also not help other students when he is present. Meet with them away from class.

As much as I would hate it, I would tough it out until the bitter end, and then go to ratemyprofessors.com/index.jsp and write a review. I would have given anything for the type of information when I was in college. Perhaps you can spare some other students from suffering.
 
sedonaman said:
Generally, the administration will take the side of the professor, no matter how bad. After all, they hired him. How would it reflect on their judgment if they sided with you?
Click to expand...
Well, yes and no.

If the professor is full time, tenured, and it is a traditional 4 year university, this is very likely true. the professor can stand in front of the room in drag and sing YMCA and call it class. I had a professor who declared on the first day of class there would be no As in the class. And there weren’t, despite people (me) doing “A” work. Professors have a lot of leeway.

However, the OP’s situation seems to indicate an adjunct faculty member. Universities have much less tolerance for adjuncts who slack or pull shenanigans. They aren’t tenured, don’t pull in grants and don’t get published. They employ adjuncts for their business reputation-- for example I had a finance professor in my MBA program who taught investments-- he did that for a living. The university was able to sell their MBA program on the strength of their adjuncts’ “real world experience”.

But, my eCommerce adjunct professor basically had us design a website for his girlfriend’s church and taught us nothing, he also was creepy in a dirty-old-man kind of way. A group of us complained about the course and they did not contract with him again. Their whole purpose in using adjuncts is for their “real world” perspective, connections, and reputation. And, if the OP is in a for-profit university-- they are MORE sensitive to this sort of feedback.

I suggest a visit with the Dean at the end of the semester.
 
mandajane said:
So I recently started taking college classes, and I’ve run into an issue with one of my professors. I’m curious how I should handle it.

In my Computers for the Arts class (aka, How To: Adobe), my professor is an art director for an advertising firm, who teaches this class two days a week in the mornings. He assigns VERY large amounts of homework, compared to other classes at the school, especially when you consider that they require expensive programs to complete. We normally have the option of checking out computers from the campus to use in the library (you can’t take them out of the building), but the entire college was closed this weekend because of the NATO summit. Thursday, he assigned another major project, that is due today, yet campus was closed friday through monday.

The instructor also doesn’t teach very much. He spends 15-20 minutes explaining what the homework is, and then sits at his desk watching youtube videos, chatting up students, and working on his business emails. When other students came to me for help because I have a little experience with other image editing programs, he became angry and accused me of trying to teach the class, berating me in front of the other students. Later that day, it came out that I was Catholic, and quite a few people made cracks about that meaning I was old fashioned, sexist (against myself?), and some implied I was racist. The professor ignored it, and when I explained that I didn’t appreciate the comments, and was there to learn, not defend my religion from people who refuse to research it, my professor said “They bring up some valid points.”

I was very angry, and when I got home from class I prayed a rosary for the other students and the professor, but I’m worried this will happen again. What should I do?
Click to expand...
Document dates, times, what was said, who said it, and who was present. Leave emotions out of it. Give your documentation to the dean of students.

Luna
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Report him to the Dean of the department for being a slacker. Do it matter of factly, if you are too emotional, ask one of the other students to help you do it. In fact, if more than just you is exasperated with this fool, get a group together and go to the Dean’s office. Ignore the swipes against our faith. We know better, they are just trying to get you riled up. Yanking your chain.
Click to expand...
Make the charges about his teaching first, preferably in a letter signed by a group of classmates. It is more likely to stick. If nothing happens, get parents to complain, too. Deans do not like the reputation that their department is fleecing the people who pay the tuition.

The swipes against the faith are wrong, but par for the course. If you take those to the administration, I would make the complaint in the form of the professor tolerating personal comments being made against students. You could weigh 700 lbs, and if someone made comments about your weight, “they have some valid points” would not be tolerated. If you were German, then Nazi comments would not be tolerated. It shouldn’t be on your plate to defend what people think about you or about the 1 billion other Catholics in the world. Unless the discussion is about religion and you served yourself up as fodder, they need to keep their personal comments to themselves.
 
To clarify, yes, this is a 4 year university that specializes in art related degrees. The education runs a pretty penny (more than twice what my mother makes in a year O.O) if you don’t have financial aid.

The professor is also an adjunct professor. He works for his advertising firm, with the exception of tuesday and thursday mornings, when he teaches this class. I believe he might have another class he teaches on saturdays.

Today in class, he opened by belittling the students who didn’t have their work done (the campus has been closed since our last class due to the NATO summit, and not all of my classmates have photoshop on their home computer). He finally realized campus had been closed after another student brought up a printout of the email that had gone out to all students and faculty regarding the campus closure. He then permitted the entire class to have “an hour” to finish their work.

At which point he left the classroom for three hours. When I sent him an email an hour in, he responded with “I am taking care of something, please remain in the classroom until I return.” When he finally did come back, he passed out a packet on Adobe Illustrator, then said “You guys need to recreate the ABC and APPLE logos in Illustrator for next class.” Then walked out. I ended up bringing about a third of the class back to my apartment to teach them how to use illustrator, when I’d never laid hands on it myself. They only just left, after being here for 7 hours working on their homework and asking questions. Thankfully, once they were out of the class, they were very nice and respectful. sigh I asked them if they’d be willing to lodge a formal complaint with me at the end of the class, and they agreed.
 
Some professors are just like that. Going to higher ups like the department chair or college administrators usually doesn’t change anything, in my experience, unless there is documented abuse, whether emotional, psychological, or physical. In the end, I think it’s best to let the professor be the professor and consider that many managers in the workforce can be the same way, if not worse.

If you really can’t stand this person, or find it impossible to learn anything in the class, drop it and sign up for another one, preferably another section of the same course taught by a different instructor.

I used ratemyprofessors.com a lot when registering for courses back in college. Some students who post there are whiners and blame their instructors for their own poor attitude or aptitude, but generally the overall ratings can tell you something about a particular professor.

Good luck!
 
sedonaman said:
.

As much as I would hate it, I would tough it out until the bitter end, and then go to ratemyprofessors.com/index.jsp and write a review. I would have given anything for the type of information when I was in college. Perhaps you can spare some other students from suffering.
Click to expand...
If it were in a class that was just beginning–summer semester? and still in the drop period, I would drop the class and take it again with someone else if possible. Sometimes, it is not worth spending all that money for a class you will learn nothing from, and have to put up with this professors attitude and non-teaching.

Use the above mentioned website or ones like it, to check out your teachers when planning your next schedule . That is what my daughter did, and avoided the jerks… :rolleyes:
 
Irishmom2 said:
… Sometimes, it is not worth spending all that money for a class you will learn nothing from, and have to put up with this professors attitude and non-teaching.
Click to expand...
This is one option. Perhaps I didn’t consider it at first because when I was in college, a lot of courses seemed to be designed to be hurdles to overcome as opposed to opportunities for learning something. But that was just my perception.
Use the above mentioned website or ones like it, to check out your teachers when planning your next schedule . That is what my daughter did, and avoided the jerks… :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
👍 [And, as we have observed, there are some jerks in teaching positions.]
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top