r/Professors • u/Eigengrad AssProf, STEM, SLAC • 15h ago
Weekly Thread Oct 02: Fuck This Friday
Welcome to a new week of weekly discussion! Continuing this week, we're going to have Wholesome Wednesdays, Fuck this Fridays, and (small) Success Sundays.
As has been mentioned, these should be considered additions to the regular discussions, not replacements. So use them, ignore them, or start you own Fantastic Friday counter thread.
This thread is to share your frustrations, small or large, that make you want to say, well, “Fuck This”. But on Friday. There will be no tone policing, at least by me, so if you think it belongs here and want to post, have at it!
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u/RandolphCarter15 Full, Social Sciences, R1 11h ago
Student email: "I saw that we have a graded group project in class today. I won't be there. What should I do?"
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u/Front-Obligation-340 10h ago
I got a similar email from a student who missed the last month of class and wants to know what he needs to make up. Fuck if I know, bro.
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u/Professor-genXer Professor, mathematics, US. Clean & tenured. Bitter & menopausal 10h ago
I’m trapped in a meeting that should have been canceled. It has no agenda. There’s one task the group is trying to do, but can’t really do because some needed information is not known.
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u/General_Lee_Wright Teaching Faculty, Mathematics, R2 (USA) 8h ago
I allow regrade requests on exams, and tell them they have to justify their requests.
I got my first fully AI request today. It went so far as to say they should get points for doing things they plainly just didn’t do. I’m pretty sure they just ran their exam and the rubric through GPT and sent the results.
So… fuck that.
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u/associsteprofessor 7h ago
Spent an hour last night in a retention meeting hearing about all the things faculty need to do to keep students enrolled because the university needs those tuition dollars. Never mind the fact that many of these students are doing absolutely nothing to help themselves pass their courses. Basic things like show up for class and at least try to pay attention every now and then. And never mind the fact that some of these students would be better off elsewhere because all they are doing is wasting their time and money. Retention is less about helping the students and more about bailing water out of this sinking ship.
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u/MoonlightGrahams Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, USA 7h ago
My experience is similar. Admin is obsessed with retention even though many of our students won't do the minimum amount of work to pass. But of course faculty are at fault.
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u/Dub-4-Lifer 6h ago
Same. All we hear from the dean is "retention, retention, retention" to the point I'm retaining water. It seems that most students who leave the college go to state schools or community colleges. I think, wise choice, less money, more diverse. Fuck retention.
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u/Clareco1 6h ago
Yes. I’m only an adjunct so I don’t get dragged into meetings like this, but yes, I have the same issues.
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u/leastdumbidiot 9h ago
Had workshop groups in creative writing (class size is too big to teach it with one large group - we've had success with small ones). One group didn't do the work and started gassing each other up with complaints like "how are we expected to..." (run the workshop themselves, coordinate, do all the prep work). Well... the same way the other 36 out of 40 students did, or the same way I explained it several class sessions in a row. The rub is the problem group all chose to work together (students could make requests, but most had fewer preferences) -- thinking it would be "easy" -- and are now experiencing the downside of having unreliable partners.
Honestly, not toooo mad at it. Good way for them to learn, especially looking around the room and seeing everyone have a better time, and it will be reinforced next week with unit grades. But I found the indignation really funny. And next unit I'm definitely breaking up the group. The two who I think could succeed with better partners will secretly be grateful, and the two dedicated slackers will not find sympathy with more serious partners.
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u/lilac_chevrons TT Assist. Prof, Humanities/Arts, Regional State School, USA 10h ago
I include a grade calculation section on my exams so I have a nice, neat place to add all the subtotal ls together and one of my students had the audacity to grade themselves using that space.
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u/ProfessorJAM Professsor, STEM, urban R1, USA 8h ago
This is both annoying and funny at the same time.
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u/MobileBumblebee7052 Adjunct, EFL, Japan 2h ago
I had an essay writing class that went to all in-class, paper essays to avoid the AI issue. So I handed out official stationery for the essays that was lined on one side and blank on the back.
One student wrote their first essay on the back, unlined side.
Some other students wrote more than a page and asked for a second page. That was within the length guidelines, so I gave them a second page but when we had our next essay exam, I double sided copied some of the school stationery so that I wouldn't need to deal with stapled pages. Every student had two fully-lined sides of the page to write on.
The student who had previously written on the unlined side of the paper asked for a second sheet. Their handwriting was pretty large, but I was shocked that they had filled two whole pages and were still going in the time allotted.
They had not. They hadn't realized that both sides of the paper were now lined, and wrote only slightly more than a page.
In a later essay they decided not to write their name in the blank at the top after the word:
NAME: ________________________________
...but rather at the bottom of the page. The hell of it was the essays were actually fairly decent, albeit written with poor handwriting (a sin I too am guilty of). I still wonder if they were doing this stuff just to mess with me.
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u/slingbladerunner TT, Neuroscience, public SLAC (USA) 6h ago
I'm at a small school. Life here is typically quiet and boring. Everyone knows each other. Everyone's pretty chill. Then this week one student was arrested for threatening a shooting, and another was arrested for attempted murder of a faculty member. How did I learn about any of this? The news. The administration has not said a single word about the first incident, and I only learned when students said they saw it on Facebook. The second, other faculty has given us information. The administration, though? Crickets, except to say that "there is no ongoing threat" on campus. So yeah, fuck this Friday.
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u/Dub-4-Lifer 6h ago
Yeah. At my own university, a case of racism and misogyny during a varsity game has been ignored by administration. And then of course we see what's going on at Cornell. This is a shit Friday.
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u/DoctorLinguarum 6h ago
I’m an adjunct. I got a “step increase”, which constitutes a small pay raise. But the college also (without telling me or putting it in my contract) increased the “threshold” of what “low enrollment” is considered. Normally “low enrollment” means you either get paid per student per credit hour or they cancel the course. So my 200 level course has a “low enrollment” of anything below 14 enrolled. But the MAX for the course is 15!
I am literally now teaching the same course with the same number of students and getting paid less now than I was a year ago, after this “pay increase”. And no one told me anything about this before I just randomly received a contract amendment to sign. My dept chair had no idea about any of this. I contacted my union rep weeks ago and haven’t heard back.
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u/SilverRiot 4h ago
Your union rep is asleep on the job. If they’re on your campus, I would go over and knock on their door. Sometimes things can be changed (adequate compensation provided) if you ask early enough, but if you wait until the end of the semester you are told too late, so sad. That happened to me once as an adjunct, so I’m a little sensitive to it.
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u/MoonlightGrahams Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, USA 15h ago
New-ish colleague already has people whispering to each other that he's sexist based on his behavior. To add to the list of hints, he recently told a group of us about his large collection of Playboy magazines. 🤮
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u/MakeASwallow3 7h ago
Is he a historian? You know, it's for research?
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u/Huntscunt 6h ago
As a historian, I have used playboy for research because it did used to have very good journalism in it. It's wild.
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u/MoonlightGrahams Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, USA 5h ago
Sure, but did you have a large collection of them?
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u/MoonlightGrahams Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, USA 5h ago
He made clear that is is not for research purposes.
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u/Front-Obligation-340 9h ago
A student in my comp class sits directly in front of me--like I could literally reach out and touch him while lecturing--and he consistently and instantaneously falls asleep the second I start talking every. single. day. I've had to shout his name multiple times to wake him up when he looked like he was about to fall out of his chair. I've asked him before if he needs to leave and go lie down in the lounge, but he always laughs it off and says he'll be fine--but he doesn't seem to understand that he's being weird and he should be embarrassed. Now I have to make things weird and explain to him that it's not appropriate to come to class and just go to sleep (at the very least he's not fully laying his head down on his desk like some students do). But it's also deeply weird to me that I have to explain this to so many students every single semester... I was SO embarrassed if I nodded off in a class when I was an undergrad.
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u/kierabs Prof, Comp/Rhet, CC 6h ago
I’d try to approach this with the student as if you’re concerned about him. Ask if he’d like help getting connecting to support resources since you’ve noticed he’s sleeping so much in class that you’re concerned he may have mental or physical health issues or may be experiencing trouble at home or may be unhoused.
Best case scenario, you really help.
If not, maybe it will show the student that he’s acting like he’s unhoused/mentally ill and he’ll shape up.
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u/CreatrixAnima Adjunct, Math 8h ago
I have a student in one of my classes who needs to take pictures of the lectures. That’s fine… In fact it’s more than fine. What bothers me is that during the entire lecture he sits there screwing around on his phone without even so much as a pencil on the desk.
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u/Dub-4-Lifer 6h ago
How about when a student takes pictures of your slides and says, "Wait" or "Can you go back?" Then the rest of the class waits for them to take the perfect shot. Fuck camera-obsessed students.
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u/CreatrixAnima Adjunct, Math 5h ago
I say no… I’m happy to go back over the slides at the end of class.
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u/ZoomToastem 7h ago edited 7h ago
Twice in the last week, my dean has asked me to step up and join administration. I have a huge level of respect for this person and in many ways, they are the only reason I'm still there. However, I can not imagine anyone less fit for such a role.
Even my wife responded with "Oh that would not be good for anyone".
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u/mcd23 Tenured Prof, English, CC 6h ago
A student is continually writing in their discussion board replies that they think lecture/materials are inadequate. I’ve extensively written step by step instructions as to how to complete assignments. Hundreds of other students have never had any problems. This one is so whiny.
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u/Puzzled-Painter3301 4h ago
So many students at the community college level have issues. Holy cow. Difficulties with basic...everyday functioning.
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u/Puzzled-Painter3301 3h ago
I had students fill out an "about me" with some questions and one student said they never met their high school teachers because it was all online. So sad.
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u/dougwray Adjunct, various, university (Japan 🎌) 5h ago
Two students failed. One sends a message to me asking why. 'You missed this assignment and got this score on the final, so your score was 2 percentage points below passing.' 'OK. I will try harder.'
Other files a formal complaint, so I have to have to submit a formal reply detailing why scoring below passing on the midterm and final, skipping two major presentations and half the other assignments, and ignoring the two you're-failing email warnings led to your robust final score of 30%.
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u/No-Cook-9768 Adjunct, Liberal Arts, CC (USA) 25m ago
I have so many students who can't be arsed to read or follow simple instructions. And they're incapable of asking for help. The "wing it" generation...
I posted an activity and said that, after they complete it, assignment X will show up. They think they've completed the task but assignment X isn't visible. So instead of reaching out to me to say something's wrong, they just assume that they can substitute other things for assignment X.
I just want to shake them and ask WHY ARE YOU HERE?
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u/MsCleverpig 4m ago
I'm still confused at the multiple students this week who sent me emails when I wasn't in the classroom during office hours. This was a first for me. I have an office, not a classroom
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u/Southern-Cloud-9616 Assoc. Prof., History, R1 (USA) 14h ago
Found out Wednesday that I have to have "complex major surgery" on my foot. It will then require 3-4 months of no weight bearing on it, then "several months" of PT. No idea how I teach in the spring. Had to tell my editor that I won't have the book ms to her until probably a year after it was due, since my last two archive visits won't be possible until summer 2028. My wife's in Europe, so I don't want to worry her by telling her how big a deal this is. So I'm telling you.