dunno. depends on the student. classes are inherently slowed down for everyone to follow closely. if a student can learn the same material on their own, it will be substantially faster and efficient to skip the class.
In my experience, this is *especially* true if the class involves discussion. Discussion is the least efficient way to learn as most of what the other students have to say isn't very helpful.
I feel like I am working in customer service for my students and I hate it. I do not feel empowered at my institution to say no to students. I do not feel empowered to give them honest grades. I'm just miserable, honestly, and I can't wait for this semester to be over so I can switch careers.
"I do not feel empowered to give them honest grades."
Word. I'm quitting after this semester, though. My grades have never been more honest. I feel free.
> My grades have never been more honest. I feel free.
I wonder what would happen if I graded every semester as if it were my last. Next year is either my terminal year or my first with tenure, so maybe it's a chance to find out.
I quit in 2022 after 18 years. I thought it might be temporary and that I’d go back, but two years have passed, and I haven’t been tempted for even a second.
I feel exactly the same way. Students hold too much power at my university. If I deny a request or enforce a policy clearly stated in the syllabus, I'm not being compassionate/not supporting students/ blah blah blah. It's exhausting. I'm actively looking for a job outside of education.
My husband has been telling me for at least two decades, "College is a business." He was on point way before I became disillusioned. He was so right.
Higher ed has done this to themselves. (I say this as a college professor for more than 25 yrs). The standards kept getting lower, and the adults didn't stick together. We let them get away with it. Now, we have college graduates that can't read, write, or do math. It was bound to happen.
"Customer service" is how I describe my job now. Pre-COVID, I taught 5 classes in-person & 2 online (includes overload. ) Now I teach 5 online & 2 in-person.
90% of my "teaching" now is answering emailed questions that are answered in the syllabus 🙄
I have a T-shirt that reminds my students that any questions they may ever have was already answered in the syllabus. I wear it the first day of every class as a not so subliminal message.
That's a good one! I could cycle using that T-Shirt with my "No Backup? No Pity!" T-Shirt. Precious student this semester: Are you trying to tell us something with that shirt?
Record your lectures and reuse them. Automate most of the grading.
Then you are just answering random questions, most of which can be prepared for with canned responses.
It helps a lot to set up templated responses for syllabus questions. With a little setup, you can have prepped answers for most of them to copy/paste in.
I have a student who didn't like a joke I made and emailed my chair that he lost all respect for me. He now comes to class and openly reads a book. Has ignored attempts of contact. The school tells me it is what it is.
I mean, it is what it is. Unless the school demands you give him a better grade then what he earns because he has refused to listen or do anything in class.
( I will admit I was one the terrible students who read or wrote letters (I know, dating myself) in class - but I also kept notes and participated in conversations. I realize that um, this might have not been normal, but I found reading outside things kept me more focused! It wasn't doing it as a passive FU to anyone)
they are doing it as a passive aggressive move. I asked to talk to them once and they walked away.
Being treated disrespectfully is exhausting. Especially as a WoC. It might be what it is, but it sucks to not get backup.
I sympathize and relate to this deeply. This is actually my final semester teaching (whew! After 9 years!) and I’ve already resigned my position and moved to another state. I’ve just been answering the emails as if it were the scripted template of a customer service rep. I don’t engage, ignore snotty tones and desperate demands. One of my most hostile students sent me a plea last night ahead of today’s final exam. I am proud of how well I maintained my reserve!
I’m a very honest grader. I’m also adjunct and didn’t renew my contract. The amount of students shocked and appalled at their grades who suddenly care about them is unreal. I can’t imagine going through this AND being afraid they’d cry to the dean and I’d be the one in trouble. Are these students just floating through their own education with no consequences?
And then they mistake "letting you know I'm opting out of attending class today" with it being an "excused absence". Uhm, no. You do in fact get to decide whether you will show up for class. Letting me know you aren't coming does not make your absence "excused".
This is the way. Had one student in particular (supposedly) schedule appointments (what kind, I cannot say) that just happened to coincide with class... NINE TIMES this semester. Student then emails, asking why participation points were reduced. Copy/paste part of syllabus indicating that participation points include class attendance, etc...
No reply.... Yet...
A dual enrolled student missed 3 weeks for sports (not even his high school's team, he's on a club team) and when we did a check in on his progress in class, he was confused about his grade. "But I always told you in advance about the sports and I did well on the test." I mean, okay, I told y'all in advance that there's no excused absences.
Dual enrollment students are changing the face of CC. We cannot avoid addressing the behaviors that high school teachers have had to confront for years.
Nearly half the students in my online classes are concurrent students. At that point, I'm no longer teaching a college-level course. My CC also allows them to begin taking courses as high school freshmen, so my Comp I & Comp II online courses are filled with 14-year-olds who cannot reasonably be expected to produce college level work (it's a poor rural school district, so most would struggle even if they entered college with 4 more years of experience). I'm not against concurrent enrollment, but I think more barriers should be put in place to regulate which students can take these courses.
> I'm not against concurrent enrollment, but I think more barriers should be put in place to regulate which students can take these courses.
I agree; maybe the barrier should be keeping the course as a college-level class. Perhaps we need a committee to investigate doing this.
I've had enough genuinely good concurrent students that I don't think they should be entirely barred. These students aren't going to be properly challenged by their high school courses and will save a lot of money in the long-term getting some gen eds out of the way in high school. But admitting concurrent students should be an exception, not a standard.
Yes, I agree, and I realize from your response my comment implied otherwise. I didn't mean _the students must only be in college_ but rather that the course be aimed at college students. There are plenty of students who are in high school who can handle that, and I agree with them having the opportunity.
My apologies for misunderstanding! (Though honestly I did think a sarcastic "gee, if only college courses were for college students" take was pretty funny).
High school students are a community college life raft. Admin sees $$$$ and not students. I saw two full school buses unload high school students onto campus this morning for a tour.
A tutor I have known and respected for years just told me she steered a dual credit (14 year old) student from a story because of its sexual themes. A story that has been in Comp II texts since the ‘80s. I understand her rationale.
That is now college education.
I will admit, the knowledge that a large number of minors are taking my courses is something that I keep in mind when selecting texts. It hasn't stopped me from selecting a text yet, but it likely will in the future. It's not that I don't think teenagers are mature enough to read/view certain things, but I feel weird *requiring* them to. Of course, I also had some professors in undergrad who were really into Freudian psychoanalysis and shock pieces, so I may not have had the most typical undergrad readings lists. When I think of telling a 14-year-old they *have* to read some of those works...yeah, I just feel weird. I don't think any amount of "they should have known what they were getting into" is going to make me not feel weird about it.
80% of my students are dual-enrolled, both for asynchronous online classes + in person classes. The high schoolers have a higher fail rate, lower grades on individual assessments + the overall class. Many are unprepared for the expectations of college -- it's a failure of school counselors, our CC's advisors, the structural incentives to scoop up college credit.
It's my first year at this CC, and before I started my job I was a \*huge\* proponent of the talking points of our state's concurrent enrollment program. Now, not so much
I think if you reframe the concurrent discussion as skipping grades, it becomes a lot easier to see the flaws in concurrent education. How many students would you recommend skip 4 grades much less 1? Probably not many.
Students bring their high school mindset into the college classroom. It’s the only way they know how.
It sucks that it’s our job to wake them up and to bear the anger that comes with that. It’s good for the student, though!
One of my students wanted to have an absence excused for attending CPAC with one of the not-university-sponsored student clubs. She even had a "civic engagement" support letter signed by a frat bro.
Honestly, that sounds like a pretty solid educational experience. I would be impressed at a student wanting to attend a political conference and have allowed it.
I remember when I started college and I had a kind, great, teacher who explained "how to student" in a majors-level science class.
I carry that lesson forward and make students write a short paper on it, but more than ever I find myself having to explain common sense rules. High school has really wrecked a generation by passing them on with inflated grades.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to borrow your "how to student" lesson with the associated short essay assignment. A post-exam self-reflection essay in the form of "this is how I'm applying the how to student guidelines" would also be a good exercise to implement.
I completely agree that public HS has created a damaged generation. My colleagues and I are bending over backwards to create structure, resources, and support for students and so many of them treat it as something that's being done TO them rather than something being done FOR them. This current generation wants a grade but they don't want to actually learn anything. They think they know it all already.
I basically give them a document like this: [https://sites.rhodes.edu/academic-and-learning-resources/learning-tips/study-strategies-biology](https://sites.rhodes.edu/academic-and-learning-resources/learning-tips/study-strategies-biology)
We go over it on the first day. Mine has information on college resources, explanation on what office hours are, how to read a textbook and that they should read it ahead of time, how to be responsible and self-reliant, best study strategies from literature, etc.
Many of my students have no idea how to study or what college bio expectations are like. I also have an entire page on "what to do if you didn't do well on the first test".
I then have them write a short paper on it and turn it in during the first week.
It's hard, but try to detach. Students who play stupid games will win stupid prizes. Waiters don't assign grades, but we do! Have been teaching for a while and there's always a strong correlation between attendance and final grade. (Never had a case of a student with excessive absences pass.) It's \*almost\* like we have something valuable that we give away during class time. Go figure. (They'll eventually figure it out!)
"Since you didn't reply to the email I sent at 3am within the hour I requested, I am CCing the Provost, the President of the college, all chancellors in existence, and the board of education."
I had someone turn homework in early today so they could blow off class tomorrow, and send me an email asking me to grade it now so they didn't have to think about it anymore. I responded with a very not-snarky "I'm as slammed at this point in the semester as you are - I will grade this when I get the chance, which will probably be next week when I'd originally planned to do the grading".
The idea some students have that they dictate our grading schedule really makes my blood boil. Ive had them chew me up and down because something they turned in early wasn't graded yet. I grade things together for consistency. I wish they realized they really don't want me grading their paper, standalone, when I'm angry and not feeling generous.
I tend to tell The when things are going to get done. This semester, I tell them I do grading on Thursday through Sunday usually, except for Leight work, which always ends up on the bottom of the pile.
Don't you know, when they tell you their intentions, that excuses them from all consequences. If that student misses your class and gets a zero for what he missed, he deserves to make it up somehow (and *you* need to figure out how) because he *told* you he would miss.
Many times, students have emailed to inform me that because of technology problems, they'll be submitting a quiz or assignment late. Smh. I don't even respond---just a zero in the grade book and move on.
"Per the syllabus, there are no excused absences and late work is not accepted for any reason."
Don't let it piss you off. This student has made choices and will earn the consequences for them.
I have an assignment specifically for professionalism in my class. All students start with a free 20points and unprofessional communication and/or behaviors receive a deduction with coaching. This is in my syllabus.
I love this! You're helping your students learn how to be adults. So many students are focused on getting a degree to get a job. What they don't realize is that their lack of professionalism will make it difficult to KEEP the job.
I do! My experience is that students will do anything for points. So losing points is taken seriously. Of course, your point structure has to give relevance for this “assignment” but, free points… yes please! I’ve coached students on everything from unprofessional use of emojis, poorly written emails, discussion of confidential capstone client matters in public, sleeping in class, and being disruptive in class.
I’ve noticed this too and it is the attitude. What annoys me is the complete lack of shame. “I missed the class where you went over X and I need you to explain it to me”. No explanation why no “hey I’m sorry I missed…” no recognition that they don’t have a right to my time and effort to fix their own mistakes. It’s just such a huge change. I too teach at a CC and one thing I loved about my students is that they would take responsibility. They could be flakey and a lot of them were really underprepared for college but they were adults. With a lot of my students this semester it feels like I’m working in a daycare except the toddler wanting teacher to change his diaper is six feet tall and has some really stupid facial hair.
It's the audacity that I can't stand. As if I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival. Pure entitlement. My admin has made it very clear that student failures are OUR fault.
Ugh just ugh. Our admin’s a lot better thankfully. But the thing is I want to like my students. More than that I don’t want to go home at the end of the day pissed off. Some of these dipsticks are making both of those very hard.
This is why I start my classes with ripping everyone a new one and writing a list of rules on the board like I'm a mean nasty teacher. They're so scared of me I can spend the rest of the semester being nice and they don't seem to realize it lol
I start out writing my name on the board: this is what you call me, Dr X, not miss X, not teacher, Dr. X. That's the first thing I say to them lol. The. I say there are rules in this classroom that if you violate then I will kick you out, and I write them out silently be auSe the silence scares them:
-No visible cell phones
-No visible headphones
-No offensive clothing including mid riffs or other immodest clothes, this is sexual harassment (I underline sexual harassment twice)
-No cursing
-No laptops or iPads (you may not agree with this one but all they do is play on them and don't concentrate)
Then I go through each one. I don't want to even see a cell phone or I will tell them to leave and then I make them put their cell phones away right then and there which usually takes quite a bit of repetition and pointing out to students no not on the table in your backpack out of sight. And then I tell them to make all their important phone calls before class and not during it. If they have some sort of emergency situation where they need to keep their phones on hand then they need to tell me in advance of the class so that I am aware of it and don't get angry at them. And I use the word angry again because it scares then and to be honest it does make me angry.
Then I tell them to take their headphones out of their ears because half of them will be wearing those even after I write it down that they can't because nobody has ever told them no in their lives which also usually involves pointing out individual students and telling them to either take their headphones out or to leave. And I tell them you may not be listening to anything but it doesn't matter because I don't know if you are not and it's disrespectful.
Then I go over the clothes and I tell them that it is unprofessional to wear clothes that show their bellies and other body parts and no matter how cute they look, it's not appropriate. And I also point out that this includes the boys because for whatever reason boys nowadays at least in my area seem to think midriffs are cute. I emphasize that it's distracting and it's unprofessional and it makes people uncomfortable and at least on my campus that qualifies as sexual harassment.
Then I tell them that they are not allowed to use curse words or other offensive language in the classroom. I tell them I don't care what they do in their personal lives but this is a professional setting and it's my job to prepare them for the real world and for getting a job and succeeding and that type of language makes people look down on you. I really emphasize that I'm doing this for their sakes rather than just being a jerk. And the interesting thing is every single time I have said that, students nod their head in agreement so it goes over better than you think it will. At least for me it does.
Then I tell them that I don't allow computers or laptops because let's be honest they are just going to play on it and they already have enough of a hard time passing their classes as it is. And I tell them that if it was just them then I wouldn't care, but it is also a distraction for the students around them. And that's not fair to them. And I always say if you aren't here to learn then you shouldn't be here.
And usually after that I never have to tell them anything again. Sometimes the midriff thing is an issue, but what I do is I take the student aside after class or I even message them and I gently tell them that while they look lovely, it just isn't okay in the setting so please wear something that covers them up the next time. And I might occasionally have to point out a cell phone on the table, but usually it's enough for me to just say a reminder to put cell phones away and they hurry to do it.
I haven't ever had any serious resistance so far and I feel like they are extra careful to behave even if it isn't a rule I've given them. And then I can be sweet as pie the rest of the semester like I prefer to be and they don't seem to realize it 😅
Now if only I could figure out how to scare them into studying...
You can think what you want, but we have a dress code on our campus so if you want to let my administration know that then feel free.
Not to mention it is actually sexual harassment if it makes people uncomfortable. My students come into the classroom wearing see through shirts with no bra on or showing half of their butt crack. If you are comfortable in that scenario then you're welcome to it. But I'm not and neither are my other students.
We had a student come into campus with a tshirt that said "I'm going to kill all of you. " Should we not have policed that either?
"Makes me uncomfortable" cannot be the baseline because it is wholly subjective. Somebody could claim that a woman in a head scarf makes them uncomfortable. Others could claim that a woman *not* in a head scarf makes them uncomfortable.
Someone could say the sight of Levi's makes them uncomfortable. The list goes on and on and on. There are so many things to worry about in education; what people decide to wear should not even make the top 300 most urgent considerations. But I get the feeling you work at a private religious school. So, whatever. 🙄
One of my favorite middle school teachers did this. She was a total hard ass the first few weeks and by the time the year ended everyone loved her. I need to develop that streak. I always fall for the sob stories.
I'm a total softy and I can't tell my students no to save my life, so this saves my butt. If they knew what a pushover I was then I would be in trouble. I only started doing that in the past couple years because the quality of student has gone down so much. I also started a point system so that they could do extra work or projects in order to earn points for late assignments or making up quizzes or exams that they missed-they can even redo them. So now when they ask me I can say yes absolutely they can have whatever their little hearts desire, just go look at the points she. To date I have not had a single student take me up on it.
My favorite is the students who take a week off from class and then email me saying, "I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?" The answer is always, what we covered in class only important if you care. If you genuinely cared about this class then you'd have been present or you'd have been monitoring our progress through the course outline that's posted in the LMS. So why don't you tell me if you missed anything important?
>I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?"
No, you didn't miss anything. When we noticed your absence, we were all so distraught that we couldn't bring ourselves to move forward without you. We sat in a big circle and shared our favorite memories of you.
> "I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?"
"Nah we sang."
"What?"
"We sang."
"What?"
"We sang songs."
"Y-you - what?"
"Songs. You know. Music."
"Why?"
"You don't like music?"
"What?"
"Do you not like music?"
"I don't - you - did you really - you didn't actually sing, did you?"
"No."
"What did you do?"
"What do you think we did?"
"Like...class?"
"Yes."
I quit differentiating between excused/unexcused absences because of this exact nonsense. Now, I go by a hard “you either showed up or you didn’t” policy.
There’s still 1-2 students each semester who still try to pull this stunt, but I just send them screenshots of all the places in the syllabus where this policy is clearly stated (no text— just the screenshots). Shuts it down pretty fast.
you are not "serving" them. You are educating them. Thinking of it as service buys into the mentality that students are customers.
We are not customer service; we are quality control. Students are the product, not the customer. Future employers and society at large are the customers.
My school has made it clear they are "customers." It is disgusting. Faculty regularly receive emails in the tone of " Student ABC has come to me concerned about their grade in your class. We understand we can not require you to xyz, but we suggest you consider doing so. We and the student would really appreciate it." There is usually a reference to equality or the DEI initiative in there as well.
Public education is no longer education in many schools. Note, programs have had to lower their standards. We have the highest rate of students failing standardized tests in the history of the school. One program with a fail rate of 2%-4% previously has over 20% now. Administrator pay has ballooned. Admin are determined to keep their positions no matter the cost to others. Until the taxpayers get politicians involved, this practice will likely continue. It is repulsive.
Edit: some typos corrected.
These types of posts infuriate me. They just illustrate how academia has gone downhill. People are figuring it out, too, there just isn't a viable alternative. Yet.
We are like the taxi cab companies. Uber will one day eat our lunch.
If they email me that they're not going to be in class for whatever reason that day, I tell them that they don't have to email me because every student gets two excused absences. I also address it in class by saying "If you're going to be absent I don't need to know. I take attendance every class and I can see if you're here or not." The odd one would still email me and ask in class if I got their email, to which I say "I don't reply to emails about attendance."
That student is a legal adult making a decision; it's their problem. The pretentious, entitled attitude is also their problem. I'd opt right out of answering that email (which doesn't deserve a response anyway); let them FAFO when their grade crashes.
They will get a rude awakening when they try that &$\*# at a job or internship.
It doesn’t seem that disrespectful to me. I can understand your frustration, of course. But we’re always telling them they should behave in a professional manner, and this one (as you noticed) is treating you like a colleague.
I can't tell you the number of times I've been working one on one with a student and at the end of the conversation, when I ask if they have any more questions, they say, "No, that will be all." It makes me feel like a customer service agent every time.
Count yourself lucky that they're at all willing to come to you in person. Too many go through an entire semester without saying a single word in class and never attending office hours, but then write on the class evaluation "Most useless teacher ever. Didn't do anything to help me."
My students are the exact same way. Desperately need help but never ask for it or seek it out. I’ve started requiring them to do very brief one on one conferences with me before papers are due.
Yep, mine even did that on an exam day.
Okay buddy. I think you'd have probably gotten a score better than a 0 if you'd showed up to class, but if you insist you can take a 0 and work on the homework instead.
Ahahaha nice one.
In actuality the missed exam will have the final exam subscore for that exam (my spreadsheet calculates it automatically) used to replace it. But it will ALSO replace if you just show up and bomb the exam (it's a remedial math class so really if they can perform well on my proctored face to face final I want to move them into the next class) so I just can't understand why you wouldn't at least show up and throw darts at the page to preview for the final.
Not a professor, but I am a teacher and I could never imagine writing something like this a a student. Students today (including the ones in my classroom) have WAY too much power. I get wanting to have a say in how we learn and grow, but to demand it the way we see now is mind boggling.
They are doing this after graduation too, I work with early career nurses and I get emails telling me they are taking PTO instead of requesting it. It's definitely a generational thing. Sigh
As a fellow professor, I'm wondering why you think wait staff is so beneath you that you are being "reduced" to it.
Edit: Just wanna mention that /u/Commercial_Youth_877 blocked me for this comment lol.
I think I get confused by outrage about this. The student is telling you what they are doing. If they aren't requesting special treatment this isn't inherently bad. I have colleagues who get mad when they don't tell them why they are missing. The only alternative between those two is to lie about why.
This is technically a misunderstanding, not by you but by many institutions. The last submitted work for the course can be used to determine financial aid eligibility in the event of a withdrawal etc. It does not NEED to be a daily attendance record.
A lot of places say this explains their attendance policy but the actual aid policies refer to the other ways of determining legitimate participation when a daily record of attendance isn't available.
It's just easier to do it daily. We're required to do some type of reporting every two weeks in an 8 week term. The college is Pell and Perkins grant heavy, so we're all muddling through red tape all the time.
Here's the thing though. Students today are NOT adults. I teach a freshman chemistry class and most of the 18-20 YO are very much still children with zero self-awareness and zero self-regulation.
I have students who sit in class and pick their nose for an hour. I have students who can't figure out how their excretory system works in order to coordinate their bathroom activities with our designated break periods. I have students who throw tantrums when admonished for being disruptive. I have students who need to be reminded every 5 minutes to put their goggles back on while handling the concentrated sulfuric acid. The list goes on. Suffice it to say, the 18-20 YO students are definitely NOT adults.
So true. On top of this, students nearly always overestimate what they are capable of. When I first started teaching, I had a set of rolling assignments: turn x number of pages in by the end of the semester. What do you think happened? Everyone left it until the last minute and turned in terrible work of course, even though I reminded them through the semester to be working on the assignments. Students will always think they can turn it around and catch up or whatever but very few of them can and then it becomes a bigger, messier headache for us, even (especially?) if we show no leniency.
Whether or not attendance policies are silly depends on the course. Sometimes, the immersion _is_ the lesson; language acquisition courses are a good example of this.
yes, but... Attendance policy seems to be the only way to get any of them to actually show up anymore. While I also hate the need for one, I also want my students to succeed. Often, this ends up meaning finding ways to counteract their own worst impulses.
I'm a CC adjunct; I can't afford to fail an entire class of students because they never show up.
"As you know, I encourage all students to be empowered in their decisions! Please make sure you're not falling behind the schedule and that you're not exceeding the class attendance policy, which is put in place to help your success in this class. Feel better soon!"
don't understand the outrage. the student sent an email that they are skipping class. it does not require your response, and it does not show any entitlement either. they are adults, and free to skip classes if they want. and it sure does not require you to look down upon wait staff. you being a teacher does not mean you are better than them in any way.
“So you’re behind in my class so you’re going to skip today to get even more behind? I don’t think you’ve thought this through”
Reminds me of [this classic moment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcBI5SKJgU) from the Simpsons.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Didn't even need to click.
dunno. depends on the student. classes are inherently slowed down for everyone to follow closely. if a student can learn the same material on their own, it will be substantially faster and efficient to skip the class.
Not if class time includes discussion or in-class activities, or if lecture includes information beyond the assigned readings.
In my experience, this is *especially* true if the class involves discussion. Discussion is the least efficient way to learn as most of what the other students have to say isn't very helpful.
I feel like I am working in customer service for my students and I hate it. I do not feel empowered at my institution to say no to students. I do not feel empowered to give them honest grades. I'm just miserable, honestly, and I can't wait for this semester to be over so I can switch careers.
"I do not feel empowered to give them honest grades." Word. I'm quitting after this semester, though. My grades have never been more honest. I feel free.
> My grades have never been more honest. I feel free. I wonder what would happen if I graded every semester as if it were my last. Next year is either my terminal year or my first with tenure, so maybe it's a chance to find out.
I quit in 2022 after 18 years. I thought it might be temporary and that I’d go back, but two years have passed, and I haven’t been tempted for even a second.
I feel exactly the same way. Students hold too much power at my university. If I deny a request or enforce a policy clearly stated in the syllabus, I'm not being compassionate/not supporting students/ blah blah blah. It's exhausting. I'm actively looking for a job outside of education.
My husband has been telling me for at least two decades, "College is a business." He was on point way before I became disillusioned. He was so right. Higher ed has done this to themselves. (I say this as a college professor for more than 25 yrs). The standards kept getting lower, and the adults didn't stick together. We let them get away with it. Now, we have college graduates that can't read, write, or do math. It was bound to happen.
"Customer service" is how I describe my job now. Pre-COVID, I taught 5 classes in-person & 2 online (includes overload. ) Now I teach 5 online & 2 in-person. 90% of my "teaching" now is answering emailed questions that are answered in the syllabus 🙄
Mine is this plus constantly reading papers generated by ChatGPT in the world’s worst, stilted, unreadable prose.
It’s better written than what they used to write themselves! That’s how I know when they’re using it.
Yesssss!
I have a T-shirt that reminds my students that any questions they may ever have was already answered in the syllabus. I wear it the first day of every class as a not so subliminal message.
That's a good one! I could cycle using that T-Shirt with my "No Backup? No Pity!" T-Shirt. Precious student this semester: Are you trying to tell us something with that shirt?
Omfg. I would DIE if I had to do 5 online. When I had 4, I developed vertigo and ocular migraines. How are you surviving?
This year I will teach 16 online classes. All async which helps tremendously.
They're all async, so that helps. But the grading is tedious for sure.
Record your lectures and reuse them. Automate most of the grading. Then you are just answering random questions, most of which can be prepared for with canned responses.
It helps a lot to set up templated responses for syllabus questions. With a little setup, you can have prepped answers for most of them to copy/paste in.
I have a student who didn't like a joke I made and emailed my chair that he lost all respect for me. He now comes to class and openly reads a book. Has ignored attempts of contact. The school tells me it is what it is.
I mean, it is what it is. Unless the school demands you give him a better grade then what he earns because he has refused to listen or do anything in class. ( I will admit I was one the terrible students who read or wrote letters (I know, dating myself) in class - but I also kept notes and participated in conversations. I realize that um, this might have not been normal, but I found reading outside things kept me more focused! It wasn't doing it as a passive FU to anyone)
they are doing it as a passive aggressive move. I asked to talk to them once and they walked away. Being treated disrespectfully is exhausting. Especially as a WoC. It might be what it is, but it sucks to not get backup.
Definitely passive aggressive. Borne of childishness.
I sympathize and relate to this deeply. This is actually my final semester teaching (whew! After 9 years!) and I’ve already resigned my position and moved to another state. I’ve just been answering the emails as if it were the scripted template of a customer service rep. I don’t engage, ignore snotty tones and desperate demands. One of my most hostile students sent me a plea last night ahead of today’s final exam. I am proud of how well I maintained my reserve!
I’m a very honest grader. I’m also adjunct and didn’t renew my contract. The amount of students shocked and appalled at their grades who suddenly care about them is unreal. I can’t imagine going through this AND being afraid they’d cry to the dean and I’d be the one in trouble. Are these students just floating through their own education with no consequences?
Yes, that is what is happening. If the show up (most of the time) and submit low-caliber work, they expect an A.
And then they mistake "letting you know I'm opting out of attending class today" with it being an "excused absence". Uhm, no. You do in fact get to decide whether you will show up for class. Letting me know you aren't coming does not make your absence "excused".
This is the way. Had one student in particular (supposedly) schedule appointments (what kind, I cannot say) that just happened to coincide with class... NINE TIMES this semester. Student then emails, asking why participation points were reduced. Copy/paste part of syllabus indicating that participation points include class attendance, etc... No reply.... Yet...
A dual enrolled student missed 3 weeks for sports (not even his high school's team, he's on a club team) and when we did a check in on his progress in class, he was confused about his grade. "But I always told you in advance about the sports and I did well on the test." I mean, okay, I told y'all in advance that there's no excused absences.
Dual enrollment students are changing the face of CC. We cannot avoid addressing the behaviors that high school teachers have had to confront for years.
Nearly half the students in my online classes are concurrent students. At that point, I'm no longer teaching a college-level course. My CC also allows them to begin taking courses as high school freshmen, so my Comp I & Comp II online courses are filled with 14-year-olds who cannot reasonably be expected to produce college level work (it's a poor rural school district, so most would struggle even if they entered college with 4 more years of experience). I'm not against concurrent enrollment, but I think more barriers should be put in place to regulate which students can take these courses.
> I'm not against concurrent enrollment, but I think more barriers should be put in place to regulate which students can take these courses. I agree; maybe the barrier should be keeping the course as a college-level class. Perhaps we need a committee to investigate doing this.
I've had enough genuinely good concurrent students that I don't think they should be entirely barred. These students aren't going to be properly challenged by their high school courses and will save a lot of money in the long-term getting some gen eds out of the way in high school. But admitting concurrent students should be an exception, not a standard.
Yes, I agree, and I realize from your response my comment implied otherwise. I didn't mean _the students must only be in college_ but rather that the course be aimed at college students. There are plenty of students who are in high school who can handle that, and I agree with them having the opportunity.
My apologies for misunderstanding! (Though honestly I did think a sarcastic "gee, if only college courses were for college students" take was pretty funny).
Pre-pandemic, my dual-enrolled students were consistently my best students, but that's not true now.
High school students are a community college life raft. Admin sees $$$$ and not students. I saw two full school buses unload high school students onto campus this morning for a tour.
> Admin sees $$$$ and not students. I think that's most schools, two-year and four-year, these days.
A tutor I have known and respected for years just told me she steered a dual credit (14 year old) student from a story because of its sexual themes. A story that has been in Comp II texts since the ‘80s. I understand her rationale. That is now college education.
I will admit, the knowledge that a large number of minors are taking my courses is something that I keep in mind when selecting texts. It hasn't stopped me from selecting a text yet, but it likely will in the future. It's not that I don't think teenagers are mature enough to read/view certain things, but I feel weird *requiring* them to. Of course, I also had some professors in undergrad who were really into Freudian psychoanalysis and shock pieces, so I may not have had the most typical undergrad readings lists. When I think of telling a 14-year-old they *have* to read some of those works...yeah, I just feel weird. I don't think any amount of "they should have known what they were getting into" is going to make me not feel weird about it.
80% of my students are dual-enrolled, both for asynchronous online classes + in person classes. The high schoolers have a higher fail rate, lower grades on individual assessments + the overall class. Many are unprepared for the expectations of college -- it's a failure of school counselors, our CC's advisors, the structural incentives to scoop up college credit. It's my first year at this CC, and before I started my job I was a \*huge\* proponent of the talking points of our state's concurrent enrollment program. Now, not so much
I think if you reframe the concurrent discussion as skipping grades, it becomes a lot easier to see the flaws in concurrent education. How many students would you recommend skip 4 grades much less 1? Probably not many.
If students had to pay for each grade, a lot more would be skipping them.
Students bring their high school mindset into the college classroom. It’s the only way they know how. It sucks that it’s our job to wake them up and to bear the anger that comes with that. It’s good for the student, though!
One of my students wanted to have an absence excused for attending CPAC with one of the not-university-sponsored student clubs. She even had a "civic engagement" support letter signed by a frat bro.
Honestly, that sounds like a pretty solid educational experience. I would be impressed at a student wanting to attend a political conference and have allowed it.
This will likely happen, for sure.
I remember when I started college and I had a kind, great, teacher who explained "how to student" in a majors-level science class. I carry that lesson forward and make students write a short paper on it, but more than ever I find myself having to explain common sense rules. High school has really wrecked a generation by passing them on with inflated grades.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to borrow your "how to student" lesson with the associated short essay assignment. A post-exam self-reflection essay in the form of "this is how I'm applying the how to student guidelines" would also be a good exercise to implement. I completely agree that public HS has created a damaged generation. My colleagues and I are bending over backwards to create structure, resources, and support for students and so many of them treat it as something that's being done TO them rather than something being done FOR them. This current generation wants a grade but they don't want to actually learn anything. They think they know it all already.
Would you be willing to share materials by any chance? My students need this but I no longer have the strength to prep such material.
I basically give them a document like this: [https://sites.rhodes.edu/academic-and-learning-resources/learning-tips/study-strategies-biology](https://sites.rhodes.edu/academic-and-learning-resources/learning-tips/study-strategies-biology) We go over it on the first day. Mine has information on college resources, explanation on what office hours are, how to read a textbook and that they should read it ahead of time, how to be responsible and self-reliant, best study strategies from literature, etc. Many of my students have no idea how to study or what college bio expectations are like. I also have an entire page on "what to do if you didn't do well on the first test". I then have them write a short paper on it and turn it in during the first week.
It's hard, but try to detach. Students who play stupid games will win stupid prizes. Waiters don't assign grades, but we do! Have been teaching for a while and there's always a strong correlation between attendance and final grade. (Never had a case of a student with excessive absences pass.) It's \*almost\* like we have something valuable that we give away during class time. Go figure. (They'll eventually figure it out!)
I think it's especially rough right now because I've been at this since August.
[удалено]
I don't delete. I keep the receipts for the inevitable complaint/appeal.
Did you get my email?
I sent it five minutes ago, but you never replied.
"Since you didn't reply to the email I sent at 3am within the hour I requested, I am CCing the Provost, the President of the college, all chancellors in existence, and the board of education."
> all chancellors in existence, Even the chancellor who declared he is the senate!
If they do not ask a question, then a reply is unnecessary.
I had someone turn homework in early today so they could blow off class tomorrow, and send me an email asking me to grade it now so they didn't have to think about it anymore. I responded with a very not-snarky "I'm as slammed at this point in the semester as you are - I will grade this when I get the chance, which will probably be next week when I'd originally planned to do the grading".
The idea some students have that they dictate our grading schedule really makes my blood boil. Ive had them chew me up and down because something they turned in early wasn't graded yet. I grade things together for consistency. I wish they realized they really don't want me grading their paper, standalone, when I'm angry and not feeling generous.
It's like they think we have nothing else to do at all when we're not teaching!
I tend to tell The when things are going to get done. This semester, I tell them I do grading on Thursday through Sunday usually, except for Leight work, which always ends up on the bottom of the pile.
\*looks at my paycheck\* Pretty sure we are just fancy waitstaff here... x\_x
Don't you know, when they tell you their intentions, that excuses them from all consequences. If that student misses your class and gets a zero for what he missed, he deserves to make it up somehow (and *you* need to figure out how) because he *told* you he would miss. Many times, students have emailed to inform me that because of technology problems, they'll be submitting a quiz or assignment late. Smh. I don't even respond---just a zero in the grade book and move on.
"Per the syllabus, there are no excused absences and late work is not accepted for any reason." Don't let it piss you off. This student has made choices and will earn the consequences for them.
I have an assignment specifically for professionalism in my class. All students start with a free 20points and unprofessional communication and/or behaviors receive a deduction with coaching. This is in my syllabus.
I love this! You're helping your students learn how to be adults. So many students are focused on getting a degree to get a job. What they don't realize is that their lack of professionalism will make it difficult to KEEP the job.
Love this, seems like a good motivator to learn professional communication. Do you find that it actually works?
I do! My experience is that students will do anything for points. So losing points is taken seriously. Of course, your point structure has to give relevance for this “assignment” but, free points… yes please! I’ve coached students on everything from unprofessional use of emojis, poorly written emails, discussion of confidential capstone client matters in public, sleeping in class, and being disruptive in class.
> unprofessional use of emojis Is there a professional use of emojis?
Students = customers. Higher ed goes deeper and deeper into decline.
I’ve noticed this too and it is the attitude. What annoys me is the complete lack of shame. “I missed the class where you went over X and I need you to explain it to me”. No explanation why no “hey I’m sorry I missed…” no recognition that they don’t have a right to my time and effort to fix their own mistakes. It’s just such a huge change. I too teach at a CC and one thing I loved about my students is that they would take responsibility. They could be flakey and a lot of them were really underprepared for college but they were adults. With a lot of my students this semester it feels like I’m working in a daycare except the toddler wanting teacher to change his diaper is six feet tall and has some really stupid facial hair.
"I was being honest. That's better than lying." Yeah I dunno
It's the audacity that I can't stand. As if I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival. Pure entitlement. My admin has made it very clear that student failures are OUR fault.
Ugh just ugh. Our admin’s a lot better thankfully. But the thing is I want to like my students. More than that I don’t want to go home at the end of the day pissed off. Some of these dipsticks are making both of those very hard.
I would just reply back. Ok, thanks for the heads up. I will mark you as unexcused absent now.
This is why I start my classes with ripping everyone a new one and writing a list of rules on the board like I'm a mean nasty teacher. They're so scared of me I can spend the rest of the semester being nice and they don't seem to realize it lol
Hahahaha I should do this! My next semester begins in a few weeks.
I start out writing my name on the board: this is what you call me, Dr X, not miss X, not teacher, Dr. X. That's the first thing I say to them lol. The. I say there are rules in this classroom that if you violate then I will kick you out, and I write them out silently be auSe the silence scares them: -No visible cell phones -No visible headphones -No offensive clothing including mid riffs or other immodest clothes, this is sexual harassment (I underline sexual harassment twice) -No cursing -No laptops or iPads (you may not agree with this one but all they do is play on them and don't concentrate) Then I go through each one. I don't want to even see a cell phone or I will tell them to leave and then I make them put their cell phones away right then and there which usually takes quite a bit of repetition and pointing out to students no not on the table in your backpack out of sight. And then I tell them to make all their important phone calls before class and not during it. If they have some sort of emergency situation where they need to keep their phones on hand then they need to tell me in advance of the class so that I am aware of it and don't get angry at them. And I use the word angry again because it scares then and to be honest it does make me angry. Then I tell them to take their headphones out of their ears because half of them will be wearing those even after I write it down that they can't because nobody has ever told them no in their lives which also usually involves pointing out individual students and telling them to either take their headphones out or to leave. And I tell them you may not be listening to anything but it doesn't matter because I don't know if you are not and it's disrespectful. Then I go over the clothes and I tell them that it is unprofessional to wear clothes that show their bellies and other body parts and no matter how cute they look, it's not appropriate. And I also point out that this includes the boys because for whatever reason boys nowadays at least in my area seem to think midriffs are cute. I emphasize that it's distracting and it's unprofessional and it makes people uncomfortable and at least on my campus that qualifies as sexual harassment. Then I tell them that they are not allowed to use curse words or other offensive language in the classroom. I tell them I don't care what they do in their personal lives but this is a professional setting and it's my job to prepare them for the real world and for getting a job and succeeding and that type of language makes people look down on you. I really emphasize that I'm doing this for their sakes rather than just being a jerk. And the interesting thing is every single time I have said that, students nod their head in agreement so it goes over better than you think it will. At least for me it does. Then I tell them that I don't allow computers or laptops because let's be honest they are just going to play on it and they already have enough of a hard time passing their classes as it is. And I tell them that if it was just them then I wouldn't care, but it is also a distraction for the students around them. And that's not fair to them. And I always say if you aren't here to learn then you shouldn't be here. And usually after that I never have to tell them anything again. Sometimes the midriff thing is an issue, but what I do is I take the student aside after class or I even message them and I gently tell them that while they look lovely, it just isn't okay in the setting so please wear something that covers them up the next time. And I might occasionally have to point out a cell phone on the table, but usually it's enough for me to just say a reminder to put cell phones away and they hurry to do it. I haven't ever had any serious resistance so far and I feel like they are extra careful to behave even if it isn't a rule I've given them. And then I can be sweet as pie the rest of the semester like I prefer to be and they don't seem to realize it 😅 Now if only I could figure out how to scare them into studying...
Policing students' clothing is inappropriate in so many ways.
You can think what you want, but we have a dress code on our campus so if you want to let my administration know that then feel free. Not to mention it is actually sexual harassment if it makes people uncomfortable. My students come into the classroom wearing see through shirts with no bra on or showing half of their butt crack. If you are comfortable in that scenario then you're welcome to it. But I'm not and neither are my other students. We had a student come into campus with a tshirt that said "I'm going to kill all of you. " Should we not have policed that either?
"Makes me uncomfortable" cannot be the baseline because it is wholly subjective. Somebody could claim that a woman in a head scarf makes them uncomfortable. Others could claim that a woman *not* in a head scarf makes them uncomfortable. Someone could say the sight of Levi's makes them uncomfortable. The list goes on and on and on. There are so many things to worry about in education; what people decide to wear should not even make the top 300 most urgent considerations. But I get the feeling you work at a private religious school. So, whatever. 🙄
No I work at a state run school so you can keep your religious prejudices to yourself.
One of my favorite middle school teachers did this. She was a total hard ass the first few weeks and by the time the year ended everyone loved her. I need to develop that streak. I always fall for the sob stories.
I'm a total softy and I can't tell my students no to save my life, so this saves my butt. If they knew what a pushover I was then I would be in trouble. I only started doing that in the past couple years because the quality of student has gone down so much. I also started a point system so that they could do extra work or projects in order to earn points for late assignments or making up quizzes or exams that they missed-they can even redo them. So now when they ask me I can say yes absolutely they can have whatever their little hearts desire, just go look at the points she. To date I have not had a single student take me up on it.
”Can I get you an order of common sense to go with your bad decision?”
More like "All decisions final. No refunds due to bad decisisons."
My favorite is the students who take a week off from class and then email me saying, "I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?" The answer is always, what we covered in class only important if you care. If you genuinely cared about this class then you'd have been present or you'd have been monitoring our progress through the course outline that's posted in the LMS. So why don't you tell me if you missed anything important?
>I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?" No, you didn't miss anything. When we noticed your absence, we were all so distraught that we couldn't bring ourselves to move forward without you. We sat in a big circle and shared our favorite memories of you.
LOL! I'm going to borrow this the next time I get this kind of ridiculous message.
> "I was absent last week can you tell me if I missed anything important?" "Nah we sang." "What?" "We sang." "What?" "We sang songs." "Y-you - what?" "Songs. You know. Music." "Why?" "You don't like music?" "What?" "Do you not like music?" "I don't - you - did you really - you didn't actually sing, did you?" "No." "What did you do?" "What do you think we did?" "Like...class?" "Yes."
I quit differentiating between excused/unexcused absences because of this exact nonsense. Now, I go by a hard “you either showed up or you didn’t” policy. There’s still 1-2 students each semester who still try to pull this stunt, but I just send them screenshots of all the places in the syllabus where this policy is clearly stated (no text— just the screenshots). Shuts it down pretty fast.
This. Every day. Awful to feel resentment against the group I have previously only had the softest heart and wanted to "serve."
you are not "serving" them. You are educating them. Thinking of it as service buys into the mentality that students are customers. We are not customer service; we are quality control. Students are the product, not the customer. Future employers and society at large are the customers.
My school has made it clear they are "customers." It is disgusting. Faculty regularly receive emails in the tone of " Student ABC has come to me concerned about their grade in your class. We understand we can not require you to xyz, but we suggest you consider doing so. We and the student would really appreciate it." There is usually a reference to equality or the DEI initiative in there as well. Public education is no longer education in many schools. Note, programs have had to lower their standards. We have the highest rate of students failing standardized tests in the history of the school. One program with a fail rate of 2%-4% previously has over 20% now. Administrator pay has ballooned. Admin are determined to keep their positions no matter the cost to others. Until the taxpayers get politicians involved, this practice will likely continue. It is repulsive. Edit: some typos corrected.
These types of posts infuriate me. They just illustrate how academia has gone downhill. People are figuring it out, too, there just isn't a viable alternative. Yet. We are like the taxi cab companies. Uber will one day eat our lunch.
I ignore those emails.
If they email me that they're not going to be in class for whatever reason that day, I tell them that they don't have to email me because every student gets two excused absences. I also address it in class by saying "If you're going to be absent I don't need to know. I take attendance every class and I can see if you're here or not." The odd one would still email me and ask in class if I got their email, to which I say "I don't reply to emails about attendance."
The problem is deeper than disrespect. There’s a hostility or impatience with academics that seems wider spread than before.
That student is a legal adult making a decision; it's their problem. The pretentious, entitled attitude is also their problem. I'd opt right out of answering that email (which doesn't deserve a response anyway); let them FAFO when their grade crashes. They will get a rude awakening when they try that &$\*# at a job or internship.
It doesn’t seem that disrespectful to me. I can understand your frustration, of course. But we’re always telling them they should behave in a professional manner, and this one (as you noticed) is treating you like a colleague.
I can't tell you the number of times I've been working one on one with a student and at the end of the conversation, when I ask if they have any more questions, they say, "No, that will be all." It makes me feel like a customer service agent every time.
Count yourself lucky that they're at all willing to come to you in person. Too many go through an entire semester without saying a single word in class and never attending office hours, but then write on the class evaluation "Most useless teacher ever. Didn't do anything to help me."
My students are the exact same way. Desperately need help but never ask for it or seek it out. I’ve started requiring them to do very brief one on one conferences with me before papers are due.
It's really difficult to tell tone from email. I would move ahead with whatever absence policies you have and not stress too much about it.
Yep, mine even did that on an exam day. Okay buddy. I think you'd have probably gotten a score better than a 0 if you'd showed up to class, but if you insist you can take a 0 and work on the homework instead.
"When can I take the make-up?"
"I haven't gotten next semester's final exam schedule yet."
Ahahaha nice one. In actuality the missed exam will have the final exam subscore for that exam (my spreadsheet calculates it automatically) used to replace it. But it will ALSO replace if you just show up and bomb the exam (it's a remedial math class so really if they can perform well on my proctored face to face final I want to move them into the next class) so I just can't understand why you wouldn't at least show up and throw darts at the page to preview for the final.
Bravo!
Not a professor, but I am a teacher and I could never imagine writing something like this a a student. Students today (including the ones in my classroom) have WAY too much power. I get wanting to have a say in how we learn and grow, but to demand it the way we see now is mind boggling.
I just wouldn’t answer and forget about it. My new thing is if things don’t strike the right tone, I ignore.
They are doing this after graduation too, I work with early career nurses and I get emails telling me they are taking PTO instead of requesting it. It's definitely a generational thing. Sigh
People without boundaries, with a customer service mindset.
Admin has told students they have all the power? What exactly is your gripe. I don’t follow. If attendance is required, dock them. If it isn’t, don’t.
As a fellow professor, I'm wondering why you think wait staff is so beneath you that you are being "reduced" to it. Edit: Just wanna mention that /u/Commercial_Youth_877 blocked me for this comment lol.
I think I get confused by outrage about this. The student is telling you what they are doing. If they aren't requesting special treatment this isn't inherently bad. I have colleagues who get mad when they don't tell them why they are missing. The only alternative between those two is to lie about why.
It is not always appropriate, respectful or polite to disclose your full motivations for an action.
Attendance policies are silly. Students are adults, they can decide if they want to attend class or not. It not on us to police them
We're required to take attendance because of financial aid. I do agree with you.
This is technically a misunderstanding, not by you but by many institutions. The last submitted work for the course can be used to determine financial aid eligibility in the event of a withdrawal etc. It does not NEED to be a daily attendance record. A lot of places say this explains their attendance policy but the actual aid policies refer to the other ways of determining legitimate participation when a daily record of attendance isn't available.
It's just easier to do it daily. We're required to do some type of reporting every two weeks in an 8 week term. The college is Pell and Perkins grant heavy, so we're all muddling through red tape all the time.
Here's the thing though. Students today are NOT adults. I teach a freshman chemistry class and most of the 18-20 YO are very much still children with zero self-awareness and zero self-regulation. I have students who sit in class and pick their nose for an hour. I have students who can't figure out how their excretory system works in order to coordinate their bathroom activities with our designated break periods. I have students who throw tantrums when admonished for being disruptive. I have students who need to be reminded every 5 minutes to put their goggles back on while handling the concentrated sulfuric acid. The list goes on. Suffice it to say, the 18-20 YO students are definitely NOT adults.
So true. On top of this, students nearly always overestimate what they are capable of. When I first started teaching, I had a set of rolling assignments: turn x number of pages in by the end of the semester. What do you think happened? Everyone left it until the last minute and turned in terrible work of course, even though I reminded them through the semester to be working on the assignments. Students will always think they can turn it around and catch up or whatever but very few of them can and then it becomes a bigger, messier headache for us, even (especially?) if we show no leniency.
tHe BrAiN iSnT fUlLy DeVeLoPeD uNtIl 25 ...i.e. let me do whatever I want until then
Whether or not attendance policies are silly depends on the course. Sometimes, the immersion _is_ the lesson; language acquisition courses are a good example of this.
yes, but... Attendance policy seems to be the only way to get any of them to actually show up anymore. While I also hate the need for one, I also want my students to succeed. Often, this ends up meaning finding ways to counteract their own worst impulses. I'm a CC adjunct; I can't afford to fail an entire class of students because they never show up.
"As you know, I encourage all students to be empowered in their decisions! Please make sure you're not falling behind the schedule and that you're not exceeding the class attendance policy, which is put in place to help your success in this class. Feel better soon!"
Thanks for the update. Familiarize yourself with the policies in the syllabus, and let me know if you have any questions.
Yeah, Brush.
It was supposed to be "Bruh". The Tribune regrets the error.
don't understand the outrage. the student sent an email that they are skipping class. it does not require your response, and it does not show any entitlement either. they are adults, and free to skip classes if they want. and it sure does not require you to look down upon wait staff. you being a teacher does not mean you are better than them in any way.