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<p>While your sentence structure is poor, (and not indicative of an IQ > 115), it is still far better than your logic.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry, that’s not a valid argument. Many intelligent people are lacking in the written word, especially regarding grammar. You can no more judge this kid’s IQ than I can judge your IQ for not capitalizing “think” at the beginning of a sentence.</p>
<p>So my argument regarding writing ability didn’t go over so well with most of the folks here. Fine. Maybe I went too far. But my point stands. There are a lot of students at LSU who shouldn’t be in college. A lot of students are not smart enough to be in college. And they should be failed.</p>
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<p>It would seem that the administration probably agreed with the student. You have to wonder if this professor treated those in administration the same way. I wonder if this professor needs a psychiatric evaluation.</p>
<p>I chaired our department for a while, and read all of the comments on the (anonymous) student evaluations of the faculty during that period. If everyone who had some students venting on the evaluation forms were off getting a psychiatric evaluation, the department would have been running with a skeleton staff during that period. </p>
<p>There does seem to be something weird going on here, but I don’t think we have the facts to figure it out. If the local AAUP came out in favor of the professor, that should be taken into account. Apparently, the administrator who removed the faculty member from the class did not speak with her in advance. That’s odd. It appears that he replaced her with an instructor, rather than a tenured faculty member. That’s also odd. And the instructor immediately added 25% to the grades of all of the students? I’ve started to wonder: Maybe one of the students was the son/daughter of a representative in the Louisiana legislature . . . maybe even on the appropriations committee? Or maybe the administrator’s S/D, nephew/niece was taking the class?</p>
<p>At my university, a student can appeal administratively to have a grade changed, if the professor did not assign a grade in “good faith.” Having 90% of the class fail at the end of the semester would be suspect–it might not automatically prove lack of “good faith,” but it would go pretty far in that direction. However, the appeals process only kicks in after a grade has been assigned. A faculty member would not be removed mid-semester on the basis of scores thus far in the course (though this could happen for other reasons, mostly health related).</p>
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<p>I think this is quite powerful and effective writing.</p>
<p>Yes, it powerfully and effectively communicates the writer’s immaturity, sense of entitlement, and unrealistic expectations for college.</p>
<p>The only negative comment that really impressed me was the one supposedly by a student who had received an A from her in another class, saying that he thought she was inappropriate in her other classes, too.</p>
<p>I agree with Quant Mech that we don’t know enough to make a judgment here. The very existence of the issue shows that SOMEONE in power, at least, thought this professor was off the reservation, but it’s also clear that the dean handled things very, very badly.</p>
<p>This is the most concerning part of the student’s review:</p>
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<p>I’ve had teachers who were never available during their supposed office hours . . . not fun.</p>
<p>The thing is, you do usually get at least a few students who will rant about a teacher, so it’s hard to determine how seriously to take a review like this. I wouldn’t put too much weight on it, but I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, either. Some teachers are bad/unreasonable/etc. I don’t know if this teacher was one of them.</p>
<p>At any rate, I still don’t understand why LSU didn’t investigate this situation and sit in on some classes, discuss things with the teacher. Surely that makes more sense than what they did? Then they could see the situation for themselves, firsthand.</p>
<p>I wonder if there’s some office politics going on here, where they want to force the teacher out or something.</p>
<p>Re: Naturally’s post #108, I agree about the issue of investigating first, and acting second. Normally, the first-line responsibility to investigate and act falls to the department chair, and not someone at the dean’s level–didn’t see the chair mentioned here.</p>
<p>Usually, faculty are expected to have scheduled office hours for a course. If you read the student’s complaint closely, there is not a reference to scheduled office hours. If there were none, that’s a problem. On the other hand, when the student attempted to contact the professor and was told to call back in 30 minutes, there’s not a clear indication whether the student did attempt to call back later. Faculty are often speaking with other students or working, and being available to talk after 30 minutes is not unreasonable. (When I am meeting with a student, I often do not answer my phone at all.)</p>
<p>Prof. Homberger is Swiss. I have had European professors, including my grad school advisor, who found it very difficult to adapt from the traditional “professor-is-God” model to the American “professor-is-a-facilitator-of-learning” model. Such professors are understandably perceived as arrogant, unhelpful, and uncaring. Perhaps that’s the case here.</p>
<p>Also, it seems to me that European professors rarely, if ever, have to walk students through remedial work. That must be frustrating for someone accustomed to having nothing but the most serious, well-prepared students.</p>
<p>Based on the letter from the LSU chapter of the AAUP, the dept chair appears to have been involved in discussions about Dr. Homberger’s removal, but it was the dean who took action after consulting with both the provost and the chancellor. The apparent swiftness of this action and the seeking of approval up to the chancellor’s level (is that typical?) makes me think that we may not be seeing all of the facts in this situation. </p>
<p>LSU, like many state universities, is facing significant budget cuts, and earlier this semester a number of non-tenured faculty and instructors received letters of notice that their contracts may not renewed in the fall. This has been a point of contention between the Faculty Senate and the administration. So, the climate between the faculty and administration was already pretty tense prior to Dr. Homberger’s removal. </p>
<p>This professor was at LSU for 30 years. Surely she would have adapted to teaching in an American university by now! I don’t recall seeing anything about having to walk students through remedial work, and we don’t know what content was being taught or tested- that seems to be one of the points of dissent here. I do agree that it would be less intellectually satisfying to teach non-science majors when one is accustomed to teaching higher level science courses. But, if she was teaching upper-level biology concepts to an intro class intended for non-biology majors, then I would wager that most students at any given university (not just LSU) would have difficulty mastering the material.</p>
<p>It does not sound like the professor was given warnings, though it also sounds like this was a professor who probably wouldn’t have taken them anyway. The student comments and feedback are pretty indicative of a professor who was teaching a class different from the one she was hired to teach. </p>
<p>I’ve seen student reviews of teachers perceived as very hard but fair. They don’t look like the reviews she got. LSU may not have followed the protocol – and that’s curious – but she seems to have been a complete disaster in the classroom, at least in a lower division class for non-majors. </p>
<p>I wonder what her department thinks of her? And, strange to see Psi’s comment about her having been at LSU for 30 years – Ratemyprofessor only has 2010 comments on her, and that’s quite peculiar unless she hasn’t been teaching undergraduate courses in quite a while.</p>
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<p>Right now the professor is the only one talking. She is not about to say that she has been warned repeatedly about an issue, that would take away support from others.</p>
<p>LSU is not discussing personnel issues in the media. They released a simple press release and are refusing to comment further.</p>
<p>My father likes to tell a story from his time teaching CS at UC Berkeley: For the most part his experience was advising math PhD candidates on their theses and teaching grad courses in theoretical maths, but when he took a job at UC-B he was asked to teach a first year class. With good intentions, he instituted weekly quizzes. He made it a point to ask the class at the end of each lecture if there were any questions, and was happy to see that each day no one raised a hand.</p>
<p>To his surprise, his student evals were <em>terrible</em>. His lessons learned:
No raised hands means “understand” or “clueless”;
Students hate quizzes.</p>
<p>I tell this story for the humor, since it has little to say about LSU. Except perhaps one point: prof’s benefit from knowing something about the student body they are going to teach, and doubly so if they intend to go against the grain.</p>