<p>My D is a freshman at a LAC which enjoys a lovely reputation for selectivity, food, professors, etc.(It is also my H’s alma mater) So far, I have been summarily distressed with the stories my D tells me about many of her professors. …“condescending”…“poor advice(wrapped around sarcasm)”…,“I had to revise my discertation 4 times and I encourage all of you to read it…” poor availability, late return of papers, etc etc…</p>
<p>We do not qualify for any fianancial $$$ so we are on the hook for the 40K+(we have another D in college as well)This kind of education is making my H and me nuts! We are huge supporters of LAC’s as I went to one as well. Of course there were some bummers while we were in school as well.</p>
<p>So…how do we handle this? We have spoken to our D about this and she is well aware of how much we are stuggling to send her to this school and she loves being there and she feels it’s a good fit for her. She is bummed about her professors but she is at odds as to what to do. Her advisor is one of the professors that is not available to her.</p>
<p>This doesn’t seem to apply to all of your d’s professors. If she’s a 2nd semester freshman, she should have experience with 8-10 professors by now. Is there one with whom she could meet during office hours to express her misgivings and get some feedback? Perhaps she’s just had the bad luck to wind up with all the lemons. Now that she knows whom to avoid, perhaps she can schedule her future classes around the worst of the lot.</p>
<p>Is she stuck with the advisor? Many schools assign a freshman advisor, changed once a major is declared. Most schools also offer a procedure for changing one’s advisor (I would imagine that high-quality LACs would be particularly responsive on this issue).</p>
<p>In general, I don’t think that parents should contact colleges unless there is a serious problem regarding the student’s health or safety (pretty much never about academic issues).</p>
<p>It is doubtful that the school’s lovely reputation is undeserved. So,
I agree that the parent should not intervene here. </p>
<p>Part of what she can learn at college is navigating the system to her own best advantage. Finding good professors, learning to work with/around those she doesn’t like (this is a needed skill in business and life)… If she simply can’t find acceptable academic experiences at this school, then she can take the steps necessary to transfer.</p>
<p>I think if you were to intervene, it would be with setting some limits with your daughter. IE, if you feel the school is not worth it, you will not continue to struggle to pay for it. This means that she needs to find ways to make it worth it, find ways to mitigate your financial struggle by shouldering some/more of the burden, and/or find that she doesn’t need to “dump” the frustrations on you but rather handle them herself.</p>
<p>We parents suffer a lot more than our kids realize, I’m afraid, when things are not going right for them. I’m guessing that it’s not just the $$ that get to you, but the disappointment on her behalf that the experience is not all you and she hoped for. Often, I’ve heard, the bad news they dump on us is not really that bad when it comes right down to it. But we don’t know that and want to fix it. Then, after we’ve agonized over finding solutions, it turns out they’ve already sloughed off all of their complaints.</p>
<p>They do like a sympathetic ear for their suffering, jmmom! The sleepless nights experienced by parents when unburdened child is having a merry time. This is not to minimize what is happening, just to say that the calls are an anchor to the most caring world available, home.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, even top LACs have professors who are stinkers. I agree that it can be tough to be the “dumpee” when kids are in distress. But I also agree that, aside from issues of health and safety, it’s your daughters responsibility (with your input, of course) to navigate the system and advocate for herself. For help in choosing courses, my daughter has found that a good resource for evaluating professors is the website ratemyprofessor.com. student-created teacher ratings and reviews.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d be furious - paying top dollar for inferior instruction - it would burn me every day. </p>
<p>You can’t interfere with the tenure system, which often allows professors to escape meaningful performance appraisals (like the [rare] Federal employee who takes advantage of the fact that he/she can’t be fired). Not that you shouldn’t, if there were any aspect you could influence to the benefit of your D, but it won’t do any good - the school will stonewall and you have no recourse.</p>
<p>If she is not overly invested in her experience there, you might consider asking her to explore transfer options.</p>
<p>I would take it with a scoop of salt
my D for example used to complain about one of her high school teachers.
I sat in on the class unannounced although I did check in with the school to make sure that it wouldn’t be disruptive.
I was very impressed. He engaged the class, he dealt with disruptions smoothly and was very interesting.
Now, she admits that he was a good teacher.
Your D may just be in a complaining mode
there are also ways to identify top instructors- ask on livejournal and the school newspaper as well as prof rating site
My niece at Colgate for example often complained about her profs- because she had a much more conservative view of life than they did.
If her whole experience was unsatisfactory then certainly transfer, but first she should speak to her advisor</p>
<p>There is not a school in this country that does not have its share of profs who are past their prime, uninspiring, or just plain lousy. The trick is to do the necessary due diligence to try to avoid them.</p>
<p>EK - my daughter also used to complain constantly about one of her high school teachers-- she had the same teacher for both an English & history class, and as far as I could gather, much of the time spent in class involved my daughter getting into huge arguments with the teacher over whatever was being discussed. My d. would complaint that the teacher was always trying to imposed her political views on everyone else, that the teacher’s views were shallow, etc. </p>
<p>Fast forward to senior year. Who does my daughter go to for a recommendation? Yeah, you guessed it. And who writes the detailed, blow-your-socks off letter about how amazing my daughter is? Yep. Apparently my d. had misconstrued the teacher’s socratic approach. Daughter thought they were arguing. Teacher must have thought otherwise. </p>
<p>So, yeah… I think parents should let their kids vent, but otherwise stay out of it. In hindsight, I sure am glad that I didn’t get my dander up and try to give the teacher a piece of my mind.</p>
<p>Yulsie-Professors do have meaningful performance reviews. It’s just that teaching is not the primary compenent of hiring, tenure, or salary increases after tenured. Publishing counts for so much more than teaching and community colleges are the only institutions in which teaching earns tenure.</p>
<p>From my own experience, I can say that professors are a strange lot to understand. On the one hand, they can be rather cliquish, gossipy, and all that jazz… (top LAC). At the same time, there are some who will go out of their way to help you, listen to what you’re saying, and explain their perspectives. </p>
<p>It would be advisable to stay away from/keep your guard up around those who tend to be snippy towards other students whether openly or not. Because no matter how much the professor might claim to like you, if you cross them at some point, the preview of what they’re capable of is something you’ve already witnessed.</p>
<p>This sort of leaves parents wondering if they should do something. Honestly, it depends on the validity of your student’s complaints and perhaps even on if they have gone unaddressed after s/he expressed how s/he felt to those involved or to their superiors. </p>
<p>As my own advisor told me once, you have a biz relationship with the college you attend, which I think is a true statement. However, another relevant truth is that rules are applicable to all sides in such a binding relationship. </p>
<p>I hope my student perspective is of some use to you, yermom.</p>
<p>Right, that’s what I meant. And teaching is hard to evaluate without formal surveys or being observed periodically. </p>
<p>At my son’s university, teaching is an important part of the performance review, and while personal styles differ, all of the tutors are motivated to teach - the path to becoming a fellow includes being assessed as an effective teacher. There is one primary professor who monitors/coordinates the overall course for a student, and any serious problems can be addressed to that individual. There is also some degree of freedom to switch subject tutors - this can be accomplished informally through term assignments.</p>
<p>I second the idea of checking the rate my professor website. It really helped my S avoid a particularly bad chem instructor. Also at his school (albeit a big state u) you can get on the school website and check the grade distribution for each profs. class from previous semesters. Looking at that can help students pick which instuctors are the most popular among their peers.</p>
Personally I’m not a big fan of this … I have been told by my friends who are professors that there is an incredible corellation between students rankings of professors and the ease with which the professors grade … for that reason I’d take the on-line ratings with a HUGE grain of salt … I’d certainly look for comments about specific behaviors of profs that are to be avoided butI wouldn’t but too much emphasis on the specific numerical grading of tghe prof.</p>
<p>ratemyprofessor.com is not usually a good indicator of the actual quality of teaching. However, many colleges have official sites which post student surveys. One of my Ds goes to a college which requires students to complete a detailed survey of their experience in the class covering not only what they thought about the prof, t.a., classes, etc., but also with the curriculum covered. An entire class at the end of each term is devoted to these surveys and the students take them very seriously. Responses are received from a majority of students enrolled in each class, sometimes as many as 90%, which is pretty unusual for surveys. After the information is compiled, it’s posted both online and in a hard-copy which is then available to students when they are choosing their courses for the following year. I don’t think that this college is unique in doing this type of survey so have your kids check at their schools to see if something similar exists. Here’s a link to part of one report, for those interested:</p>
<p>Not all profs take their freshmen advising as seriously as they should, prefering to save their emotional energy for students who’ve declared a major in their department. One solution is to declare a major at the very beginning of your sophomore year (possible at most, but not all schools), so as to be assigned a more committed and interested advisor. Better yet, spend some time with older students to find out now who’s any good as an advisor, and request that prof early (before he/she becomes overcommited with assigned students).</p>
<p>Thanks to EVERYONE-lots of food for thought. Her school has their own “rate the prof” which includes “would you reccommend this class to your friends?” “how valuable was this class?” etc. Much better than assessing “hot” points.</p>
<p>wow, you guys are good. my son’s school was $32,000, and when I started hearing complaint after complaint, I started making calls immediately. there is no way I would be paying $40,000 a year all out of pocket and expect to sit quietly. BUT, I am a little confused why she is saying the school is a good fit, but is then complaining. when I called, I started out with treading lightly to find out what was going on, but when everything was my son’s fault, and the school was culpible for nothing, I knew something was wrong. I would usually start out with, “my son is saying there are a few problems, but I’m far away, and I know how things can get twisted, so can you help me out”. when it would go to how “those darn freshmen can’t seem to get things right”, or “nobody else has ever complained about that”, and not one word of “well, let’s see how we can resolve this”, I knew there was a problem, and there was, a big one. I am extremely intolerant of people who do a bad job, tenured or not, because I am held to such a high standard in my profession. but i’m a fighter for injustice. I do agree you have to really listen to what the student is saying, to ensure things are valid complaint, and not just frustration or not knowing the system or how to navigate things. but even so, if they can’t figure out how to get around or how to do something, they need help.</p>