I taught at a private university five years ago, having left industry to teach a specialized major in my field that was new and emerging at the institution. I went through the exact same thing (minus the grade changes as far as I know). I was not on a tenure track, got a glowing review from my department chair, but got blown in by students for teaching class "too hard." I was encouraged to give a "C" or better in all of my classes and go along with the program. As a person of principle and recently having left my industry...I refused as I felt that it would not only be a reflection on the institution...but on me personally if industry contacts knew that substandard academics and knowledge were coming out of the program and specifically from me.
While I was not renewed, it turned out to be a blessing. Being in business over 20 years and then going to the academic side...I saw why the cost of college was so incredibly high and why the results of new graduates in the workforce were so pitiful.
I'm sorry for your experience and hope that you found a better way, as I did, to take your wealth of knowledge and use it in a more profound way.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This is the end game of DIE. A society full of entitled useful idiots, too demoralized to think or work so they vote and protest for handouts.
Par for the course, universities are adult daycares these days that prolong childhood. Then theres a freak out when these grown up children hit the real world. Every week libsoftiktok finds videos of 20 somethings complaining about a 40 hour workweek or not being handed a job with a six figure income.
Why not complain about the grade? If you have come through a system where whining gets an extra credit project, where your mom calls if your genius is not recognized, and the goal has been the GPA rather than learning. Long before college, students learn to game the educational system rather than gain an education.
I am well past in age worrying about hiring the right candidates. However this is emblematic of what most progressives and certainly black Americans think of as systemic racism. If I were in the employment dept. having to hire an economics major what would I think of about a student from Spelman College after reading this. For most of my life the issue regarding affirmative action, quotas, tests for firefighters or police....all the race based discussions we’ve been grappling with for the last 40 years or so have been, have American blacks been getting jobs or promotions not based on ability but on skin color. You combine this with the nonsense that black Americans are not capable of learning difficult subjects, have a learning disability based on their race, tests are based on a white perspective etc. The idea that math only has to be mostly right, that showing your work is racist....Nobody wants to hire a civil engineer who gets his math mostly right. I want the bridge I’m going to go over designed by an engineer to have gotten all his math right. I get college leads to better jobs but these stories actually hinder black Americans. I want the black to be doing surgery because he has the knowledge and talent and skill....I wouldn’t want to know that his medical school and internships and residency marks were unearned. It is a huge disservice to him and only perpetuates the issue of discrimination. Is the black professional not a competent as the white or asian professional? It is unfair and bad for the country and for black Americans.
One of the (many) things that appalled me in graduate school was that there were some students in our program who had clearly not attained the ability to produce college-level work in their undergrad years, but had somehow been accepted as grad students.
In my Old English class, cheating was rampant. Groups of students divided up translation sections among themselves, only translating a few sentences each, then sharing and copying each other's work.
In our 18th Century Women's Literature class, we were forced to work from pre-written 4x6 "cheat sheets" when writing essay exams. When I complained about not being allowed to bring the book itself into the exam (as we'd always done in my undergrad department) so as to find more accurate quotes and examples for our essays, the professor explained that it would be "too difficult" for students if they were allowed to do that. Um, only if the students didn't bother to read the book to begin with! (Naturally, the essay questions were exclusively about passages that we talked about in class, so if you marked and copied those passages to your note card, you could do well on the essays without ever reading the book.)
These policies - shenanigans, you might call them - do nothing to help students in the long run. Until my husband retired recently, he was a financial analyst for an oil and gas company. The company, to their credit, had programs for hiring veterans and giving students from underrepresented schools a chance. They hired a couple of young men from an HBCU in our area and the lack of rigor in their college coursework was readily (and sadly) apparent. They simply weren't prepared to do the required work. There were other young accountants & engineers of all races who were unprepared and didn't make it past the probationary period at the company, but the case of the two from the HBCU was particularly stark - they had been trained to be bookkeepers, but told they were accountants and given high grades they did not earn.
I had a professor like you in college. Got a D on my first exam. I remember him saying, you’re welcome to stay in my class, I am not lowering my standards. I studied my ass off and got a 95 on the next one and another A after that. I was grateful to him. He taught me the level of work I was capable of and I wished I had had him sooner.
I’m sorry this happened to you, you’re one of the good ones!
My father was a professor (tenured and beloved at the Claremont Colleges) but I was just an adequate student (but a good lawyer). The disservice Spelman is doing to its graduates will echo down the years. Maybe similar practices at other elite schools will blunt any racial effect, but it will simply reaffirm existing prejudices, and in that way perpetuate the opposite of what these Quisling administrators are attempting.
In a waiting room, a young man who taught math in a Texas grade school had the same experience. He said that these kids had no clue about math. He was told not to grade objectively, but to just "pass them along."
This is how white people become responsible for the failure of black people. Get it? It's LITERAL. Teacher gives an objective grade according to "the standards of whiteness." Teacher becomes "racist."
Enabling this racial narcissism is why a certain faction of the population will never truly amount to anything if education is required.
Twenty years ago, I was threatened with "a buck fifty" over a C. I'd been advised by my mentor to give the paper a D. Because the student was black I raised the grade to a 'C' and was subsequently threatened with a knifing. The POC administration refused to do anything about it despite the fact that a Polish student had complained about being threatened by this person. They claimed that "he has a right to an education."
Fantastic essay and reporting on a chronic problem - at Spelman and other colleges where acting with personal responsibility is no longer required of students and supported by enabling administrations. I'll bet there's a KIPP high school out there that would love to have you and your standards.
No wonder these "kids" are entitled little shits. Even when they're wrong they're belligerently right. Everyone who was supposed to teach them and discipline them has failed them starting with their parents.
“Another member of the panel said professors should work to instill the idea in students that they represent “black excellence.” As someone who has always lived in the white world (though I’m half Filipino), I found this deeply inspiring. I thought, this is the kind of place where I want to teach.”
—————————————————-
Why would you find something psychopathically racist like “black excellence” inspiring?
This perfectly explains the deafening silence from institutions on the current war in Israel. These colleges and universities, almost to a one, are nothing more than whited sepulchers and their students useful idiots.
I taught at a private university five years ago, having left industry to teach a specialized major in my field that was new and emerging at the institution. I went through the exact same thing (minus the grade changes as far as I know). I was not on a tenure track, got a glowing review from my department chair, but got blown in by students for teaching class "too hard." I was encouraged to give a "C" or better in all of my classes and go along with the program. As a person of principle and recently having left my industry...I refused as I felt that it would not only be a reflection on the institution...but on me personally if industry contacts knew that substandard academics and knowledge were coming out of the program and specifically from me.
While I was not renewed, it turned out to be a blessing. Being in business over 20 years and then going to the academic side...I saw why the cost of college was so incredibly high and why the results of new graduates in the workforce were so pitiful.
I'm sorry for your experience and hope that you found a better way, as I did, to take your wealth of knowledge and use it in a more profound way.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This is the end game of DIE. A society full of entitled useful idiots, too demoralized to think or work so they vote and protest for handouts.
Only the trustees can take action to effect change, but too few of them have the courage it takes: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-open-letter-to-trustees
Such a broken world that progressive belief is creating.
Endlessly metastasizing cancer
Par for the course, universities are adult daycares these days that prolong childhood. Then theres a freak out when these grown up children hit the real world. Every week libsoftiktok finds videos of 20 somethings complaining about a 40 hour workweek or not being handed a job with a six figure income.
Why not complain about the grade? If you have come through a system where whining gets an extra credit project, where your mom calls if your genius is not recognized, and the goal has been the GPA rather than learning. Long before college, students learn to game the educational system rather than gain an education.
I am well past in age worrying about hiring the right candidates. However this is emblematic of what most progressives and certainly black Americans think of as systemic racism. If I were in the employment dept. having to hire an economics major what would I think of about a student from Spelman College after reading this. For most of my life the issue regarding affirmative action, quotas, tests for firefighters or police....all the race based discussions we’ve been grappling with for the last 40 years or so have been, have American blacks been getting jobs or promotions not based on ability but on skin color. You combine this with the nonsense that black Americans are not capable of learning difficult subjects, have a learning disability based on their race, tests are based on a white perspective etc. The idea that math only has to be mostly right, that showing your work is racist....Nobody wants to hire a civil engineer who gets his math mostly right. I want the bridge I’m going to go over designed by an engineer to have gotten all his math right. I get college leads to better jobs but these stories actually hinder black Americans. I want the black to be doing surgery because he has the knowledge and talent and skill....I wouldn’t want to know that his medical school and internships and residency marks were unearned. It is a huge disservice to him and only perpetuates the issue of discrimination. Is the black professional not a competent as the white or asian professional? It is unfair and bad for the country and for black Americans.
Thank you. I hope the word gets out that degrees from Spelman are meaningless.
There's a news story today about Spelman students holding a rally for "peace". https://www.ajc.com/news/palestine-student-supporters-and-others-rally-for-peace-aid/I7RBSKALQJB7ZI6XW4YOMLBQ6A/?n=@ They're holding signs that say lies like "Israel bombs hospitals. Biden pays for it" and "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free". This shows that Spelman students aren't merely stupid, they're evil, too.
One of the (many) things that appalled me in graduate school was that there were some students in our program who had clearly not attained the ability to produce college-level work in their undergrad years, but had somehow been accepted as grad students.
In my Old English class, cheating was rampant. Groups of students divided up translation sections among themselves, only translating a few sentences each, then sharing and copying each other's work.
In our 18th Century Women's Literature class, we were forced to work from pre-written 4x6 "cheat sheets" when writing essay exams. When I complained about not being allowed to bring the book itself into the exam (as we'd always done in my undergrad department) so as to find more accurate quotes and examples for our essays, the professor explained that it would be "too difficult" for students if they were allowed to do that. Um, only if the students didn't bother to read the book to begin with! (Naturally, the essay questions were exclusively about passages that we talked about in class, so if you marked and copied those passages to your note card, you could do well on the essays without ever reading the book.)
These policies - shenanigans, you might call them - do nothing to help students in the long run. Until my husband retired recently, he was a financial analyst for an oil and gas company. The company, to their credit, had programs for hiring veterans and giving students from underrepresented schools a chance. They hired a couple of young men from an HBCU in our area and the lack of rigor in their college coursework was readily (and sadly) apparent. They simply weren't prepared to do the required work. There were other young accountants & engineers of all races who were unprepared and didn't make it past the probationary period at the company, but the case of the two from the HBCU was particularly stark - they had been trained to be bookkeepers, but told they were accountants and given high grades they did not earn.
I had a professor like you in college. Got a D on my first exam. I remember him saying, you’re welcome to stay in my class, I am not lowering my standards. I studied my ass off and got a 95 on the next one and another A after that. I was grateful to him. He taught me the level of work I was capable of and I wished I had had him sooner.
I’m sorry this happened to you, you’re one of the good ones!
A terrifying story.
My father was a professor (tenured and beloved at the Claremont Colleges) but I was just an adequate student (but a good lawyer). The disservice Spelman is doing to its graduates will echo down the years. Maybe similar practices at other elite schools will blunt any racial effect, but it will simply reaffirm existing prejudices, and in that way perpetuate the opposite of what these Quisling administrators are attempting.
Hope the author finds tenure at an honest school!
In a waiting room, a young man who taught math in a Texas grade school had the same experience. He said that these kids had no clue about math. He was told not to grade objectively, but to just "pass them along."
This is how white people become responsible for the failure of black people. Get it? It's LITERAL. Teacher gives an objective grade according to "the standards of whiteness." Teacher becomes "racist."
Enabling this racial narcissism is why a certain faction of the population will never truly amount to anything if education is required.
Twenty years ago, I was threatened with "a buck fifty" over a C. I'd been advised by my mentor to give the paper a D. Because the student was black I raised the grade to a 'C' and was subsequently threatened with a knifing. The POC administration refused to do anything about it despite the fact that a Polish student had complained about being threatened by this person. They claimed that "he has a right to an education."
Black privilege.
Fantastic essay and reporting on a chronic problem - at Spelman and other colleges where acting with personal responsibility is no longer required of students and supported by enabling administrations. I'll bet there's a KIPP high school out there that would love to have you and your standards.
No wonder these "kids" are entitled little shits. Even when they're wrong they're belligerently right. Everyone who was supposed to teach them and discipline them has failed them starting with their parents.
“Another member of the panel said professors should work to instill the idea in students that they represent “black excellence.” As someone who has always lived in the white world (though I’m half Filipino), I found this deeply inspiring. I thought, this is the kind of place where I want to teach.”
—————————————————-
Why would you find something psychopathically racist like “black excellence” inspiring?
This perfectly explains the deafening silence from institutions on the current war in Israel. These colleges and universities, almost to a one, are nothing more than whited sepulchers and their students useful idiots.