
Professor Tells Student to “get your shit together” - jennyjenjen
http://doanie.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/mean-professor-tells-student/
======
gosu
That's definitely good advice at the end, but I think that the professor's
response is pretty disproportionate.

Presumably, it was a much ruder interruption to the class to stop everything
and publicly humiliate a student whom he felt disrespected by. And it's
_extremely_ rude to take a personal email and forward it to the entire class
(who presumably would be able to recognize the student).

Maybe the intent was to "smack some sense" into a student for their own
benefit, but that's really presuming a lot about a person from a handful of
data points.

Also, how likely is this to be BS?

~~~
mjn
A professor forwarding an email they received from a student into a public or
semi-public forum, especially with negative intent, isn't even legal in many
countries. The rules aren't quite as strict as attorney-client privilege, but
there are still restrictions on disclosing information about student
performance that you receive in the course of your duties (with "performance"
generally including behavioral issues). In the U.S., it's arguably a FERPA
violation to do so. Whether X'ing the name out is sufficient to avoid the
issue, I don't know. I wouldn't risk it myself.

If something comes up in class, on the other hand, it's generally okay to
address it in class, since it was already raised in that venue; you can scold
a student who creates a disruption in class. But forwarding an email that was
sent specifically to you (not to a class listserv) to the entire class is a
bit different.

~~~
lutusp
> In the U.S., it's arguably a FERPA violation to do so.

Not if, as in this case, the student's identity is concealed. In such a case,
it becomes as valid an instructional element as a psychological case history
(where the subject's identity is always concealed).

~~~
mjn
It's true that psychological case histories are published, but _much_ more
carefully. You need to make a formal proposal to an independent review board,
which will assess your proposed anonymization protocol and the circumstances
of data collection and disclosure. The bar is particularly high if you're
asking to release a case study where you don't have documentation of the
subject's consent (even for anonymized case studies).

~~~
lutusp
> It's true that psychological case histories are published, but much more
> carefully.

Yes, that's increasingly true as time passes. Freud's case histories were
marked with the subject's real initials, and this practice continued up to the
1950s. I'm not excusing, just explaining.

Even in modern times, very detailed case histories are published as long as
there's no credible risk of associating the study with a particular
individual, or consent is obtained from someone able to give informed consent.

------
jowiar
Professor Galloway might be advised to also get his shit together and/or
remove the stick from his ass. Rather than say: "This is a suboptimal
situation, how can we fix it?", he simply called the student immature and
disrespectful, and never acknowledged the possibility that he, or some
institution he has influence over, might be partially at fault in the matter.

Masters/professional degrees are hardly an "academic pursuit". Universities
treat them as a profit-generating device, and as such, it's reasonable that
the customer be able to make an informed decision. In relatively short
professional-degree programs, you will often have only one chance to take a
given elective during your time there. Sometimes you have to make a decision
between these courses. In my Masters program, I made the wrong decision
regarding electives more than once, missed out on some very interesting
courses, and wasted my time with some absolutely lousy ones.

In an ideal world, the school would provide some reasonable solution for this.
Either by having some reasonable culture of course-sampling, or if they feel
that harmful, offer videos that allow students to, on their own time, sample
the course and make an informed decision as to whether the course is worth
their limited resources.

~~~
kunai
> he simply called the student immature and disrespectful

Which he/she were.

> [I] missed out on some very interesting courses, and wasted my time with
> some absolutely lousy ones

Again, this is not a problem of the University. Ideally, you would have
already researched the electives in detail and chosen the one you thought
best. If you thought wrong, it's personal.

> he, or some institution he has influence over, might be partially at fault
> in the matter

It doesn't matter. When you go to a university, you enter into a contract and
agree to several terms and conditions. If they are not met, the consequences
_will_ be faced. Arguing against is a waste of time.

> the school would provide some reasonable solution for this

Why? All the professor asked the student was to attend the next class due to
tardiness. The student decided to complain about it; which was a foolish
decision. It's compounded by the fact that shit happens; if you can't handle
the consequences then you're not fit for life. There was no reason to email
the teacher, and the punishment was rightly deserved.

~~~
gosu
>if you can't handle the consequences then you're not fit for life

This is pretty harsh. If you applied similar harshness to your own actions, do
you think you'd approve?

~~~
taylodl
I would. I hold no one else up to a bar higher than I hold myself. And I set
the bar high. I've got no time for whiners and losers and this student's
behavior is beyond the pale.

------
akavi
This really just seems like a culture-clash in action.

I don't know what the general sentiment is at NYU, but the university I
attended had a very strong "shopping week" culture. It was quite common, and
quite accepted, to shop three classes simultaneously, spending 20-30 minutes
at each one and leaving or joining midway through the class.

In that context, xxxx's only real faux pas was sending the email, which was
perhaps a hair self-important.

I'd love to hear from an NYU student what the social mores there are.

~~~
jamesjporter
I agree, this would not be too out of the ordinary at my institution; although
I usually would take the approach of going to a different class each day for
the first week of classes.

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thecosas
Great advice from the professor. "Get the easy stuff right."

~~~
angersock
Yep. It's amazing how much that can hobble you--it seems like while the big
stuff is what takes the most effort, the little stuff is what causes you to
lose.

A simple example: Say I want to go out on a date. I worry about meeting
people, I worry about being in shape, I worry about being interesting, I worry
about all kinds of stuff--but the simple thing is having clean laundry. It's a
simple thing to tick off, but it can render all of the other work useless if
it isn't done.

------
skytalon
Nothing mean about it. Very well-written and good advice, it is.

~~~
jennyjenjen
I agree. That's the take the author decided to use when naming the article.

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wonderzombie
Yeah, this seems like a case of grandstanding. Everyone who agrees with the
professor can get on their high horse about decorum. Unfortunately for the
lesson, responsible, mature adults don't publicly humiliate those less worldly
and wise than they are. That's what assholes do.

So if anything the life lesson here is: wisdom is an excuse to lord it over
other people. Score points whenever you can as publicly as possible.

~~~
jennyjenjen
While I initially sided with the professor (especially seeing the department's
policies for class attendance), I see what you're saying and agree that public
humiliation is more on the side of assholery, if you will. I guess perhaps I
meet halfway between agreeing with this professor and agreeing with you; where
the student really went wrong was with e-mailing the teacher in this manner,
and perhaps that's why the professor responded with such a strong reaction
(and forwarded it on to other students).

I will absolutely disagree, though, that it's a "worldly and wise" thing to
understand and know class policy. He's chewing him/her out over established,
known policies. In the "real world" - or whatever you'd like to call it - I,
nor you, really expect people to need to have their hands held about simple
policies, do we?

------
parennoob
My initial reaction to this was: "Yep, glad to see one of those self-entitled
students get called out for his disrespectful behaviour by a Professor." But
then I started thinking about the way my Professors in college had behaved
about this (I went to a university that's regularly ranked among the top ten
in the States.)

At least in undergrad, specially in massive classes where there are sometimes
100+ students in attendace -- there was little or no backlash against
'dropping in' to a class late. The only condition stipulated by many of my
professors was, "Don't ask for permission to come in and disturb the whole
class." Even in grad school, the only downside to coming in late was that you
would miss _very_ important material.

Nevertheless, none of my professors have (thankfully) thrown me out of class
for coming in later than they expected. Students, especially those in the hard
sciences and engineering live a fairly stressful lifestyle, with little
opportunity for recreation and a nutritious diet. They should be forgiven for
slipping up once in a while, whatever the reason ("Shopping around" or just
plain "I woke up late because I was up all night doing that assignment")

------
liberte9
The best way to teach humility is to demonstrate it. This professor has
instead demonstrated his egoism through this email and through his decision to
distribute it to the entire class. It seems this professor is the kind of
person who demands respect but is not willing to give it (or rather, chooses
who to give it to based on his own set of criteria for who is deserving -
hardly humble).

------
jonahx
He discusses the incident here: <http://bigthink.com/users/scottgalloway>

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intopieces
Why does a student need to attend the first lecture (which will likely consist
of administrative matters and rule-setting) to get an idea if they want to
take the class? I thought this is why professors listed their syllabi on their
webpage.

~~~
jennyjenjen
Right? I was in school just as things were becoming more digitized, but we had
to flip through books to see class descriptions or wait until the day we
registered to get any idea of a description. Sometimes that info was pretty
far off or not even included.

It looks a little easier nowadays, but I'm sure everyone says that of younger
generations. My brother is in his last semester of school and it's all at his
fingertips before school starts. He does a thorough job of finding classes
he's interested in, what fits in his schedule, and what he needs to complete
to graduate. I asked him about his process once, out of curiosity, and he said
that he does his research by asking me and others who have somewhat recent
academic experience, then he searches old websites or lecturers' websites for
old an old syllabus.

After a quick scan of the Stern college at NYC, it seems that information
about courses are highly accessible. There seems no reason to have to visit
the classes one by one. I'd take this professor's class without visiting one
before - looks awesome!

------
jonahx
While most of what the professor says is true, the anger underlying that
letter indicates to me that he has bigger issues to fix than young, overly
eager and self-centered student who comes late to class on the first day and
writes a polite but misguided letter to the professor who embarrassed her
publicly.

------
onli
I don't even understand his position? Why should it be disrespectful? She
didn't came late to an appointment, she didnt' disturbed the class by arriving
shortly after the beginning, she arrived simply an hour later to an open event
(kind of). That is not disrespectful where i come from.

~~~
jennyjenjen
This person did not arrive "simply" an hour later and not to an "open event."
Read the general policies of the Stern School of Business, which cover the
course in question:

[http://www.stern.nyu.edu/AcademicAffairs/Policies/GeneralPol...](http://www.stern.nyu.edu/AcademicAffairs/Policies/GeneralPolicies/DefaultPoliciesforSternCourses/index.htm)

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joyeuse6701
A good rule of thumb for determining overreaction is who swears first. The
student may have felt entitled to try out multiple classes and come in late,
but the professor felt entitled to make a private matter public, public shame
her.

------
IsaacL
I feel sorry for the student. This is going to be another of those "someone
makes a dumb faux pas" stories that's copy-pasted all over the internet for
everyone to jump on their high horse about.

~~~
jennyjenjen
I actually don't feel sorry for the student. I wish I'd had a professor smack
some sense into me earlier. For me, it took a tough supervisor a few years out
of school to get the message through. The sad part is that I had it together
better than many others I've met even then.

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jrs235
Didn't we have a situation a few weeks ago where the major iaaue was the use
of public shaming? Did the professor com incubate with the student privately?
I assume the student released the email in an attempt to public ally shame the
professor. Student -2, professor -1. Now can we all grow up now and try to
minimally maintain scores of 0?

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zensavona
I hope he gets sued.

