
NYU Professor Scott Galloway: Ouch - Wump
http://gildedlimits.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/nyu-professor-scott-galloway-ouch/
======
yumraj
Personally, I'm really amazed that some people, both below and in comments to
that article, are finding themselves siding with the student.

IMO the prof's email was excellent. He conveyed his point across very nicely
without showing even a small hint of irritation or annoyance.

The part copied below, for me, really sums it up. This student is an immature
jackass and s/he really needs growing up. S/he first made a mistake and then
had the audacity of justifying his/her action. Personally I would hate to have
a person like that in my team.

Quoted part: _Just so I’ve got this straight…you started in one class, left
15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another
class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the
middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in
an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which “bothered” you._

To the folks who are siding with the student: Find out who s/he was, hire
him/her and then lets see what your reaction is when the moron walks in late
to meetings, customer calls, doesn't deliver on time etc. and then when you
fire him/her, sues you..

~~~
lallysingh
For the anti-establishment types automatically siding with students: Remember
that this is a total of 4 class interruptions for _every_ _other_ _student_ in
the course.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's actually only 1 class interruption: the interruption occurred when
Galloway decided to stop teaching and instead focus on a student who he felt
disrespected him (but probably went unnoticed by other students).

~~~
joezydeco
So the two other lectures that this student interrupted (one of them _twice_ )
do not count?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Assuming he was reasonably quiet, the student did not interrupt two other
lectures. I often have a late student or two. No one notices or cares because
I don't waste time on it.

"So this means that this set of functions is an _orthogonal basis_ for the
space of polynomials. Timmy, close the door behind you. This means that we can
translate our problem with signals into a matrix problem, and then just
gaussian eliminate it like every other problem this semester."

Would you similarly criticize the student if he showed up on time, but used
the bathroom after an hour?

------
staunch
Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any
dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the
stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics
are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972),
U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

\-- Henry Kissinger

------
bouncingsoul
I don't see an overall good in the professor's late policy. Awkwardness is
usually enough of a deterrent to people willingly being late. This extreme
policy punishes those who are unwillingly late (car trouble, emergencies,
etc.).

Making a show out of kicking out late students is self-important. The
professor extrapolating from this one event that the student is failing at
life and should be thankful this professor set him straight indicates more of
that attitude to me.

I've been in classes where a late student was told to leave. It was way more
distracting than if he'd just been allowed to sit down because it sets off a
bunch of pondering and empathy, and you look around you to see what the other
students think about the situation, and you're no longer hearing the teacher
talk.

------
ShabbyDoo
"respecting institutions"

This I have never understood. What does it mean to respect an institution? Is
this sort of like corporate personhood (which I am not taking a stance on)?
Does Harvard demand more respect than the local community college?

The word "respect" is as loaded as the word "fair." One interpretation is
simply, "Don't be rude." But, that's not all that the word commonly
encompasses. Implicit in most definitions is the difference in social status
between two parties. When is it properly "respectful" to call John Smith by
his first name instead of "Mister Smith"? When the person addressing John is
socially beneath him?

------
jessriedel
Is there someway to interpret this other than the Professor is a arrogant
a-hole? What's interesting about this?

~~~
barrkel
Yes. That the student is an arrogant and inconsiderate a-hole.

But, there's hope for him or her - they may learn better with lessons like
this one.

~~~
natrius
Both of them are. It is reasonable to expect that sampling classes that are
scheduled at the same time will be acceptable. However, it's not something
students are _entitled_ to. The proper way to respond to such a policy if you
insist on responding is to explain your situation and ask the the professor
revisit his policy for the beginning of the term in the future.

I hate people.

~~~
smokinn
_I hate people._

Seriously.

I really wish I hadn't read the comments on the blog post and the "discussion"
here. Sigh. What a waste of time.

------
philk
I'm betting that the student is currently really grateful that he sampled
other classes and hence didn't get stuck with this guy.

------
mreid
My wife is a lecturer and had a related experience with a student.

Sometime early in the semester after the course outline had been presented to
her students, my wife received an email in which a student put forward his
plan on how he was going to game the course to get a pass with the minimum
amount of work. It went something like this:

 _According to the course outline, I plan to just read the poetry and one of
the books. If I do essays 1 on the poetry, essays 3 and 4 comparing the book
to the poetry, skip essay 3 and get 50% on the exam then, by my calculations I
should get a pass. Could you tell me if this plan will work?_

I've heard of time management but I'd never seen such a blatant disregard for
actually wanting to learn anything in a course before. It didn't occur to the
student that telling a lecturer that her course was just an obstacle course to
be rushed through as efficiently as possible was a little disrespectful?

~~~
greenlblue
There is nothing disrespectful here. It is simply a symptom of how
universities operate. It's even more blatantly obvious in lower division math
classes.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Universities often to require students to take lots of filler courses,
unrelated to their chosen field, taught simply to raise funds for the
department providing the filler.

So that english course could easily be nothing but an obstacle in the way of
an engineering or business major graduating. And it might be an obstacle which
exists solely to get some of the student's money.

------
SandB0x
While Galloway may or may not be an "arrogant a-hole", I can understand him
snapping. (small rant:)

On my master's there are a few people who regularly show up halfway into
lectures (leaving the doors swinging and banging), leave work that requires
genuine understanding and insight until the last possible second and just
generally seem confused by everything. They're intelligent folk, but I don't
understand the lack of application at this stage. Why bother coming? It's not
like they're starting businesses or fighting crime at night.

I used to be a sloppy student at undergraduate, but for a postgrad degree
there's just no point being there unless you want to attack your subject like
a rabid dog. Nobody will save you at this point. Nobody cares if you fail.

------
mallipeddi
My university had a simple fix for this problem - all lecture halls actually
had doors at the back. People who have back-to-back classes in different
departments had to take a shuttle bus to commute since the campus is big. They
could slip in silently from the back door and take a seat somewhere in the
last few rows. No body gets disturbed, and the prof doesn't get offended.

------
AndrewWarner
Looks like he'd make a great Mixergy interviewee. I just emailed him my
request.

If anyone here knows him please put in a good word for me.

~~~
philk
The tagline for mixergy is "Online Business Tips from Successful
Entrepreneurs". I'm having a hard time imagining how he fits with that or why
he'd make a great interviewee.

As far as I can tell, his claim to fame is writing a narky email to someone
who's paying ~ $40K/year to learn. What unique or interesting thing does he
bring to the table? "Being nasty to your customers" doesn't work as well when
you're outside of the sheltered workshop that is academia.

~~~
rortian
They aren't customers, they are students. You can't fail customers.

~~~
philk
I think the line gets a bit blurred when you charge as much for tuition as
some of these MBA programs.

(The value proposition is actually a bit puzzling given you could lock
yourself in a cheap apartment somewhere for ~18 months and try out different
business ideas without having to work for the same amount as a years tuition).

------
Groxx
While I mostly agree with the prof's response in this situation, as the
student should've both accepted that his actions may be rejected _and_
should've spoken with the profs first if possible, professors _seriously_ need
to get over themselves. Quite frankly, they are _not_ , much less _all_
(despite the apparently common belief), the most important part of _anyone's_
life, and other events do indeed come up.

The part I disagree with is the policy. How is interrupting the class
_further_ to turn them away at all helpful? Speak afterwards; you're only
turning a minor distraction into a major one. Especially since people who come
in late are demonstrating that they _are_ interested enough to arrive and face
that glare / lecture, more often in-class than out.

Laziness / shit not together would be far better demonstrated by not going to
class at all, but no professors I've encountered take as strong of a stance on
_that_. It's disproportional and insulting to the people who _do_ show up to
make a big deal out of it (prior to other attempts to change things), both the
late arrivals and the ones who have to sit through the whole fabricated event.

Manners and respect should exist? Absolutely. But that doesn't give
_professors_ any additional right to that feeling of entitlement. I've met
some real jerks of professors in my time, and they're typically also the worst
_teachers_ around. What right do they have to act like that? Oh, right. Tenure
(forgive my expletive).

Respect is, and should be, earned. They get a little bonus for being in the
teacher role, but for many (note: not saying most, not denying its possibility
either) the line "those who cannot do, teach" is true.

In summary: act respectfully. Both of you.

------
wmorgan
Why is this story so polarizing? Here's a theory, inspired by a Less Wrong
post [1]: some people, thinking back to their time in class, remember how
distracting it was for a student to come to class in the middle of a lecture.
Others, like myself, barely even noticed.

The one side thinks "how rude of the student to walk in and out of lectures
like that!" and the other side thinks "what's the big deal? Just ignore it!"
and from there they side with the professor or the student, respectively.

Does this gel with your personal experiences? Is there anyone who sided with
the professor but does _not_ find student movement distracting? Or anyone who
sided with the student but can't stand it?

[1] <http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/>

------
holdenc
These two people deserve each other. _sighs_

------
CoachRufus87
i like this professor. i trust that the guy learned his lesson too & will
remember to show some decorum in the future.

~~~
pw0ncakes
At first, my natural inclination was to dislike you. The professor comes off
as an asshole.

On the other hand, the student was taught a lesson in a harmless way. Anyone
who wants to go into business needs to be able to handle egotistical assholes
who make this professor seem saintly by comparison.

~~~
bigiain
In my opinion (as pointed out by lucifer already) the ""xxxx, get your shit
together." and following paragraph are quite likely to be the most important
lesson the student will learn in his entire academic career.

The professor wrote a highly memorable obviously personalised letter to the
student teaching that.

Without outside evidence of "egotistical assholishenss" from the prof (which
_may_ exist), I'd read it as an intentionally exaggerated reaction with a
solid grain of cold hard truth.

------
tmsh
Ironically, this is sort of an interesting b-school case study. s/student's
career/business/g. Esp. in New York. What is the marginal utility function for
disrespect? Does it vary by environment? Professor? In the immediate context,
if the potential reward of a great class that would be missed if the student
didn't sample outweighs the potential backlash the student will receive by
sampling, it makes no sense for the individual student to forgo the
opportunity. However, outside of the immediate context, if it breeds bad
habits and a lack of decorum, that can be injurious in the long run.

Actually, I think the appropriate modus operandi in New York is to sample if
you want and if a professor tells you to leave or come back in the next class,
then do so. But don't take it personally and e-mail. In Silicon Valley and
elsewhere, I think it varies.

------
ksraines
Apart from the tortured logic, the most egregious part of the e-mail was the
Prof.’s elementary math error.

Question: A student goes to three classes, each for approximately the same
amount of time. He arrives at the third course approximately an hour after the
first one started – how long was the student in each of the first two classes?

Professor: 15-20 minutes!

(He mistakenly divided 1 hour by three and tried to account for travel time.
Of course he should have divided by two.)

In combination with his grammatical skills, I’d say the Prof needs to get HIS
shit together!

But seriously, the student was justified to walk in, but not justified to
complain about being thrown out. The Prof's e-mail was bizarre but the closing
paragraph was well-spoken.

------
MaysonL
A fairly good takedown of the prof (including some insights gained from
Googling him):

[http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-f...](http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-
from-those-ellipses-sir/)

------
kellogs
this conversation depicts exactly the type of professor I hope I never become.

1) the classroom != business meetings----------- in meetings, other people
rely on you being there. in lecture, professor just talks - he can give the
same lecture to an empty room or to a full room. it doesn't matter

2) student is not responsible to the professor. ----- because the student's
presence is not needed to make an effective lecture, the student has no
responsibility to check with the TA or something. his presence is for his
benefit alone, his absence is to his damage alone.

3) lecture is not affected by walk-ins and walk-outs ---- no student tries to
"make a statement" by walking in late to class. it is not disruptive, if they
walk in,find a spot, and sit down, quietly. the lecture is not affected, if
they are focused, people hardly notice the door opening. it's like somebody
coughing in lecture - who hears it, who remembers it? nobody.

4) professor is wrong to interpret this as deliberate action--- there are a
million and one reasons to be late for class or go early. in a large class, a
small subset will always have some kind of priority over lecture, be it
conflict exams,interviews, small accidents on the way,or lecture sampling.
this is completely understandable, the students' lives don't revolve around
the lecture.

5) policies should become "strict" after 1st week ---- even if the professor
decides to exercise his snobbiness by power of being a lecturer, he should
have done so not in the first lecture, but made it clear to the entire class,
multiple times during the first week, and started implementing it next week.
dismissing the student is such a shallow, "i got the power", type of behavior.
extremely disappointing display of insecurity of an NYU MBA professor.

6) urinating? ---- wow the professor goes over his head with his outrageous
analogies. no logical sense.

------
rmk
Solid advice indeed. From what I have heard, the average Stern student is a
jackass.

------
lutorm
For many stories like these, check out <http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/>

------
euroclydon
_In order to be humble, you must learn to accept humiliation._ \- Mother
Teresa

------
lucifer
_"xxxx, get your shit together.

Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant,
navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these
are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having
manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy.
Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you
successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not
achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you
must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…"_

Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may
or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.

~~~
johnrob
Imagine how much potential Steve Jobs would have if he got any of that "easy
stuff" right.

~~~
Perceval
Jobs dropped out of Reed not because he wouldn't/couldn't play by the rules,
but because he didn't think he was getting value for the top dollar his
parents were spending to send him there. He ended up 'dropping in' on classes
(like calligraphy), but there's no indication that he just strolled in an hour
late and disrespected the professors he was trying to learn from.

~~~
johnrob
"respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility"

These are the easy things of which Steve Jobs is the polar opposite. My point
wasn't about attending class.

~~~
mallipeddi
I have read about his habit of going to meetings and keeping his feet up on
the conference room table.

------
CamperBob
Quoth the prof: _Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial
uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g.,
do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit
policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class,
etc.)._

Really? I always heard that it was better to apologize later than to ask
permission first, at least when you're doing something as harmless as entering
a classroom with a lecture in progress.

Galloway sounds like a butthurt nitwit who missed his calling as a librarian.
He probably isn't, of course, but he certainly doesn't take the high ground in
his response to the student's perfectly civil letter.

It's true that many doors open in the business world when you make a habit of
being early, but it's also true that many doors open when you show up
someplace where you aren't supposed to be at all.

~~~
barrkel
A lot of kids (and they are kids) turn up at third level education (some
institutions more than others) with an overweening sense of entitlement.
Lessons like this aren't out of place.

~~~
CamperBob
The only sense of entitlement I saw was the professor's. Who's paying who,
again?

~~~
camccann
Well, presumably, there's rather a lot of people paying good money for access
to this professor's time and would prefer not to have class disrupted by
inconsiderate people coming and going for no good reason.

Being a paying customer doesn't grant an entitlement to be obnoxious while on
someone else's property and I can't fathom why you think it would. If you got
kicked out a movie for talking on a cell phone during the film, would you call
the theater "entitled" and ask who's paying who?

~~~
derefr
In my experience, these people never actually disrupt the _class_ , only the
_professor_. I don't know why you used an analogy of cell-phone usage; the
much more obvious analogue is people who come in half-way through a movie. Do
we kick them out? Do you, personally, even get annoyed by such people, or do
you just wave it off?

~~~
Groxx
I've _always_ seen this too.

The classes where the prof doesn't make a big deal out of it? The lecture
continues. Nobody remembers in 5 minutes, and everyone keeps going. More
students pass the class too, as fewer end up annoyed / insulted that their
non-laziness is being attacked, while everyone who simply didn't arrive is
silently ignored.

The classes where the prof _does_ make a big deal out of it? Lots end up
skipping over time, and everybody notices that someone came in because the
prof takes time out of class to berate them, causing the prof to lose their
(and their students) place in the lecture.

The only "reason" I can see for behavior like that is that the professors are
acting childish: they want to get even, at the expense of everyone's time,
instead of getting over it.

~~~
btilly
What you don't see because it is invisible is that you've lost 5-10 minutes
out of every hour of lecture time. And you don't realize that you're losing
over 10% of the course you paid for because you don't realize what you could
have had.

I say this both as someone with a tendency to arrive late, and as someone who
has taught classes. Before I tried to write up lesson plans and saw what those
interruptions added up to in lost teaching, my sympathies would have been with
the student. Now they are not.

~~~
Groxx
And in this you're assuming _I'm_ the one arriving late and witnessing this? I
certainly do occasionally, but I'm _far_ from the worst in any of my classes.

As to missing those 5-10 minutes, if they're _that_ valuable, the students
will either arrive or miss out. That's their choice. And I wholly feel that
way. I'll also point out that many many professors spend those first 5-10
minutes doing very little to progress learning, instead going over the
previous class or simply getting ready. Not all, and I'm not accusing you of
it, it's just that it's most certainly not the most valuable period in a
class.

It's not your job as a teacher to _make up_ their losses, it's your job to
_teach_ to the students. If those interruptions are taking teaching time away,
it's because _you_ are taking time away to deal with the interruption. That's
your choice. _All_ of the most effective lecturers and most valuable classes
I've had have been taught by people who _kept teaching_ , because these
interruptions don't truly exist unless they're made to exist.

The student comes in late? Then they have to pick up from where they came in.
You don't need to point out to everyone that they came in, nor do you need to
tell them everything they missed - they'll ask other students (who they likely
know) if they're interested. And with two exceptions in my 5 years in college
thus far, I've _never_ missed anything in the first 15 minutes that I couldn't
pick up in 5 minutes from paying attention from that point on.

Those two exceptions were in art classes, when a demonstration was occurring.
They couldn't rewind, and I didn't ask. It instead took me 5 minutes of
experimenting and watching someone else go first, and then I was caught up.

If the teacher had made me go _first_ , it'd have been identical to stopping
everything just to berate me; it's only purpose would have been to see me
fail, wasting class time, which is _infantile_ at best. Sadly, many teachers
feel this need.

~~~
btilly
The students don't know what they are missing. Were you aware that the few
minutes at the start of class are the period where students have the best
potential for paying attention? It is the place where ideally you should put
the most important stuff that you want remembered. Not doing that is a wasted
opportunity.

As for your lament that the time is wasted in review, review is actually one
of the most important activities in the classroom. If you want long-term
retention it is _absolutely critical_. Of course it is easy to not see the
value of doing it.

As for my experience and part of why my attitudes changed, see
[http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-
algebra...](http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-linear-algebra.html)
for some of my teaching experience, and how I addressed these issues there. My
attitudes only changed because I saw first hand how important that time was
for learning.

Not that I blame you. When I only had only the amount of educational
experience that you do, and like you only from one side of the educational
equation, I too did not see how important these things really were. If you are
like I was, then you won't understand unless, like me, you wind up
experiencing the other side as well and thinking hard.

But even though you haven't experienced it, please pause in your certainty
about the world long enough to accept that it is at least _possible_ that,
just perhaps, more experience would cause you to change your mind. Just as it
changed mine.

~~~
Groxx
> the few minutes at the start of class are the period where students have the
> best potential for paying attention

Oh, bull. Most are groggy, not thinking about the subject, and _far_ from at
their best. If you're an interesting teacher, their attention level goes _up_
with time, not down. Learning in general exhibits a bell-curve-ish shape, not
1/x. Those first few minutes are best spent getting people back into the swing
of what they're going to be learning about, starting the rise up that bell.

> time is wasted in review

Not saying it's a waste. Just that it's nothing that can't be picked up later
_by paying attention_ in class. That's kind of the _nature_ of reviewing
information - it's been covered before. Yes, the beginning is an ideal time to
review, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible to make up, and by missing
you simply can't learn anything that class period (which turning them away
_does_ mean). And remember, especially with a berating teacher, the ones that
arrive late _are_ the ones who want to learn. If they didn't, it's far simpler
to just avoid the class. And interested students effectively come pre-primed
for learning.

To sum up, my main point in all this: yes, arriving on time is important. But
taking time to berate the student _is_ the interruption, and is _easily_ the
least efficient way of dealing with the issue, and the most likely to alienate
the student on both the subject and the teacher.

How, precisely, is this productive? It's just cutting them down when the
teacher is feeling vindictive. If the teacher isn't aware of this, then they
should really start looking at their motivations, because this _is_ how it
comes across. Unless they're a "repeat offender", in which case the class is
probably on the teacher's side. It's simply downright _mean_ , which is
_childish_ , which does _nothing_ to further learning or respect for the
teacher.

edit: I read your article, and it sounds like the sort of class I'd like. Most
classes fail miserably at retaining info from the beginning, and the three-
thirds setup sounds like a really good fit. The homework policy also appeals
to me, as on-time is on-time, and _very_ importantly it allows flexibility if
needed. As a heads-up however, though frequent Q and A works with _some_
professors, and when it does work it definitely keeps the class more alert,
it's definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution. One of my gen-ed professors
would be a perfect failing example of this; he'd end up waiting 10+ minutes
for someone to answer his simple question, because everyone was sick of it.
But he was hardly an engaging teacher.

------
greenlblue
This just shows that professors are just as retarded as students.

------
detcader
Laptops have "send" buttons? This professor needs to take a class or two.

~~~
mikeg8
clicking send on the email... duh

~~~
detcader
"You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his
laptop."

/on/ his laptop. The intent may be subtle, but I'm pretty sure that's a
technical faux pas.

~~~
sanswork
My email send button is on my laptop. Usually located near the top right of
the screen.

He is also a business professor not a CS one I'm sure technical terminology
isn't high on his list of things to be well versed in.

~~~
MaysonL
He's the head of a hedge fund which owns 4.9% of the New York Times. He
originally made his money founding, and selling, Red Envelope.

See also:
[http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scot...](http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scott-
Galloway-Profile/)

