Friday, September 12, 2003

Professors should give all or nothing 

So says a column in today's campus paper, and levels a specific complaint about a class the columnist has with a "staff" professor (which I assume to mean an adjunct.)
One 'staff' professor from the [Twin] Cities went so far as to tell students who had to take a theory test to remain in his class (a class they already registered for) that he would make the test extra hard so he could cap his class at 50. Then he wouldn't have to deal with the 'trouble' of managing so many of students. He didn't know them, he said, he doubted that would hurt their feelings.
I looked to see if there's a regulation against this behavior; we do have a rule against "hidden" pre-requisites for a course in the form of another course, but an entrance exam isn't one. Since we cannot drop from a class someone who is registered but fails to attend the first day (or even the first week, which I've seen a few times) it is hard for me to imagine that the professor could make this stick -- there's no place for me to go in the registration system and remove a student from my class. This sounds like a case of an adjunct not knowing how our university works. (I'll bet Invisible Adjunct, who left us a nice note on the blogiversary, will comment from here.)

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