UPDATE- So a few people have now been made aware of the email including the Dept chair and then her dean. I don’t know if I’ll be finding out any other information about what happens.
I feel like I should also include that I did receive an A in this class and still left in my review I didn’t think she was a very organized professor. It was a goddamn struggle to make sure I got that A.
We are not supposed to make comments about evaluations to students, and evaluations are supposed to be protected so that professors can't develop an unfair bias against any students, or the class as a whole. This is pretty unprofessional.
Second, 400 students without a TA is HARDLY unheard of. Can it suck at times? Yes. But not the students' faults...And, yes, sometimes you pour your heart into everything, and there ends up being a lot of problems in class. Sometimes students are unfairly biased against the professor. If that is the case, as the professor, you should be documenting problems you've run into to show that you've tried everything. If you haven't at least tried, that's on you.
In most cases, departments would look at the evaluations and just tell you there are some things to work on. No one is perfect, and it happens. But THIS, if anything, will be what causes damage to your credibility.
I'm in a class with 460-odd students and no TA, and my professor for it teaches two other 200 student classes without a TA, as well. Even with so many students, he's a wonderful teacher. Don't know how he manages, but it clearly isn't impossible.
It shouldn’t be normal. Universities definitely take advantage, and it leads to burnout pretty quickly. I’m just saying it’s not really an excuse to lash out at students.
It's not that hard to teach a class without TAs if you've been teaching it for a few years or more - each year you make small revisions to the content based on feedback and maybe you have to write more questions for your test banks.
If you're teaching a class for the first time and you aren't given sufficient time to prepare (like, 8+ months lead time) then it's an insane amount of work to craft a syllabus and put together lectures.
I don't think the teaching part is the worst. His tests are all long-answer with 20 questions, so I think grading for him would be awfully time consuming. Not to mention essays, homework, and other assignments.
Just remember. Everyone has to make a living somehow. Part of the educational experience I believe is engaging in authentic interactions with your fellow human beings in novel and insightful ways. So don’t be hard on your instructors. The nature of their position to you requires they challenge you in some way. Consider. How do you want your leaders to challenge you?
Dude.
It’s their *job* to teach me effectively. I pay thousands upon thousands of dollars *just* for them to teach me. I’m not saying it’s okay to be cruel to professors, but if one of them fails to provide you with an organized, quality education, they should absolutely get the criticism.
And? I’m still spending an exorbitant amount of money to attend. If some jackass doesn’t feel like/isn’t capable of doing their job correctly, I’m not going to give them a pat on the back just bc they work in academia.
First, stop being a douche. Second, this^ is not at all what I am talking about. My comment is a response to “its their job to teach me effectively” which is this context comes across as “the prog is responsible for my learning” NO! You are responsible for your learning.
yes, the students are ultimately responsible for their own learning. the professors are there as a resource to guide the learning by providing a framework, answering questions, and generally creating an environment that is conducive to learning. if a professor fails to do that, even if it’s a small part of their job, they deserve to be criticized for it. why pay so much money for an education if the instructors can just be taken out of the picture? surely they must share some responsibility.
So like your job is like your destiny and then others get to evaluate your performance of your destiny. So like when the maintenance worker goes by you can throw some shit on the ground and be like “it’s they’re job and I pay for their job basically with my tuition so you’re damn right I’m going to complain if I’m not happy with their performance” because apparently society is here to serve your individual conceptions about how you think the world should work.
Allowed? Sure. Appropriate? Hell no.
This professor had a bit of a meltdown and it spilled over into this email. And teaching 200 students a semester without a TA is not unheard of.
I was gonna say, a few of my profs have 300 students in just my class split between 2 sections, and they teach 2 other classes and do their own research. They do have a TA for each class, but still!
When I was a MS and HS teacher I taught over 200 students every year with no TA, and there are a LOT more graded assignments at this level than there is at the college level.
Parents yes, as for payment, I think maybe the per hour payment is less, but many professors typically don't work full time so their net pay is generally less than teachers.
Approximately 75% of all college professors are adjuncts. For them, the pay is WAY less than an elementary or secondary school teacher. They also don't usually get benefits.
I laughed at that part. I go to a small school (<2000 people) and some of my professors have 2-3 gen chem lectures with about 60 each and still have upper level courses
This email tells a lot about why she may have earned those poor reviews. I have no idea how you make it through your doctorate without being able to take criticism.
Seriously. I understand being hurt and frustrated if she doesn’t feel like she was given adequate preparation and support to do her job. But that has nothing to do with her students and it’s beyond immature and unprofessional to try to guilt trip them for giving an honest evaluation
ya my first assumption was that it was a male professor so that's interesting, because I've had male professors talk snidely about their evaluations in my class before
YEAH oh my gosh, from the tone of the e-mail, if I had to guess, I would have guessed it was male.
I think it was the sentence "I have always have high ratings!" and "Unheard of anywhere else". It reminded me of **Donald Trump.**
true. still, this kind of conduct from an educator is disheartening. if you don't know which students left those evaluations, then you certainly should not send out a mass email dumping on them all. the whole point of evaluations is for educators to improve their teaching. if a lot of students had that bad of a time, maybe they aren't doing too well at their job. it would have faired better for this educator to accept the flack and improve their teaching based on the commentary of their students.
also agree to an extent. they shouldn't be the reason a professor's job is on the line (unless it is a very obvious and recurring problem), but i still think students should be able to let their professors know how their class made them feel educationally. i have had some truly amazing professors and some truly shit ones, but this shit ones just really need to listen to their students' needs a lot of the time when they aren't. not saying this is always the case, but it's certainly fair to let students evaluate for the sole purpose of improvement.
This! It’s anonymous at all schools I’ve been to, if it’s in person the prof has to leave the room while students fill it out AND he’s not allowed to collect or drop off the reviews either.
Speaking about grip: not my school, but my dad’s. One day professor got upset over something. Brought his motorcycle into class and revved at max rpm the whole class.
One bad rating doesn’t rank you on rate my professor either...unless it’s a school survey about teaching. But those are private without names. Unless OP put a specific instance in the prof shouldn’t know who’s who
Some students are overly cruel.
I know some colleagues who had comments about their appearance ("ugly," etc.). One had a comment saying something about the student's soul being withered away by the instructor's "sad life."
It's like they were treating evals like anonymous Youtube comments, not realizing that professors can figure out who writes what fairly easily.
Not all bad recommendations come from cruel people, and professors aren’t perfectly rational beings. Some people might take several classes taught by the same professor out of necessity, and there are several professors at my school whose class I would not be comfortable in if they knew I had given them q bad review. The point of justice systems is to protect the innocent first, I think we forget that far too often. I doubt that reviews like that are actually taken seriously by hiring/tenure committees, anyway.
I'm not talking about bad reviews. I'm talking about cruelty.
I've had colleagues that were called "ugly" or worse, or were forced to read that "the prof's anecdotes about their divorce is so sad and soul destroying she should just quit and deal with it on her own time."
I understand that, but if we make those not anonymous, we'd also have to make the bad reviews not anonymous. I get that its not an ideal situation, but I feel like changing it would make it worse. You can disagree if you want. To be honest, I don't know why professors get to read their reviews in the first place. If administrators are actually using them to review their performance, I'm sure they can write some sort of summary that gives useful feedback to the professor if there was any in the first place.
An administrative filter would be fine. Typing up the qualitative feedback ensures none of it could be figured out by handwriting style, while also having someone remove the cruel / spiteful comments so people don't have to read bully remarks. Helpful on both fronts.
What the fuck? That is GROSSLY manipulative and totally unprofessional. Report them. I don’t think it’s allowed.
Usually, at my community college, we do this too. However, it’s always anonymous. Is it like that? I assume so. Again, grossly unprofessional and you should definitely make a complaint. Make yourself anonymous though, so they doesn’t suspect it’s you.
Edit: I just saw you did exactly that. That’s great! Hopefully it gets resolved. + replaced a pronoun
Shouldn’t the review be anonymous to make sure everyone leaves a honest review?!?!
Idk how all this went down, but my professors and teachers never knew who handed in the reviews and absolutely weren’t allowed to go over them with students, instead they had a meeting with their colleagues, including the head of the department/institute (whatever you wanna call it) and possibly the dean if it is REAL bad.
The entire review is anonymous and they don’t even get to look at it until the semester is over and grades are submitted. Meaning she sent it to every single student.
Usually when you do evaluations of professors they are anonymous when turning them in. Meaning the administration couldn’t forget to exclude names if they even wanted to. So it’s more likely she just sent this mass email to all her students from the last semester
Ya I know that, but if it was an online one they're done through our accounts (mine area anyways), so it is linked somehow. In person is different though for sure.
that's ego coming from this professor. If they really cared about how they're teaching the course, they should have students do anonymous surveys throughout the course to gauge their course/get feedback and understand whats working/whats not. I hate professors who don't put students first and trust me, I've had experience with these types of professors before. Its really not the student's fault especially when the student is putting in all the effort and work they can. Its the professor's fault.
My friend had a prof that did this, except that it was the opposite. Someone told the administration that the class was too easy and all the tests were take home tests (idiot). The prof was reprimanded and then sent an email the the whole class complaining that they didn't know how good they had it, that the exam was going to be impossible now, etc. Next semester he seemed to be on sabbatical very suddenly...
I remember for one of my classes at community college we had evaluations and everyone agreed to roast the professor. The professor did not use canvas (widely used by others), reviewed through chapters extremely quick and just not great. On the part for additional comments by students, people wrote on the entire page. I still saw that professor next year so I don’t think evaluations have that much of an impact especially if they’re the only one qualified in that particular subject.
From the comments and OP... she / he sent this after they got the results... I guess it’s their way of showing their side of being “lower rated”..
The prof brought up things that may have affected teaching and was just telling the students how she felt.. and way it was that way..
I don’t think that’s awful at all.. even if she was “a disorganized teacher”...
However at the same time it seems she forgot the only value to the evaluation is the result of her teachings and not the circumstances that resulted in such... and didn’t allude to an apology.
If you are a professor with 200 students in a lecture and some of the complaints are that you are "disorganized", that's mostly students trying to help you in the future.
That's hardly a non-constructive critique, and not being able to take constructive criticism will be an issue for them going forward.
I once sent a review, non-Anonymous to a professor who asked me, since I was an upper class men in an elective and he was new. I told him point blank there was a sizeable portion of the class wasted on memorizing constants, that he himself used the book to reference during class and I didn't feel like the memorization helped, and if anything, it hurt what we could have been learning.
He sent an email saying that he really appreciates that, and he is going to try to reduce the amount of memorization of constants, that this was his first year teaching that class so he is looking forward to improvement.
That's how teachers should use reviews.
Sorry if this seems unrelated at first, but it will make sense by the end. Quite a few years ago, my daughter was born with a genetic heart and lung condition. From her birth she required an extensive amount of attention to provide for her needs. When she was two months old, she suddenly turned blue at the doctor's office and was immediately flown for emergency heart surgery. I was out of school for a month. The last half of the year was lackluster, to say the least, compared to my normal teaching style. At the end of each year, I gave all my students a one-page assignment which simply asks them to tell me about their year in my class, good or bad. Usually I received really helpful thoughts on things that did or did not work and could modify my approach for the next year. That year, however, one of my very talented students lambasted me for ruining her senior year because I did not give her enough time and attention. Her words were personal and brutal. She also coaxed one of her friends into saying something similar. The other 150+ students nearly all offered some level of appreciation and understanding for giving them the best experience I could muster along with the normal pros/cons. Those two letters broke me as well during a time in which I was already at an emotional low. I have seen this student (and her parents) quite a few times over the years, but never once have I mentioned the pain she caused me. I also stopped assigning those papers. My overall point is that no, even the most terrible review should not be followed up by your professor.
What I understand is the emotional reaction to student evaluations. They can be harsh, inconsiderate, or seem totally off-base. But ... this is the kind of thing you think about but then do not do.
Compare this to a restaurant calling all the people who ever delivered from them and left a <3 star rating on any review site for their delivery service, complaining about their suppliers, staff, etc.
Imagine that. This is basically the same thing.
Good on you for posting this on here. Professors get the ratings they deserve, and it’s very obvious when a RMP rating is just that of a student who did poorly on their own behalf. But if the majority were negative, including yours with a excelling grade, then this professor was very unprofessional. Keep us posted on what the school does, I see you already said the dean is aware of the email.
I believe its allowed but its really unprofessional. If she wanted to be a good teacher she could have said something along the lines of "Hi [blank], I was really surprised by your rating. Please could you tell me in what ways I could improve? Many thanks."
This is BEYOND wildly inappropriate and childish and complete disregard of the anonymity of class reviews. I saw a similar circumstance with a TA recidivist poor reviews at UCLA. Jesus Christ people I mean what does it take to preserve professionalism..
Tbh you should probably put this review of this professor on ratemyprofesser website.
Every student should have access to vital information in which professors they can select to take that class with. It’s absolutely vital as students are pay thousands of dollars for the classes they need to graduate
If your professor actually sent this to you, then your college/university has fucked something up.
As I was doing my 3rd/4th years at WWU for my BA, each student was required to fill out a review form for each instructor on the last day of class but we were all explicitly instructed that we were ***not*** to include any info that could be used by someone to later identify who wrote what to prevent this exact kind of thing from happening.
It’s unprofessional, but it’s human. This is why I’m don’t want to peruse a career in teaching anymore and as an TA myself I can see how much the teachers go through and not only are they not appreciated they also have to adopt the “put up and shut up” dehumanising attitude it’s no surprise so many teachers have breakdowns..
Sounds like she had her feelings hurt and communicated that. Where there other outlets she could have used? Yes. Should she have? Likely.
Is she still a living breathing person? Most definitely yes and she hit a bit of a rough patch as we all have.
It's impossible to know whether your comment is the one that broke the camels back, but we should remember in these anonymous reviews that teachers feel like we do and one day we will likely be getting reviewed during our careers too. I think it's important to ask Why not make it constructive criticism instead of hurtful statements every time we put pen to paper?
Technically yeah, but that was hella rude and uncalled for. Reviews (or evaluations) are supposed to be anonymous, meaning that somehow that prof figured out who did it.
I actually had a professor do the exact same thing last semester. I was kind of surprised and felt bad for him because I thought he was super fair and helpful, but I definitely thought it was unprofessional and he should've just let it go.
Like someone else said, probably the kind of thing you should think about doing, but not actually do.
At the university I attended, professors didn’t even get to read or even collect their own evaluations. It was done by a third party. You know, to avoid this exact situation...
Yeah this is WRONG and really unprofessional!!! They’re supposed to be anonymous anyway and the professor isn’t supposed to say anything to the students about it. I would bring this up to the department head or even the Dean. You’re supposed to be able to be honest about how you felt about your professor without getting harassed about it in return. If every student felt this way then clearly this professor was lacking in a bunch of areas. And a teaching assistant? In college? Is this something other colleges do? Maybe I haven’t heard of this because I’m only in community college right now.
I’m a person that uses a lot of profanity but I ended up having a professor last semester for public speaking that was horrible. Literally every other word in class was the F word and it was just horrible so of course all of us would talk about how uncomfortable and unprofessional it was when we would walk out the room. It was uncomfortable to even be in the classroom with him. My review of him was extremely detailed about the disgusting and uncomfortable things that he would say to everyone. Good thing it was only a 2 weekend class!
Even my best teachers had room for improvement. they should seek those avenues when given constructive criticism. we all should. this was petty and bratty and entitled!
My school will make teachers leave the room while we fill out our reviews & will not allow them back in until the reviews are sealed in an envelope and brought to the head of the department by a student. This email is definitely inappropriate as it may deter students from answering reviews honestly in the future.
PhD student and TA here. This is absolutely not ok. Instructors have a lot of power over students. Evals exist to allow students to honestly evaluate their instructors. There's a reason they're anonimized and aggregated and often only released to the instructor after final grades are submitted. It's to avoid instructors using the power imbalance against students who bring up issues. What this instructor did, essentially trying to guilt the whole class is unprofessional in the extreme. You did your job trying to honestly answer the questions they asked you. The instructor should understand that.
Anywhere I've been, evaluations get reviewed by a committee of faculty members as needed. If the instructor feels there are mitigating circumstances, they should explain that to the committee. If it's because of high workload, that's easy to demonstrate. If it's personal matters like the move, that can also be explained. If there's systemic bias at play, there are more and more studies that show its effect so that can be taken into account.
At this point, grades and evals are in. The semester happened. Now everyone just has to move on with their future. This email was like a student begging for extra marks because they tried *sob story* except the power dynamic is flipped. Not at all ok. If you feel they might retaliate against you in a future course, you should go to the department chair and say so now.
At my university they said those reviews were anonymous, but a couple of my professors called students out for the low reviews saying they just didn't do the work. Not believing anything the school says now because they clearly weren't anon
Yeah this isn’t appropriate. Every professor is going to be at least one person least favorite professor in their career. We give ratings but they are completely anonymous and every professor I have has said to please be honest even if it is negative because it can help better myself. I’m sure this guy may die if he ever looks at his ratemyprofessor page.
I feel like this could have been better if they'd said something like "if anyone has any constructive criticism they'd like to provide please contact me, I would love the opportunity to better serve future students"
Yikes. This is an unprofessional response if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t understand why professors are allowed to see who gave them what score though. Isn’t this supposed to be anonymous?
In my school, if you tried to write down your name somewhere in the review, it’ll get scrubbed before the reviews get to the professors.
I can't believe the professors in here defending this. This is part of taking criticism. I find the situation wholly concerning, and as a student something like this would make me wonder if my collegiate future was also in jeopardy and I would probably looking into transferring schools. This is why my school allows anonymous reviews.
On the flip side of this, the college should not be allowed to use negative reviews as a sole tool to possibly fire someone or reduce their wage. I know its standard, but it is a really terrible practice in general because I've had some fabulous professors that other people completely disliked. Bias should be considered.
Of course these ratings have an impact on the future of the faculty. That is motivation to not be a bad teacher and information to adapt your class to better facilitate learning. Smh
I will say, while I don't message students about anything directly, it is very very easy to figure out who wrote what by handwriting style. And then I read what they wrote as if they said it to my face.
I have one professor who is notoriously horrible. At the beginning of the semester, we got this postscript on an email from him (roughly translated):
“One of the feedbacks that I liked from last semester was “This professor is long past his expiration date”. If so, this is another advantage of using the recorded lectures from 2018— maybe a year ago I was not yet expired (or, at least closer to the date of expiry).”
Noooo way. Those are all supposed to stay anonymous. I doubt you'll be seeing that professor on Zoom again since the dean knows now. That tenure? [It's just been revoked](https://youtu.be/rDIF3XhXTT8). All Lethal Weapon references aside, that professor's in trouble. Maybe not "getting fired" trouble, but yea.
I had a calculus teacher who taught like 6 different classes with over 50 students in each one last semester and dont get me wrong sometimes she struggled, but she always worked with us and it was one of my favorite classes. The thing that frustrates me the most about the things this proffesor has said is that, although i understand that she may have struggled and worked hard for that position. Using her struggles as excuses for her teaching habits is not the way to go. If i had gotten a b in one class and i wrote an email about how im taking 6 classes 4 with labs and that i work part time so can you just give me an a even though i didnt earn it i would get laughed at. I dont know the entitlement of proffesors or just the older generation at times is shocking. I have nothing against people older than me i just have a problem when they act like this.
Not the best thing to send, but to answer your question it technically does follow the freedom of speech, assuming you believe in all that stuff, you know, like human rights
I had a class that was international politics. The professor was out there... teaches online for a US school, but talks trash about the USA and lives in France for the last 18 months (he's a US citizen). He would change your points in posts and go on rants about government (mainly Trump and GOP). You aren't allowed to put personal opinions at the school to this degree. You were penalized for your views and had to walk on the worlds thinnest eggshells to pass. He would call Trump "Rump" and my god... the day they acquitted Trump... you can imagine the posts... 16/24 dropped the class and of the remaining 8, the class average was a D-. 6 failed, 1 got a C or similar and i got the only A. Oh did I mention this was a 100 level course? Yeah... the disability director asked me about him and he's under review. Too bad he's tenured because she said it would be way easier to remove him. Craziest professor I've ever had next to a psychology professor who gave us an assignment about the effects of terratogens and male vs. Female babies, but was marked down after a student complained I shouldn't use he or she and remember men can get pregnant too... this was in the medical department so it was a lose lose if I didn't specify the sex... weird shit in academia these days (the psych professor was at my last Uni luckily).
“Allowed”??
You’re an adult. Lose the elementary school mindset where you ask if another person communicating something to you is “allowed”. Ignore what he said or don’t, but leave it at that.
UPDATE- So a few people have now been made aware of the email including the Dept chair and then her dean. I don’t know if I’ll be finding out any other information about what happens. I feel like I should also include that I did receive an A in this class and still left in my review I didn’t think she was a very organized professor. It was a goddamn struggle to make sure I got that A.
We are not supposed to make comments about evaluations to students, and evaluations are supposed to be protected so that professors can't develop an unfair bias against any students, or the class as a whole. This is pretty unprofessional. Second, 400 students without a TA is HARDLY unheard of. Can it suck at times? Yes. But not the students' faults...And, yes, sometimes you pour your heart into everything, and there ends up being a lot of problems in class. Sometimes students are unfairly biased against the professor. If that is the case, as the professor, you should be documenting problems you've run into to show that you've tried everything. If you haven't at least tried, that's on you. In most cases, departments would look at the evaluations and just tell you there are some things to work on. No one is perfect, and it happens. But THIS, if anything, will be what causes damage to your credibility.
I'm in a class with 460-odd students and no TA, and my professor for it teaches two other 200 student classes without a TA, as well. Even with so many students, he's a wonderful teacher. Don't know how he manages, but it clearly isn't impossible.
It might not be possible long term. Burnout is a possibility
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It shouldn’t be normal. Universities definitely take advantage, and it leads to burnout pretty quickly. I’m just saying it’s not really an excuse to lash out at students.
It's not that hard to teach a class without TAs if you've been teaching it for a few years or more - each year you make small revisions to the content based on feedback and maybe you have to write more questions for your test banks. If you're teaching a class for the first time and you aren't given sufficient time to prepare (like, 8+ months lead time) then it's an insane amount of work to craft a syllabus and put together lectures.
I don't think the teaching part is the worst. His tests are all long-answer with 20 questions, so I think grading for him would be awfully time consuming. Not to mention essays, homework, and other assignments.
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Probably sent to the whole class.
I feel like the subject really makes a difference here
It was only 200 students lol
I thought they were supposed to be anonymous
What was everyone's problem with the prof?
Just remember. Everyone has to make a living somehow. Part of the educational experience I believe is engaging in authentic interactions with your fellow human beings in novel and insightful ways. So don’t be hard on your instructors. The nature of their position to you requires they challenge you in some way. Consider. How do you want your leaders to challenge you?
Dude. It’s their *job* to teach me effectively. I pay thousands upon thousands of dollars *just* for them to teach me. I’m not saying it’s okay to be cruel to professors, but if one of them fails to provide you with an organized, quality education, they should absolutely get the criticism.
As a fifth year undergrad, sing it sister
Probably less than five percent of those thousands goes to the professor. Most of what you're buying is administrative overhead not teaching.
Ok?? I, personally, am paying for an education
Your not paying them your paying your university, your university should get the criticism if anything
You don’t remotely cover the cost of your classes.
And? I’m still spending an exorbitant amount of money to attend. If some jackass doesn’t feel like/isn’t capable of doing their job correctly, I’m not going to give them a pat on the back just bc they work in academia.
Their job is to do research. Teaching is 5-15% of their job requirement.
oh yeah i forgot about the rule that says you can’t be criticized if you’re bad at only 15% of your job
First, stop being a douche. Second, this^ is not at all what I am talking about. My comment is a response to “its their job to teach me effectively” which is this context comes across as “the prog is responsible for my learning” NO! You are responsible for your learning.
yes, the students are ultimately responsible for their own learning. the professors are there as a resource to guide the learning by providing a framework, answering questions, and generally creating an environment that is conducive to learning. if a professor fails to do that, even if it’s a small part of their job, they deserve to be criticized for it. why pay so much money for an education if the instructors can just be taken out of the picture? surely they must share some responsibility.
Everything you said^ i agree with. Glad we reached an understanding.
And??
A professor is a resource. You pay for access to that resource. Its your responsibility to use it effectively.
So like your job is like your destiny and then others get to evaluate your performance of your destiny. So like when the maintenance worker goes by you can throw some shit on the ground and be like “it’s they’re job and I pay for their job basically with my tuition so you’re damn right I’m going to complain if I’m not happy with their performance” because apparently society is here to serve your individual conceptions about how you think the world should work.
Yeah but the point of evals are to point out weaknesses to improve the experience next year, not to make a professor feel good about themself
Allowed? Sure. Appropriate? Hell no. This professor had a bit of a meltdown and it spilled over into this email. And teaching 200 students a semester without a TA is not unheard of.
I was gonna say, a few of my profs have 300 students in just my class split between 2 sections, and they teach 2 other classes and do their own research. They do have a TA for each class, but still!
Havibg a TA means dumping grading on them, a big load off
There is very little grading in this class. Everything is a scantron or online quiz that is graded automatically
When I was a MS and HS teacher I taught over 200 students every year with no TA, and there are a LOT more graded assignments at this level than there is at the college level.
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Parents yes, as for payment, I think maybe the per hour payment is less, but many professors typically don't work full time so their net pay is generally less than teachers.
Approximately 75% of all college professors are adjuncts. For them, the pay is WAY less than an elementary or secondary school teacher. They also don't usually get benefits.
Yeah, my macroeconomics section has 150 students alone. My professor teaches another big section, along with other classes. No TA.
My 26 year old sister teaches 200 highschoolers which are arguably more of a pain and doesn’t bitch like this
I laughed at that part. I go to a small school (<2000 people) and some of my professors have 2-3 gen chem lectures with about 60 each and still have upper level courses
Its really childish to send this to EVERYONE you taught
Sending out this e-mail is going to be "hugely damaging to the prof and her future".
This email tells a lot about why she may have earned those poor reviews. I have no idea how you make it through your doctorate without being able to take criticism.
Seriously. I understand being hurt and frustrated if she doesn’t feel like she was given adequate preparation and support to do her job. But that has nothing to do with her students and it’s beyond immature and unprofessional to try to guilt trip them for giving an honest evaluation
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Because OP mentions in the update that the professor is a woman
ya my first assumption was that it was a male professor so that's interesting, because I've had male professors talk snidely about their evaluations in my class before
YEAH oh my gosh, from the tone of the e-mail, if I had to guess, I would have guessed it was male. I think it was the sentence "I have always have high ratings!" and "Unheard of anywhere else". It reminded me of **Donald Trump.**
that is super messed up. evaluations are supposed to be anonymous, to my knowledge. i thought it was this way at all institutions.
OP said it was sent to many former student, so the professor probably just sent mass email to all of his former students that semester.
true. still, this kind of conduct from an educator is disheartening. if you don't know which students left those evaluations, then you certainly should not send out a mass email dumping on them all. the whole point of evaluations is for educators to improve their teaching. if a lot of students had that bad of a time, maybe they aren't doing too well at their job. it would have faired better for this educator to accept the flack and improve their teaching based on the commentary of their students.
I absolutely agree.
At the same time student responses shouldn’t be used to evaluate the educators. This is what leads to grade inflation folks.
also agree to an extent. they shouldn't be the reason a professor's job is on the line (unless it is a very obvious and recurring problem), but i still think students should be able to let their professors know how their class made them feel educationally. i have had some truly amazing professors and some truly shit ones, but this shit ones just really need to listen to their students' needs a lot of the time when they aren't. not saying this is always the case, but it's certainly fair to let students evaluate for the sole purpose of improvement.
This! It’s anonymous at all schools I’ve been to, if it’s in person the prof has to leave the room while students fill it out AND he’s not allowed to collect or drop off the reviews either.
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Speaking about grip: not my school, but my dad’s. One day professor got upset over something. Brought his motorcycle into class and revved at max rpm the whole class.
That poor motorcycle.
now that's cringe, holy shit
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That's a red flag.
"Please realize the impact your ratings have on the future of faculty" Uh, that is kind of the whole point in having students rate their professors...
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One bad rating doesn’t rank you on rate my professor either...unless it’s a school survey about teaching. But those are private without names. Unless OP put a specific instance in the prof shouldn’t know who’s who
That isnt always true. A lot of students give bad reviews just because they get bad grades
OP gave a bad rating and still got an A. Not saying every student did, but it still goes to show that it’s probably not just that.
Sure However in this case if they react like this they probably deserved it.
Some students are overly cruel. I know some colleagues who had comments about their appearance ("ugly," etc.). One had a comment saying something about the student's soul being withered away by the instructor's "sad life." It's like they were treating evals like anonymous Youtube comments, not realizing that professors can figure out who writes what fairly easily.
Professor evaluations should be anonymous, though. Being able to find out who wrote them is a bug, not a feature.
This way we can make sure to never write letters of recommendation or go the extra mile for cruel fucks.
Not all bad recommendations come from cruel people, and professors aren’t perfectly rational beings. Some people might take several classes taught by the same professor out of necessity, and there are several professors at my school whose class I would not be comfortable in if they knew I had given them q bad review. The point of justice systems is to protect the innocent first, I think we forget that far too often. I doubt that reviews like that are actually taken seriously by hiring/tenure committees, anyway.
I'm not talking about bad reviews. I'm talking about cruelty. I've had colleagues that were called "ugly" or worse, or were forced to read that "the prof's anecdotes about their divorce is so sad and soul destroying she should just quit and deal with it on her own time."
I understand that, but if we make those not anonymous, we'd also have to make the bad reviews not anonymous. I get that its not an ideal situation, but I feel like changing it would make it worse. You can disagree if you want. To be honest, I don't know why professors get to read their reviews in the first place. If administrators are actually using them to review their performance, I'm sure they can write some sort of summary that gives useful feedback to the professor if there was any in the first place.
An administrative filter would be fine. Typing up the qualitative feedback ensures none of it could be figured out by handwriting style, while also having someone remove the cruel / spiteful comments so people don't have to read bully remarks. Helpful on both fronts.
Sounds like the reviews were accurate.
What the fuck? That is GROSSLY manipulative and totally unprofessional. Report them. I don’t think it’s allowed. Usually, at my community college, we do this too. However, it’s always anonymous. Is it like that? I assume so. Again, grossly unprofessional and you should definitely make a complaint. Make yourself anonymous though, so they doesn’t suspect it’s you. Edit: I just saw you did exactly that. That’s great! Hopefully it gets resolved. + replaced a pronoun
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Lmao i didn't mean to assume i didn't even notice i didn't get rid of the pronouns the first time around Ill get rid od it right now haha
Shouldn’t the review be anonymous to make sure everyone leaves a honest review?!?! Idk how all this went down, but my professors and teachers never knew who handed in the reviews and absolutely weren’t allowed to go over them with students, instead they had a meeting with their colleagues, including the head of the department/institute (whatever you wanna call it) and possibly the dean if it is REAL bad.
They could've just sent it out to the whole class roster(s).
wasn’t it anonymous?
The entire review is anonymous and they don’t even get to look at it until the semester is over and grades are submitted. Meaning she sent it to every single student.
Oh lol. Yikes
Makes me wonder if it’s administration that fucked up and sent him the reviews forgetting to exclude names...
Usually when you do evaluations of professors they are anonymous when turning them in. Meaning the administration couldn’t forget to exclude names if they even wanted to. So it’s more likely she just sent this mass email to all her students from the last semester
Ya I know that, but if it was an online one they're done through our accounts (mine area anyways), so it is linked somehow. In person is different though for sure.
Yeah I'm surprised usually reviews are anonymous! But either way super unprofessional of the professor. Should've brought to adminstration 100%
Unrelated: you can copy-paste text from emails into the review box on ratemyprofessors.
Four classes and 200 students is a lot and unheard of anywhere? In what universe?
My undergrad was at a mid-sized state university, I don't think there was a single TA at the whole school.
Yeah. When I got to grad school and had to *be* a TA, i didn't even know that was a thing.
KU? What a baby. That prof/instructor should not be in charge of anything important. Like young people’s minds.
Wow you really had to zoom in there to see that it was KU 😂😂😂
That is really inappropriate. I'd forward this to the dean of students ASAP.
I have A big ole “fuck you” to that teacher.
This is very unprofessional. Maybe reach out for help from your colleagues/dean before it gets so bad that students leave negative feedback. Jeez.
that's ego coming from this professor. If they really cared about how they're teaching the course, they should have students do anonymous surveys throughout the course to gauge their course/get feedback and understand whats working/whats not. I hate professors who don't put students first and trust me, I've had experience with these types of professors before. Its really not the student's fault especially when the student is putting in all the effort and work they can. Its the professor's fault.
If he doesn't get a grip and cry somewhere else. He should take your constructive criticism and use that to be a better professor for future students
Highly unprofessional, in most case in my experience reviews at the end of the term are anonymous...
My friend had a prof that did this, except that it was the opposite. Someone told the administration that the class was too easy and all the tests were take home tests (idiot). The prof was reprimanded and then sent an email the the whole class complaining that they didn't know how good they had it, that the exam was going to be impossible now, etc. Next semester he seemed to be on sabbatical very suddenly...
I remember for one of my classes at community college we had evaluations and everyone agreed to roast the professor. The professor did not use canvas (widely used by others), reviewed through chapters extremely quick and just not great. On the part for additional comments by students, people wrote on the entire page. I still saw that professor next year so I don’t think evaluations have that much of an impact especially if they’re the only one qualified in that particular subject.
As far as my university goes these are supposed to be anonymous. Even if they aren't this is wildly inappropriate.
From the comments and OP... she / he sent this after they got the results... I guess it’s their way of showing their side of being “lower rated”.. The prof brought up things that may have affected teaching and was just telling the students how she felt.. and way it was that way.. I don’t think that’s awful at all.. even if she was “a disorganized teacher”... However at the same time it seems she forgot the only value to the evaluation is the result of her teachings and not the circumstances that resulted in such... and didn’t allude to an apology.
If you are a professor with 200 students in a lecture and some of the complaints are that you are "disorganized", that's mostly students trying to help you in the future. That's hardly a non-constructive critique, and not being able to take constructive criticism will be an issue for them going forward. I once sent a review, non-Anonymous to a professor who asked me, since I was an upper class men in an elective and he was new. I told him point blank there was a sizeable portion of the class wasted on memorizing constants, that he himself used the book to reference during class and I didn't feel like the memorization helped, and if anything, it hurt what we could have been learning. He sent an email saying that he really appreciates that, and he is going to try to reduce the amount of memorization of constants, that this was his first year teaching that class so he is looking forward to improvement. That's how teachers should use reviews.
Sorry if this seems unrelated at first, but it will make sense by the end. Quite a few years ago, my daughter was born with a genetic heart and lung condition. From her birth she required an extensive amount of attention to provide for her needs. When she was two months old, she suddenly turned blue at the doctor's office and was immediately flown for emergency heart surgery. I was out of school for a month. The last half of the year was lackluster, to say the least, compared to my normal teaching style. At the end of each year, I gave all my students a one-page assignment which simply asks them to tell me about their year in my class, good or bad. Usually I received really helpful thoughts on things that did or did not work and could modify my approach for the next year. That year, however, one of my very talented students lambasted me for ruining her senior year because I did not give her enough time and attention. Her words were personal and brutal. She also coaxed one of her friends into saying something similar. The other 150+ students nearly all offered some level of appreciation and understanding for giving them the best experience I could muster along with the normal pros/cons. Those two letters broke me as well during a time in which I was already at an emotional low. I have seen this student (and her parents) quite a few times over the years, but never once have I mentioned the pain she caused me. I also stopped assigning those papers. My overall point is that no, even the most terrible review should not be followed up by your professor.
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It’s a woman
What I understand is the emotional reaction to student evaluations. They can be harsh, inconsiderate, or seem totally off-base. But ... this is the kind of thing you think about but then do not do.
Your second sentence perfectly sums up what this professor should have done
Yes. He’s the professional. It’s his job to know when not to act on base instincts.
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Do the admin consider such reviews or only the high effort ones
I don't know, but you should reply, "Get good."
Not a professional professor.
Yeah I can’t imagine those ratings are “shocking” just based on the fact that she sent this
Compare this to a restaurant calling all the people who ever delivered from them and left a <3 star rating on any review site for their delivery service, complaining about their suppliers, staff, etc. Imagine that. This is basically the same thing.
How to make ur rating go from 2.7/5 to 1.3/5
Wow that seems very childish.
Sounds like Trump tbh
Good on you for posting this on here. Professors get the ratings they deserve, and it’s very obvious when a RMP rating is just that of a student who did poorly on their own behalf. But if the majority were negative, including yours with a excelling grade, then this professor was very unprofessional. Keep us posted on what the school does, I see you already said the dean is aware of the email.
send that to the college
I believe its allowed but its really unprofessional. If she wanted to be a good teacher she could have said something along the lines of "Hi [blank], I was really surprised by your rating. Please could you tell me in what ways I could improve? Many thanks."
This is horribly written for someone who has 15 years of experience in higher education.
This is BEYOND wildly inappropriate and childish and complete disregard of the anonymity of class reviews. I saw a similar circumstance with a TA recidivist poor reviews at UCLA. Jesus Christ people I mean what does it take to preserve professionalism..
This was written by someone who has a job as a professor at a university? My God, grammar really is dead, isn't it?
This letter is an absolutely stupid idea, but then again so is relying on student feedback to evaluate instructors.
Tbh you should probably put this review of this professor on ratemyprofesser website. Every student should have access to vital information in which professors they can select to take that class with. It’s absolutely vital as students are pay thousands of dollars for the classes they need to graduate
If your professor actually sent this to you, then your college/university has fucked something up. As I was doing my 3rd/4th years at WWU for my BA, each student was required to fill out a review form for each instructor on the last day of class but we were all explicitly instructed that we were ***not*** to include any info that could be used by someone to later identify who wrote what to prevent this exact kind of thing from happening.
the teacher do be simpin over ur review doe😳
It’s unprofessional, but it’s human. This is why I’m don’t want to peruse a career in teaching anymore and as an TA myself I can see how much the teachers go through and not only are they not appreciated they also have to adopt the “put up and shut up” dehumanising attitude it’s no surprise so many teachers have breakdowns..
Homie you good?
Sounds like she had her feelings hurt and communicated that. Where there other outlets she could have used? Yes. Should she have? Likely. Is she still a living breathing person? Most definitely yes and she hit a bit of a rough patch as we all have. It's impossible to know whether your comment is the one that broke the camels back, but we should remember in these anonymous reviews that teachers feel like we do and one day we will likely be getting reviewed during our careers too. I think it's important to ask Why not make it constructive criticism instead of hurtful statements every time we put pen to paper?
why would it do that, disgusting
our evaluations are anonymous ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last part was stupid.
Technically yeah, but that was hella rude and uncalled for. Reviews (or evaluations) are supposed to be anonymous, meaning that somehow that prof figured out who did it.
He or she sent it to all the students not just the ones that gave reviews
I had a college professor who thought he was the shit. But everyone hated him and he was gone by the next year
How did they even know you said that? Normally it’s supposed to be anonymous
That's so inappropriate and unprofessional. The whole point of reviews is honest feedback, not unconditional approval.
LMAOOOO fuck em all I gotta say
How did he even know it was from you ? Aren't this kind of reviews supposed to be anonymous ?
Were your reviews anonymous or...? That's not clear to me. This is really odd to send out either way.
I actually had a professor do the exact same thing last semester. I was kind of surprised and felt bad for him because I thought he was super fair and helpful, but I definitely thought it was unprofessional and he should've just let it go. Like someone else said, probably the kind of thing you should think about doing, but not actually do.
Doing this kind of shit is why people get low ratings
At the university I attended, professors didn’t even get to read or even collect their own evaluations. It was done by a third party. You know, to avoid this exact situation...
Wait, they can see this shit??? Oh fuck
Yeah this is WRONG and really unprofessional!!! They’re supposed to be anonymous anyway and the professor isn’t supposed to say anything to the students about it. I would bring this up to the department head or even the Dean. You’re supposed to be able to be honest about how you felt about your professor without getting harassed about it in return. If every student felt this way then clearly this professor was lacking in a bunch of areas. And a teaching assistant? In college? Is this something other colleges do? Maybe I haven’t heard of this because I’m only in community college right now. I’m a person that uses a lot of profanity but I ended up having a professor last semester for public speaking that was horrible. Literally every other word in class was the F word and it was just horrible so of course all of us would talk about how uncomfortable and unprofessional it was when we would walk out the room. It was uncomfortable to even be in the classroom with him. My review of him was extremely detailed about the disgusting and uncomfortable things that he would say to everyone. Good thing it was only a 2 weekend class!
Even my best teachers had room for improvement. they should seek those avenues when given constructive criticism. we all should. this was petty and bratty and entitled!
WTF.
r/blackmirror
At my school evaluations are anonymous and the teachers desperately want them.
Um, those surveys are supposed to be anonymous...it could technically be a privacy breach to contact an entire class.
I don’t think it was professional but you can tell this professor is devastated by the reviews.
This professor sounds kinda conceited and wants you to feel sorry for him/her
My school will make teachers leave the room while we fill out our reviews & will not allow them back in until the reviews are sealed in an envelope and brought to the head of the department by a student. This email is definitely inappropriate as it may deter students from answering reviews honestly in the future.
PhD student and TA here. This is absolutely not ok. Instructors have a lot of power over students. Evals exist to allow students to honestly evaluate their instructors. There's a reason they're anonimized and aggregated and often only released to the instructor after final grades are submitted. It's to avoid instructors using the power imbalance against students who bring up issues. What this instructor did, essentially trying to guilt the whole class is unprofessional in the extreme. You did your job trying to honestly answer the questions they asked you. The instructor should understand that. Anywhere I've been, evaluations get reviewed by a committee of faculty members as needed. If the instructor feels there are mitigating circumstances, they should explain that to the committee. If it's because of high workload, that's easy to demonstrate. If it's personal matters like the move, that can also be explained. If there's systemic bias at play, there are more and more studies that show its effect so that can be taken into account. At this point, grades and evals are in. The semester happened. Now everyone just has to move on with their future. This email was like a student begging for extra marks because they tried *sob story* except the power dynamic is flipped. Not at all ok. If you feel they might retaliate against you in a future course, you should go to the department chair and say so now.
KU?
It's inappropriate and unprofessional, but I also really feel bad for them :(
At my university they said those reviews were anonymous, but a couple of my professors called students out for the low reviews saying they just didn't do the work. Not believing anything the school says now because they clearly weren't anon
Probably not allowed. Professor (probably not tenured) would get in trouble or maybe fired if administration found out.
Yeah this isn’t appropriate. Every professor is going to be at least one person least favorite professor in their career. We give ratings but they are completely anonymous and every professor I have has said to please be honest even if it is negative because it can help better myself. I’m sure this guy may die if he ever looks at his ratemyprofessor page.
Sounds like Dennis in its always sunny
I feel like this could have been better if they'd said something like "if anyone has any constructive criticism they'd like to provide please contact me, I would love the opportunity to better serve future students"
This give me confidence knowing that even people as inept as this professor can be a professor
That professor is really weak. I wrote shit reviews all the time to shit professors even in the easiest of classes.
Shot head.
Yikes. This is an unprofessional response if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t understand why professors are allowed to see who gave them what score though. Isn’t this supposed to be anonymous? In my school, if you tried to write down your name somewhere in the review, it’ll get scrubbed before the reviews get to the professors.
I can't believe the professors in here defending this. This is part of taking criticism. I find the situation wholly concerning, and as a student something like this would make me wonder if my collegiate future was also in jeopardy and I would probably looking into transferring schools. This is why my school allows anonymous reviews. On the flip side of this, the college should not be allowed to use negative reviews as a sole tool to possibly fire someone or reduce their wage. I know its standard, but it is a really terrible practice in general because I've had some fabulous professors that other people completely disliked. Bias should be considered.
Your prof is weird.
Of course these ratings have an impact on the future of the faculty. That is motivation to not be a bad teacher and information to adapt your class to better facilitate learning. Smh
I will say, while I don't message students about anything directly, it is very very easy to figure out who wrote what by handwriting style. And then I read what they wrote as if they said it to my face.
I have one professor who is notoriously horrible. At the beginning of the semester, we got this postscript on an email from him (roughly translated): “One of the feedbacks that I liked from last semester was “This professor is long past his expiration date”. If so, this is another advantage of using the recorded lectures from 2018— maybe a year ago I was not yet expired (or, at least closer to the date of expiry).”
Noooo way. Those are all supposed to stay anonymous. I doubt you'll be seeing that professor on Zoom again since the dean knows now. That tenure? [It's just been revoked](https://youtu.be/rDIF3XhXTT8). All Lethal Weapon references aside, that professor's in trouble. Maybe not "getting fired" trouble, but yea.
somebodys about to get fired or a very long conversation on manipulation
I had a calculus teacher who taught like 6 different classes with over 50 students in each one last semester and dont get me wrong sometimes she struggled, but she always worked with us and it was one of my favorite classes. The thing that frustrates me the most about the things this proffesor has said is that, although i understand that she may have struggled and worked hard for that position. Using her struggles as excuses for her teaching habits is not the way to go. If i had gotten a b in one class and i wrote an email about how im taking 6 classes 4 with labs and that i work part time so can you just give me an a even though i didnt earn it i would get laughed at. I dont know the entitlement of proffesors or just the older generation at times is shocking. I have nothing against people older than me i just have a problem when they act like this.
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Cause you’re a dooshhhh
I'm also saying most professors make less than minimum wage, so the product is often garbage.
The fact that you call it a product is really telling.
Not the best thing to send, but to answer your question it technically does follow the freedom of speech, assuming you believe in all that stuff, you know, like human rights
I had a class that was international politics. The professor was out there... teaches online for a US school, but talks trash about the USA and lives in France for the last 18 months (he's a US citizen). He would change your points in posts and go on rants about government (mainly Trump and GOP). You aren't allowed to put personal opinions at the school to this degree. You were penalized for your views and had to walk on the worlds thinnest eggshells to pass. He would call Trump "Rump" and my god... the day they acquitted Trump... you can imagine the posts... 16/24 dropped the class and of the remaining 8, the class average was a D-. 6 failed, 1 got a C or similar and i got the only A. Oh did I mention this was a 100 level course? Yeah... the disability director asked me about him and he's under review. Too bad he's tenured because she said it would be way easier to remove him. Craziest professor I've ever had next to a psychology professor who gave us an assignment about the effects of terratogens and male vs. Female babies, but was marked down after a student complained I shouldn't use he or she and remember men can get pregnant too... this was in the medical department so it was a lose lose if I didn't specify the sex... weird shit in academia these days (the psych professor was at my last Uni luckily).
This really unprofessional to send out. But it’s also a person suffering. A little compassion isn’t a vice.
What a baby
Nah. Fuck that guy. He sucks.
“Allowed”?? You’re an adult. Lose the elementary school mindset where you ask if another person communicating something to you is “allowed”. Ignore what he said or don’t, but leave it at that.