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Qbert

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Students, report your problems with faculty here
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I ask that all students report to the Hattiesburg American and the IHL all the laziness, petty and unprofessional behavior, and lack of dedication to teaching and researching that they have seen from the aging and archaic faculty at USM. Below is examples of what I have seen.


 


In class . . .


 


1) I am tired of instructors who constantly complain about what they think is the end of the world because we have a president like Thames. (Do these complaining, high-society professors not know how silly they look to students who cannot even get a job making more than minimum wage?)


 


2) I am tired of instructors who use profanity in their hippie-type lectures.


 


3) I am tired of instructors who do not know how to use email or who refuse to use it because they think it takes up too much time. (Whose time is it taking? Do you know how difficult it is to get a USM instructor on the phone! Actually they don’t use email because they did not grow up with the Internet like their students did. Email and the internet is not part of the USM instructors’ life, but it is a part of the lives of the students coming in and such students expect more advanced instructors and instructors who embrace technology.)


 


4)  I am tired of instructors who read the impish Independent as if it is a piece of scholarship and who assign article summaries as assignments from this paper and the opinion section of the Hattiesburg American.


 


5) I am tired of instructors reading actual articles aloud in class from the Independent or the Hattiesburg American as if they are real pieces of journalism and are valid for classroom discussion. (The articles always have something negative to do with USM, and the class conversation flowing from the articles always ends up with Thames being the cause of the problem.)


 


6)  I am tired of instructors canceling class when I drive one hour to get to the class. (A graduate assistant of one of the class-canceling instructors told me he was in a golf tournament! Another one had a husband win some award at USM and she wanted to go to the presentation of it. I don’t know excuses of the others, but to date I have had seventeen class meetings cancelled and I have been a full-time student for just four semesters.)


 


7)  I am tired of instructors who do not cancel class but send a graduate student to bring in a TV and make us watch a video because the instructor could not be there. (This has happened three times to me.)


 


8) I am tired of instructors in night classes telling us that we will watch TV at least one of the three hours per night because it is so “difficult to talk for three hours straight.” (I respect you wanting to keep us the whole three hours—something few night instructors do—but you should let us go because we can watch TV at home!)


 


9)  I am tired of instructors who decide to hold class in their house or in a local restaurant instead of on campus as scheduled. (In one such class, four students lived on campus and told the instructor they did not have a car and had walk to class. Do you know how embarrassing that must have been to those students to say that in front of the whole class! Instead of keeping class on campus like she should have, the instructor asked other students to pick these four students up and give them a ride to her house. This was a night class that met ten times. Instructors should never do this for the whole semester and it should always be voluntary! And individual classes should never ever be held across the street at the Mahogany Bar and Grill!)


 


10) I am tired of showing up to class on the first day only to be told that the class had been cancelled because not enough students registered for it. (This has happened three times, and in one of the classes, seven students signed a petition on the first night saying they were there and clearly had enough students. It turns out the instructor decided the day before that he did not want to teach anymore! He was one of the instructors who cussed in class constantly, so good riddance.)


 


11) I am tired of losing new and good instructors because the long-time faculty did not want to give them tenure because they either did not do enough to oppose Thames or because they were more advanced than the long-time and old faculty.


 


12)  I am tired of instructors who do not keep any office hours and meet only by appointment. I am tired of instructors who do not have enough office hours and who are not in their office during the office hours specified on their syllabus. (I learned the hard way the very first semester that I should call no matter what before I drive one hour to see an instructor during his posted office hours!)


 


13)  I am tired of instructors using books and articles that are more than six years old. (Update your material or let someone else teach who has not grown bored with the subject. In one class this semester I have not read one article dated past the 1980s. Are you kidding me! I don’t care if it is a History class. If you can’t update the topics, then pick something else to talk about! At least assign a book that was published in the 21st Century!)


 


14)  I am tired of instructors who do not want to do a special problems class because they “do not get paid for it” or because “it does not count as a class credit in their teaching load.” (Then step aside and let someone teach who thinks teaching is a privilege and a pleasure and believes the opportunity to teach a student is more important than getting paid for their teaching load.)


 


15)  I am tired of instructors who drop a student a letter grade because the students supposedly did not participate enough during class discussion. None of the instructors keep a log of any kind of how often and how much the student talks and there is no accurate and fair way of judging the erudition or pedantic value of a student’s comments. Grading classroom participation through discussion is always subjective on the instructor’s part. This grading method is nothing more than an easy way of allowing an instructor to give A’s to certain students. It is also an easy way to avoid giving out too many A’s.


 


16)  I am tired of instructors giving me papers back with nothing more than a letter grade on them. I don’t want just to know that I made an 89. I want to know why I made an 89! Don’t just put a grade on the paper without marking something wrong and without explaining why you marked it wrong! (What do you get paid for, and what I am paying tuition for? Is it just to give or to get a grade?)


 


I ask that all students report to the Hattiesburg American and the IHL all the laziness, petty and unprofessional behavior, and lack of dedication to teaching and researching that they have seen from the aging and archaic faculty at USM.


 


Thank you.



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I invented the Internet

Date:
Permalink Closed


quote:

Originally posted by: Qbert
"Actually they don’t use email because they did not grow up with the Internet like their students did."


Just who do you think invented the Internet - Dan Quail? It was not Quail, and it was most certainly not your generation. We were there first, making your life easier and your education more obtainable.


 


 



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Crybaby

Date:
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quote:




Originally posted by: Qbert
"I ask that all students report to the Hattiesburg American and the IHL all the laziness, petty and unprofessional behavior, and lack of dedication to teaching and researching that they have seen from the aging and archaic faculty at USM."


Qbert - You sound very much like an immature 3rd grader on the playground, telling a friend "I'm gonna tell my mamma on you."



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LVN

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty he
Permalink Closed

I'm not going to argue the merits of your post. You have some valid concerns. What I would like to ask is, given the current administration and its war on true academic endeavor, what would make the kind of professor you want even come to USM in the first place. Do you understand how many of the most excellent teachers have been driven away? Do you understand how demoralized and beaten up this faculty is?

That being said, I do not believe that profanity, personal agendas political or otherwise, or inattention to students is ever acceptable in class. I'm sorry you had these experiences, but I hope you will not be so disillusioned that you cannot appreciate the majority of hard working dedicated faculty we still have. "Still" is the operative word -- appreciate 'em while you can.

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Magnolia

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty here
Permalink Closed

Qbert - You sound very much like an immature 3rd grader on the playground, telling a friend "I'm gonna tell my mamma on you."


Actually, Crybaby, Qbert sounds an awfully lot like a pro-Thames businessperson trying to sound like a disgruntled student. 



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LVN

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty he
Permalink Closed

Qbert does write rather well. Q, if you're an undergraduate, you should be in Honors. You will have a different experience. If you're in grad school, transfer now. If you're a shill, please go away.

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Ghostwriter

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty here
Permalink Closed

Who do you think you are fooling, Qbert? Those 16 examples were clearly not written by undergraduate students. They are, for the most part, gramatically correct, use reasonably good punctuation, and are written in complete sentences. During the past many years I've read enough narratives of students to know those 16 were ghostwritten (probably by Qbert). Rather than expressing the views of 16, I suspect that post expresses the view of one disgruntled, unhappy person with an axe to grind.

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Student Complaint

Date:
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Here are my complaints about faculty, Qbert:


 



  1. Faculty who keep me the whole time.  Don't they know that I also have to work?  I cannot believe the number of faculty who expect me to place greater importance on school than on work.

  2. Faculty who expect me to buy and read a textbook as part of their classes.  Why should I have to spend money on a book?  Shouldn't they be able to teach me a subject in class without me having to put forth the effort and time out of class?

  3. Faculty who give out-of-class assignments.  Why should I have to do homework?  I'm paying for class time, and I expect to be taught within the confines of the classroom.

  4. Faculty who give tests where students can't memorize all the material.  When I was at Jones, I had all A's.  Now I am getting C's because the stupid faculty expect me to be able to do more than memorize.

  5. Faculty who aren't available in their offices when I want them to be.  I don't care about how much research or committee work they have to do.  I also don't care about their personal problems or whether or not they get sick.  Likewise, I don't care if they have to go to the bathroom.  They should be in their offices when I want to stop by unannounced so that they can teach me what I missed when I skipped class to work (see #1 above).

  6. Faculty who expect me to turn off my cell phone in class.  I'm paying them, so they should just get over it.

  7. Faculty who refuse to do my work for me when I go see them in office hours.  Again, what am I paying you for?

  8. Faculty who bring any outside material into the class.  If I'm taking history, I don't want to hear about things going on right now and how they relate to history.  Just put the notes on the board and let me copy them to memorize.

  9. Faculty who use strange teaching methods like "discussions."  I don't know anything about the subject -- that's what I'm paying you for. Don't expect me to put forth effort.

  10. Faculty who expect me to learn something to pass -- just punch my card and let me get my degree -- again that's what I'm paying for.

 



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asdf

Date:
Permalink Closed

One of the first things that I thought of while reading this list was that for such a serious student, why do you live an hour away?  Do you have a job?  Family commitments?  Why are they more important than your education, after all, while you are in school, your life should be school.  It is 4 years of your life that you should put everything else on hold.  Take out student loans, get a part-time job at Subway, or get a scholarship (I started school off with only a quarter scholarship but eventually had my last 2 years paid for).  If other commitments prevent you from actually moving to the town in which you are going to school at, then maybe you should wait a few years before starting college.  College is more than just going to classes; it is an experience (and I am not talking about getting drunk at frat parties, I am talking about joining organizations, gaining leadership skills, working on faculty research, etc.).  While I was at USM, I found the commuter mentality to be quite bothersome.  Students would complain about group assignments because they couldn’t be on campus.  Getting to the library outside of class was a pain.  Students at USM do not generally make school the priority that it should be.  At my current school, we had to cancel classes because of excessive snow and they couldn’t get the parking lots cleared out.  In the provost’s email to the faculty announcing this, she told us to remember that the library was open and the students are on campus, so feel free to send them a library assignment to do during the snow day.  Can you imagine the complaints from USM students if you did this?


 


I have one direct comment to make to point #3.  I found that the students were the ones who did not know how to use email.  Class announcements sent via email were useless.  No one checked their email.  I once had a student angrily confront me after class saying that I should not force people to use email.


 

One last point before I stop my ranting.   I think instructors would do better with their office hours if students actually showed up for them.  In my opinion, "by appointment" works best for both the student and the professor.  Once again, another argument to living in Hattiesburg, if you were close by, you could visit your professors more regularly.

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Frontin'

Date:
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I think the dead giveaway that this person is not a student comes in item #2.  I find it incredibly hard to believe that any student would use the terms "profanity" and "hippie"! 


 



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just so you know

Date:
Permalink Closed

Well I have no idea if this person is a student or a business cronie, but I am twenty and I use the term 'hippy.' Just FYI.

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just so you know

Date:
Permalink Closed

Well I have no idea if this person is a student or a business cronie, but I am twenty and I use the term 'hippy.' Just FYI.


Oops. Perhaps it should be 'hippie?' What's the correct usage, just out of curiousity?

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Malapropism

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: just so you know
"Well I have no idea if this person is a student or a business cronie, but I am twenty and I use the term 'hippy.' Just FYI. Oops. Perhaps it should be 'hippie?' What's the correct usage, just out of curiousity?"
Then there's the occasional hippy hippie but a good diet of sprouts will fix that.

__________________
Robert Campbell

Date:
RE: RE: Students, report your problems with facult
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Qbert
"I ask that all students report to the Hattiesburg American and the IHL all the laziness, petty and unprofessional behavior, and lack of dedication to teaching and researching that they have seen from the aging and archaic faculty at USM. Below is examples of what I have seen.
 
In class . . .
 

2) I am tired of instructors who use profanity in their hippie-type lectures.
 
3) I am tired of instructors who do not know how to use email or who refuse to use it because they think it takes up too much time. (Whose time is it taking? Do you know how difficult it is to get a USM instructor on the phone! Actually they don’t use email because they did not grow up with the Internet like their students did. Email and the internet is not part of the USM instructors’ life, but it is a part of the lives of the students coming in and such students expect more advanced instructors and instructors who embrace technology.)
 
4)  I am tired of instructors who read the impish Independent as if it is a piece of scholarship and who assign article summaries as assignments from this paper and the opinion section of the Hattiesburg American.
 
5) I am tired of instructors reading actual articles aloud in class from the Independent or the Hattiesburg American as if they are real pieces of journalism and are valid for classroom discussion. (The articles always have something negative to do with USM, and the class conversation flowing from the articles always ends up with Thames being the cause of the problem.)
 
6)  I am tired of instructors canceling class when I drive one hour to get to the class. (A graduate assistant of one of the class-canceling instructors told me he was in a golf tournament! Another one had a husband win some award at USM and she wanted to go to the presentation of it. I don’t know excuses of the others, but to date I have had seventeen class meetings cancelled and I have been a full-time student for just four semesters.)
 
7)  I am tired of instructors who do not cancel class but send a graduate student to bring in a TV and make us watch a video because the instructor could not be there. (This has happened three times to me.)
 
10) I am tired of showing up to class on the first day only to be told that the class had been cancelled because not enough students registered for it. (This has happened three times, and in one of the classes, seven students signed a petition on the first night saying they were there and clearly had enough students. It turns out the instructor decided the day before that he did not want to teach anymore! He was one of the instructors who cussed in class constantly, so good riddance.)
 
11) I am tired of losing new and good instructors because the long-time faculty did not want to give them tenure because they either did not do enough to oppose Thames or because they were more advanced than the long-time and old faculty.
 
12)  I am tired of instructors who do not keep any office hours and meet only by appointment. I am tired of instructors who do not have enough office hours and who are not in their office during the office hours specified on their syllabus. (I learned the hard way the very first semester that I should call no matter what before I drive one hour to see an instructor during his posted office hours!)
 
14)  I am tired of instructors who do not want to do a special problems class because they “do not get paid for it” or because “it does not count as a class credit in their teaching load.” (Then step aside and let someone teach who thinks teaching is a privilege and a pleasure and believes the opportunity to teach a student is more important than getting paid for their teaching load.)
 
16)  I am tired of instructors giving me papers back with nothing more than a letter grade on them. I don’t want just to know that I made an 89. I want to know why I made an 89! Don’t just put a grade on the paper without marking something wrong and without explaining why you marked it wrong! (What do you get paid for, and what I am paying tuition for? Is it just to give or to get a grade?)
 
"


Qbert,

Your points 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, and 16 are legitimate complaints, in my opinion. (Although I'm amused that you think there are a whole of "hippie type" professors at USM. I wonder whether you've ever met a real, live hippie. I also question your evaluation of the Hattiesburg American, the only newspaper besides the Chronicle of Higher Education to do thorough, professional reporting on the situation at USM.) In a well-run department, such behavior by instructors would be strongly discouraged--as it is in the department where I work. I suspect that in those departments at USM that have not been pounded senseless by the upper administration, such behavior is still strongly discouraged.

On point 10, you apparently don't realize that the individual instructor has very little control over whether a class "makes" (reaches the minimum required enrollment or not). It's the department chair who cancels such classes at most universities... at USM I suspect it is usually an upper administrator that does it.

As for point 11, what makes you think that senior faculty members are running dedicated, young assistant professors out of USM? The upper administration used to run them out under General McCain. Under Thames it's gone back to doing the same thing.

On point 14, are you of the opinion that professors should teach for free? Do you have any idea how much teaching most USM professors are already doing--or what else they are expected to do, if they are going to keep their jobs? The Thames administration wants every professor to be doing grant-funded research (even if they teach subjects where there is little or no grant funding going on). During the accreditation crisis that Thames has brought on, professors are spending huge amounts of time on the assessments and reports that will be needed to keep USM accredited. And without accreditation, your USM degree will be usable only for toilet paper.

Again, Qbert, I need to ask: Do you really believe that Shelby Thames wants to improve undergraduate instruction at USM? Do you think he really cares whether professors are committed to teaching, or meet their professional obligations in teaching?

If you really believe that, I have a nice bridge over the East River to sell you. At a remarkably low price, offer not to be repeated...

Robert Campbell


__________________
ram

Date:
RE: RE: Students, report your problems with faculty here
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: just so you know
"Well I have no idea if this person is a student or a business cronie, but I am twenty and I use the term 'hippy.' Just FYI. Oops. Perhaps it should be 'hippie?' What's the correct usage, just out of curiousity?"

This thread is great. If you're talking about someone who's put on a few pounds, they might be "hippy" but the ones wearing beads and with flowers painted on their VW's are "hippies."


God, I feel so old.



__________________
Robert Campbell

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty he
Permalink Closed

One more thought about point 3 (from a professor who started using email several years before most of his students were accustomed it):

Your professors may be uncomfortable about using email when the upper administration reserves the right to read anybody's email that is sent or received at a usm.edu email address. Last April, your hero Shelby Thames testified at a hearing, reading piles of professors' email (and in a few cases, a student's email) out loud. This example tends to stick in the mind of USM employees.

Robert Campbell



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stinky cheese man

Date:
Permalink Closed

put this on the wrong thread. hippie reporting for duty. had hair to my waist. VW van. "farm out." "right arm."

__________________
ram

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty here
Permalink Closed

Qbert-


You have thrown down the gauntlet, but no one has picked it up.  No, I don't mean the faculty supporters; they have answered.


Surely, you have some buddies and shills who are prepared to flood this board, the IHL and the newspapers with echoes of your own delusions.  Let us hear from them.



__________________
Reporter

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: ram
"Qbert- You have thrown down the gauntlet, but no one has picked it up.  No, I don't mean the faculty supporters; they have answered. Surely, you have some buddies and shills who are prepared to flood this board, the IHL and the newspapers with echoes of your own delusions.  Let us hear from them."

Ram,


They are already writing their rebuttal letters.  See the other thread. Their logic is frightening and powerful.  We may lose the debate.


Not!    


 



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The entire Mr. Wonderful organization

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: ram
" This thread is great. If you're talking about someone who's put on a few pounds, they might be "hippy" but the ones wearing beads and with flowers painted on their VW's are "hippies." God, I feel so old."
ram, you must have missed the photograph we posted a few months ago of #1 Groupie traveling in the Yukon territory with those eleven long-haired friends in a chartruse VW microbus.

__________________
Outside Observer

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: I invented the Internet
""
No...Al Gore said he invented it.


__________________
OLDIEGOLDIE

Date:
Permalink Closed

I ask that all students report to the Hattiesburg American and the IHL all the laziness, petty and unprofessional behavior, and lack of dedication to teaching and researching that they have seen from the aging and archaic faculty at USM. Below is examples of what I have seen.



 



In class . . .   etc.


 


 


What college are you in? The appropriate channel for these complaints is from dept chair to dean.  In my experience, when even one or two of these incidents occur the responsible administrator looks into the situation and attempts to rectify the problem.  To wait, whine, and then make public accusations is juvenile at best.


 



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Question

Date:
Permalink Closed

quote:
Originally posted by: Reporter
" Ram, They are already writing their rebuttal letters.  See the other thread. Their logic is frightening and powerful.  We may lose the debate. Not!      "
Does anyone think that we ought to respond to this?  To be drawn into a response to this ridiculous statement is counterproductive.  We know what we do.  We know what we stand for.  And our students will stand up for us.

__________________
ram

Date:
Permalink Closed


quote:

Originally posted by: Question
"Does anyone think that we ought to respond to this?  To be drawn into a response to this ridiculous statement is counterproductive.  We know what we do.  We know what we stand for.  And our students will stand up for us."


Of course, you are right.  Qbert the Clown is just providing some comic relief.  The real students know what's happening.



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Invicuts

Date:
RE: RE: RE: Students, report your problems with fa
Permalink Closed

Scattershooting again...

quote:
Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"If you really believe that, I have a nice bridge over the East River to sell you. At a remarkably low price, offer not to be repeated..."


Actually, Dr. Campbell, the Brooklyn Bridge is across Black Creek about 20 mi south of Hattiesburg. I thought everybody knew that

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"put this on the wrong thread. hippie reporting for duty. had hair to my waist. VW van. "farm out." "right arm." "


Former Kombi owner checking in here, too.

If Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkwagen, he'd be President today...





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Albert

Date:
RE: Students, report your problems with faculty here
Permalink Closed

Back to the top. Courtesy of Robert Campbell and the Webmaster.



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