Forgive the vague details, I don't want to dox anyone. Pat plays on a sportsball team at my college. Pat is enrolled in my online class. Not SNHU. In October Pat suffered an injury: the kind of injury that legitimately prevents one from studying. I received email to that effect as did nine other people in the college, including Deans and DCs and ADs. Evidently Pat is really important? It's a D2 school, so the NBA probably isn't looming any time soon.

Anyway, Pat emailed all nine of us 4 days later, informing that they were getting back to their studies the following day. Dutifully, I extended all the deadlines on all the missed work. I checked this morning: Pat has a solid zero in my class. No participation at all before during or after the injury. Concerned, I visited the sportsball page on the university web site. Pat was the second leading scorer last night, compiling an impressive stat line while playing over half the game.

Now, here's the thing. I don't care about Pat's career. I don't know if they are otherwise a good student. I'll never meet Pat or attend any of the sportsball games. Ideally Pat should drop the course because it's almost half over (7-week term) and they have demonstrated no interest whatsoever. I expect to hear from the nine Deans and DCs and ADs very soon as they pressure me to extend the deadlines again. I want my life to be stress-free but I have an unnatural predilection to academic rigor. If I extend all the deadlines again I probably won't be bothered by the nine Deans DCs and ADs. Life will go on and I will get paid. Do I cave?

By the way, I'm required to report participation on a weekly basis to the college. Pat's lack of progress is already a matter of record.

I’m not sure why I feel so sad. I love my job. Teaching is fun. My students are usually great, and I have small class sizes since it’s a small university. I get paid well. I get research credits, so I usually only teach a 2-2.

I took my first 8-month sabbatical. It’s going to end in January. I’ll be back to teaching my 2-2 AND I’ll be head of my department (was basically pressured into it, but that’s another story).

I got a lot done, and I loved having time for my project. However, I had a major bipolar episode in October. I’m just now recovering from it after having had my meds adjusted. I know I’ll be fully recovered by January, though. My psychiatrist wasn’t too thrilled about the department head thing.

Anyway, I wish I had a few more months. If I was just going back to teaching, service work, and research, things might be different. I can’t apply for another sabbatical for 6-years. Whomp.

Years ago, I read an autobiography by a famous sportsman and he mentioned that a problem with sports teams for years, in his view, was a tendency to make a player who excelled at the sport a team captain, with little thought as to whether the best players made the best captains. Many of them didn't, he concluded. I suspect with the advent of sports psychology, etc, professional sports teams have sought to move on from this, to some extent.

But there is, at least, a sort of logic to that thinking. In higher ed we don't have that luxury, many of our "captains" and their lieutenants had decidedly mediocre careers in the job, itself.

I suppose I'm ranting, because, of late, I have just become incredibly frustrated.

What I see or have experienced:

1. Knee-jerk reactions. Sometimes academia moves at a glacial pace, on other occasions, especially if a manager panics and thinks there's a problem, things can move at lightning speed. The decision that is made is often hastily thought through, ill-conceived, made without consultation or input, and communicated very strongly. It will then be defended very strenuously, even when it was apparent to all that it was the wrong decision and needs to be re-visited or reversed.

2. Performative consultation. The decision has been made and is going to be rolled out. Let's pretend to gather some input at a forthcoming meeting, feign listening with interest and sympathy and a lot of head-nodding, and then do what we'd planned, anyway.

3. Detachment from the organization. Despite the endless town halls and listening tours, apparently little is heard. Sometimes senior admin can make statements and, subsequently, related decisions, which are met with the reaction from the rank and file of, "Do you actually know the first thing about the place you're "leading?"

4. Appalling human resource management skills. Just shockingly bad.

5. Delusion: delusion is manifested in ideas they want to implement, their own confidence in their own abilities, or typically both.

Sometimes I want to jump ship and see what the world outside of higher ed looks like. Then I cynically predict it'll be every bit as awful.

Wasn't sure if I wanted to post this here, but after mulling this over for a week, I think it's a good discussion.

A student failed her midterm last week. She hasn't done well on labs, either. We've met a few times to talk about studying strategies, which obviously didn't work, and she asked to meet me to talk about her failed grade.

She broke down crying during the meeting, saying how difficult and unfair university is. She said she was an excellent student in high school and never had to study, but she feels like university professors are "out to get her". I asked in what way, and she essentially said she felt like professors don't prepare students for any of the testing material, and leave them out to dry.

I asked her what she meant, and that was her response: "Our teachers in high school made sure we didn't need to study".

From how she described it, no one studies in high school. Studying is basically a form of punishment for not coming to class. So if you're a "good" student, you don't need to study. You learn the material in class, and then do activities to practice. Then before each unit test they'd have a review class, where a teacher summarized the material and they'd do practice questions and answers. Sometimes teachers gave out a list of possible questions, some of which would be on the test, but you could talk to the teacher about the questions beforehand. And that way, teachers build studying into the class and you don't have to study yourself. She was also frustrated I wouldn't let her "show corrections" on the midterm for a higher grade. She asked me how she's supposed to show she's learned from her mistakes, if grades are completely final.

I really felt for her. It's been a long time since my high school days, but when I was in HS we did everything she explained (activities, review classes, practice tests, etc).... but studying was still an expectation. From her point of view, studying is due to a failure of the prof to adequately teach material. She has never been expected to study or learn on her own.

She's never been taught to take charge of her own education, and truly cannot fathom why she has to. She's the only one who's talked to me about it, but I get this sense from other students in this cohort, as well.

I feel like this goes beyond trying to teach them studying strategies. It's an entire paradigm shift.

**************

ETA: Yes, I get it, some of you never studied until [undergrad/grad school/med school/ever] and breezed through with Quadruple Honors and did just fine. I'm more concerned with the student's follow up remark, being 'teachers made sure we didn't need to' and seeing individual studying as a systemic failure. From all of your comments, it sounds like you had built some independent skills to process information with little review. That's not the conversation of this thread.

Scenario: based on the final exam schedule, a student happens to have back-to-back final exams. They also have a 1.5x time accommodation, meaning that if they start their first exam at the same time as other students, then they can't start the second final exam on time. What have you done (or what has your student disabilities office recommended) in this circumstance? Let's assume that one (or both) instructors feel like they would need to create a second version of the exam if not all students are taking the exam simultaneously.

"Sorry for the delay in reply, I just really didn't feel like thinking about or dealing with the topic you brought up in your email."

Hello,

Our engineering program is 100% online, and we use Canvas with YuJa Verity for proctoring. I have seen students answer statistics questions that require calculations in less than 20 seconds each. Some finish the whole quiz in under a minute without even moving a pen (no way!)

I strongly suspect they are cheating, but I cannot prove it. Could they be using a virtual machine or something else? We already use a second camera to show the workstation, and the screen recording seems to work fine.

I have two questions:

1. Should I position the second camera so it shows the computer screen, keyboard, and their hands? Would this help catch something the screen recording misses?

2. Can I give a student an F for finishing a calculation-based quiz in under a minute without showing any work? I doubt the administration would support me without clear evidence. Should I let it go, or is there a better way to handle this?

I am open to suggestions. Thanks

I have an asynchronous online comp class this coming spring. I'm anticipating the usual avalanche of AI slop, but I wonder if providing audio feedback might help. The idea is to evaluate drafts with recorded audio feedback then require a revision based on the feedback for a final grade.

I know AI is sophisticated enough to respond to audio messages, but I have a hard time believing most students would be able to cheat as easily as they normally do with this extra step. If this a waste of my time or a viable strategy?

Peer review staffer from NIH made a blog post describing his immigration story. Putting the intro below:

When you walk into a lab or a federal science agency, you immediately see that wonder and curiosity brings together people from around the world to solve difficult problems. In recognition of this, 27 UNIHTED is hosting Americans by Choice, a series of personal stories from the NIH community on immigration. This series celebrates how collaboration across cultures enables discovery, and acknowledges that any threat to immigrants by our federal government is a threat to science. Because American science is a story of immigration.

Shiv Prasad, PhD, writing in his personal capacity, is an extramural scientist at the National Institutes of Health with a background in immunology. He delivered the Federal Workers’ Oath of Office at the No Kings Rally, hosted by NIH Vigils and 27 UNIHTED, on October 17, 2026.

https://27unihted.substack.com/p/americans-by-choice-part-1-the-oath

The professor who has the lab before me never ends their class on time. Our classes are supposed to end 20 minutes past the hour because the next class always starts at 30 minutes past the hour. This gives a 10 minute buffer to wrap up, excuse the class and log out of the computer for the next Professor.

This entire term I have had a professor who stays sometimes past my start time (I start at 1:30) and he is still there talking to students at 1:35 and a couple of his students are still in my students’ seats. Every class, he is still there when we arrive and often my class is standing outside waiting for them to leave.

One day my class had a test and I just walked in on his class and announced that my students needed to get logged in for their midterm. He looked shocked that I just walked in because I usually wait for him to wrap up. He also has a 3 hour class so I don’t know why he has to spend every last minute other than liking his own voice since I feel 3 hours is more than enough time (and if it isn’t, he can speak to the AD).

How should I approach this? I generally don’t like confrontation and he’s obviously not getting the hint. I don’t want to look like I’m running to our AD but I also don’t really like this professor because he has a bit of a reputation for being a jerk around the school. I’m also much newer than he is so feel a bit intimidated to say anything.

I do not care why a student misses lectures or labs. I don’t need them to send me any paperwork. I tell them this all the time.
You are either present or you are absent. I wont change that and if that means you lose points in the class, you knew this, it’s in the syllabus. Yet every semester some students (of course ones with no great grades) try to argue about this and give me paperwork. I just say thanks but only official accommodation paperwork from the college allows for excused absences.
I guess they just assume they can get me to bend but I don’t. And it’s just so annoying. It seems like they did this throughout high school and got what they wanted and don’t understand college has expectations. Ughhhh okay, rant over. Just wanted to vent about it.

A few weeks ago we met with the provost to discuss concerns. My institution consistently ranks at the bottom against our peers for salary despite extremely high tuition. Every time they run a survey, a large percentage of faculty say they’re considering leaving due to the salary and we’ve lost many candidates for new positions because of the low salaries. This is not a struggling institution and not one that is being affected by the enrollment cliff in any way.

The provost sat across from me and informed me that “salaries are low across the board” and they’re “hoping to make them more competitive.” All I could think about was this: she makes 9x my salary each year. She could buy any home in the city and have it paid off in a year or two. Meanwhile, I have almost no hope of being able to save for a down payment on ANY house, nor do I have enough to even think about raising a child. So forgive me for not feeling like we are in this together when it comes to low salaries.

Shared governance is a joke. Admin keeps growing, their salaries grow by tens of thousands of dollars a year, and meanwhile they repeatedly tell us that the money isn’t there. We get no merit raises because of “funding limitations” and grad student positions are cut year after year. We’ve lost all bargaining power and it feels like everyone is just accepting it. I’m teaching faculty so I have no way to pursue this without risking my position. And do I think I should be making what the provost is making? Absolutely not. But a difference of 9x for two people working at the same institution is too extreme. We’ve allowed the people at the top to bleed us dry and it’s not going to get any better.

I love my job, but I frequently wonder if I can sustain a life on this. I spent over a decade in school preparing for this only to struggle anyway. I knew taking a teaching position would involve a lower salary, but what this institution pays is criminal, especially compared to our peers.

Just a rant. I wish faculty would come together and fight this, but everyone seems to have just given up beyond the occasional challenge to the deans in a meeting once in a while. We continue losing qualified candidates and somehow the admin just doesn’t see it as a priority.

In a nutshell: student who is chronically absent/tardy pulls off 100/100 or 98/100 on tests. She was granted a private testing space without a proctor. I shared my concern with the Office of Accommodations and attended a “blah-blah” Zoom meeting. Yesterday, at my request, a staff member peered in on the student while I was with the rest of my class in my classroom. The student in question brazenly had an iPad on her desk and her bag of personal belongings (including books and notes) with her. Totally fed up. I reported her to the Honor Court. Do any of you circumvent the accommodations office by creating an alternate space for tests? TIA

So I follow my college's unofficial parent's Facebook group. Right now they are discussing how to follow their children's progress on our LMS. I have argued that FERPA does not allow them access to that information. They counter argue that they are paying for college and want to make sure their kids aren't screwing up their first semester. I said that their kids have privacy rights under FERPA. Am I wrong about this?

I started a new account because I realized my old was getting a bit doxxy.

The deadline for my packet is December 1st. NTT Assistant to Associate. I've got one week to finish it. My chair said I should be good if I get the two papers I'm working on submitted. I got one submitted but they returned it really fast with an outright reject. The reasons were a little fair but a little BS. Someone wrote a very similar paper that JUST got published. Theirs is different enough I should be able to swing mine, but still.

So now I've got Results and discussion for one paper to write, the entire service section of the packet, and revise the original paper for a different journal on top of teaching and a bunch of meetings.

The overwhelm is insane right now, and I've got nobody to talk to about it. I

I searched on this sub and was surprised how few posts there were about promotion.

Anyone have any moral support, your own rants, or just general experiences about going through promotion?

First semester part time adjunct here at a community college hoping for a safe space to vent. I’m also a HS Bio teacher full-time so often times I struggle with code switching and determining what is reasonable when dealing high schoolers vs dealing with adults.

I just finished my 2.5 hour Zoom lecture. Out of 23 students in the class, 14 were in the zoom and 5-6 of them were actively participating. 2 hours of me doing a 3-chapter review (3 chapters I spent 3 lectures going over weeks ago mind you) using Wayground AND stating throughout this 2-hour review what topics/types of questions to expect on the upcoming exam. 2 students requested a practice exam and a study guide. A PRACTICE EXAM. When I stated that I will not make an entire exam for practice, but can post some review Waygrounds in canvas that can be used for self-paced practice, the retort was “I like the Wayground and everything but the last test wasn’t like the Wayground you did with us.” I’m puzzled at this point because I don’t know where the idea that the Wayground posted as study material ever being “exactly” like the test even came from. It was stated in such an accusatory tone as if I bamboozled them and now they have all right to demand an actual test similar to my test prepared already. When I stated that the Waygrounds are designed to cover material in tested chapters and not provide test questions, I was met with silence.

Then another student pipes up and asks me for a study guide because it would be very useful for them. I literally just spent two hours not only doing review but verbally pointing out topics they should know and be able to answer questions on. I stated things like “be able to compare and contrast mitosis and meiosis” and “be able to identify a genotype vs a phenotype and heterozygous vs homozygous because you’ll have to do so on the test.” I post my lecture recordings and chapter slides to Canvas. What more do you people want from me?! One of my kidneys?? 😂 When I responded to let the student know that they should’ve been writing down notes during lecture and using that as a study guide, they abruptly left the Zoom while I was still talking. I’m sorry, my bad for not doing YOUR job as a student for you.

And these are just the SOME of the outlandish requests and demands I experienced today. Throughout the entire semester, I’ve been harassed and continually asked for retakes (my syllabus clearly states no retakes, btw) and having to deal with students who do not adhere to policies regarding absences and think they can bully me into a make-up exams. I’ve already been ripped to shreds on RMP because I am upholding standards and expectations delineated in my syllabus.

Are these behaviors normal in higher education??? Are there professors who actually make practice exams for students?? And study guides? And retakes??

Like so many of us, I am so over this semester. 🎓Gotta think positive. I get to spend two weeks in Paris in December and forget about work. You?

What are your thoughts on discussion board assignments/requirements for in-person classes? They were especially useful while teaching during the pandemic for clear reasons. But even then they seemed to be superfluous because students spend so much time online anyway. And, since I teach in-person classes only, discussion boards seem particularly redundant. They can be useful/productive forums, however, especially if the guidelines for postings are solid. But they're also create a ton of work in terms of maintenance and assessing postings. Thanks for your thoughts.

After nine years of teaching, in one of my classes this week, I had to stop mid-lecture to use the bathroom to poop. I am sure my students knew that's what was going on because I rushed out and stayed out of the class long enough that they could make an educated guess that I was sitting on the toilet. My stomach is sensitive; I'm very mindful of what I eat before I lecture, and I guess it was bound to happen during my career. I made sure to run out when I was on a lecture slide with a video, and when I came back, I just picked up right where I left off. That's it; that is my story. I wish nobody in this thread had to deal with the stress I felt in that moment lol.

I'm strongly considering moving a substantial amount of funding from one lab and giving it to another lab to complete the project. My post history will give some concepts of why, but I'm more curious how the process went.

I understand that some say that they aren't really good but when my college had college prep math classes years ago, I remember stories of some students who started at the lowest level of college prep math. Then they went on to major in math or science. I just think it's good to have the option out there. I enjoyed teaching them too!

I have a sabbatical coming up, and I feel like it's a struggle to do the stuff I've been doing. Of course, I'm still showing up 100% for my students and my service/committee work, but my mind has really been on my research/long-term projects, so it's an internal battle to stay engaged. Has anyone gone through this? I'm not looking for anything like "stay in the moment" or "your students" need you. I know this. I'm talking about the internal struggle, especially as we're approaching the holidays and the end of the semester.