I hate travel, especially since it seems impossible for me to get on a plane without getting seriously sick. In the 4.5 years I've been an assistant professor, I've had COVID-19 seven times, Norovirus six times, and countless bouts of the flu. Despite getting the COVID and flu vaccines and boosters each year, and taking precautions like wearing a mask and using hand sanitizer obsessively, my immune system just doesn't seem to cooperate.

As a result, I've stopped attending most conferences. However, I still need to participate in project reviews with program managers. I've been fortunate to secure many grants, but these projects often require quarterly in-person meetings. It's reached the point where I'm seriously considering not applying for additional funding due to the toll it takes on my health. Just recently, I returned from a quarterly review and found out I contracted COVID-19. After spending over two days traveling through airports and staying in hotels, I now face 5+ days in quarantine—all for roughly three hours of presentations, with just a few minutes allotted for my own updates.

I want to stop traveling, but I'm afraid it will negatively affect my career and tenure prospects. I'm in a STEM field at an R1 university that places little value on teaching and instead expects me to constantly secure funding. I love my job, but it is no longer worth compromising my health.

Me: Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions at all!

Also Me: Don't you dare for a second send me an email.

My department runs business writing contests twice a year and we all got a message from the lady who runs it that only one professor has submitted a student paper to the contest. Well, there was no way I was going to let that fly so I held the contest in each of my four classes. I told the students that attendance was optional but that with three prizes of $250/$150/$100, and my classes having 4/5 of the entries (one student paper per class) they stood a good chance of winning cash.

Yesterday’s 8:30 am had 4 people show and 2 left after seeing the assignment. My 2:30 pm had like 5 people.

My 7 am today had no one. Zero people showed up so there are no entries from that class.

Tomorrow is a once a week class so I know more will take it, even though they can leave after the first hour.

But still. No one? I’d have done it when I was a student, for sure.

Student manages to upload an assignment to the wrong link in Dropbox in D2L. For those of you familiar with D2L, I can neither grade it there, nor can I move it to the right place. I email the student and tell her what happened, and that she should upload the assignment to the right place ASAP.

That was at the end of September. Guess when she finally did that? If you said "today", you get a cookie.

So... what do I do? Is it late? My department's policy is that anything submitted more than a week late is an automatic zero. But I mean, it was kinda there in Dropbox... just in the wrong place.

Why do students do this to me?

that's it. that's the question.

can someone fill me in? am i just terrible for maintaining boundaries?

I’m not sure if this allowed, but I saw this on YouTube and it made me giggle. Who else experiences this? Definitely my 10am class in which they are all half asleep. https://youtu.be/z-GFQ_GQnI8?si=fSAPXj5zBtHSX_Cn

If I have some box-checking bullshit, which I assure you nobody will ever read, may I just use AI get it done?

I'll be adding something like this to my welcome email:

Ah, the start of a new semester, when everyone’s grandmas and moms are still safe and sound. It's funny how that changes during finals week, right? Grandpas and dads, though, seem to have some magical immunity.

So, here’s a thought: if your grandma’s well-being is tied to your GPA, maybe start studying now. Who knows? You might save her life and your grade.

The UC Davis sub is in an uproar over a professor considering changing the final schedule to accommodate students who elected to take a flight that conflicts with the final time. If this is you, I'd love to hear your reasoning why.....

Edit: original post

follow-up

So today, I happened to be teaching about earthquakes, magnitudes, hazards etc. I give lecture quizzes, just a few points of questions that I basically answer during class. With about 20 minutes left to lecture, I had finished answering the questions and was showing some earthquake videos. One student got up to leave. I said, “there’s 20 minutes left, shouldn’t you stay?” He left anyway.

So I close the video and pull up a live view of our seismograph feed (we have a seismometer at the college). What to my wondering eyes should appear? A huge earthquake is coming in as we watch it! My seismology teaching dream come true! A magnitude 7 quake from California. Perfect timing!

And that student missed it. I immediately told the rest of the students they would get bonus points for witnessing this amazing experience. But not the guy who left!

I did a great 20 minutes showing them all about the quake and using it as an example to illustrate everything I’d been covering.

What an amazing coincidence, huh?

Anyone ever stage a successful coup against their department chair? #toxicworkenvironment

I had a first happen today. I decided to hold a review day for my students for their final exam. I officially made today’s class optional, and planned an in-depth review of their content with activities, discussions, a study guide, and even a Kahoot. I was up until 2 am working on getting my review day in order for today’s classes. The first classes each only had a half dozen students show up. The final class, literally nobody showed up. I’m not devastated or sad or anything hyperbolic like that. I am frustrated and annoyed. I made myself hoarse lecturing on Tuesday to cram two days of content into one so I could offer them this day…and I get almost nothing, almost nothing, and zero out of them respectively.

This is a lesson learned. No more review days. I try to be optimistic, I try to be a student-focused instructor. But I just can’t take the apathy. I’m not going to give overly of myself if the return I get is just apathy. Next semester I’m lecturing straight to the final day, everything eligible for the final. Maybe that will light a fire under them.

I feel incredibly naive.

I feel like students have been questioning my authority lately and pushing and pushing to nitpick for a higher grade. I have another post with another student about a similar thing. These students sit together in class so I'm wondering if they all conspired to try to bully me into a better grade?? Anyway, I recently graded an essay and gave detailed feedback highlighting the need for deeper analysis.

The student emailed me, saying they felt my feedback was "contradictory." For example, I said their thesis was clear and their quotes were strong, but they lost points because I said the thesis “could be more specific” and because they received a lower score (15/20) for the "Use of Evidence" category. I guess they don't like compliment sandwiches. I emailed them to say that both can be true. I know what you're talking about (the general subject) in your thesis so it's clear on the topic but it isn't a specific argument. Apparently, there is no room for nuance.

They mentioned I kept asking them "how" in the essay and they believe they already explained how their arguments work, but said it would be redundant to repeatedly address this in the essay. They also stated that they explain the "how" right before their claims and suggested I reassess their essay for this. Correct me if I'm wrong but explaining your claims is the essence of analysis, no??

Oh and they also used terms like "generational transmittance" and "generational marginalization" don’t need explanation because they are just vocabulary that should be understood without elaboration. They also were being condescending by saying that I said "what does general transmittance" mean and they said "well, I said generational transmittance not general." Okay..... well what does that mean??

Anyway, I'm getting so sick of students grade grubbing, but even moreso that they're being condescending about how I grade. I'm in my last year of my PhD and this was my last semester teaching. I love teaching but when students constantly undermine you, it makes me question my career choice.

Oh and this paper was an 80, btw.

I'm an adjunct, I don't have an office, so I offer Zoom meetings pretty regularly. This semester I tried implementing a digital scheduler (Calendly) so students could put themselves on my calendar during my openings. This has also been my worst semester teaching and I'm not teaching next semester.

I've had only 2 students take me up on it this semester so far, and it's just been to ask me what their grades were. This is the last week of classes before finals. A student put himself on my calendar over the weekend, cancelled it and then rescheduled (within 5 min), so I assumed he really wanted to discuss something. He just stood me up on Zoom.

We're also having in-class meetings this week (mandatory in the lead up to final presentations during their final slot) and he had scheduled one of those as well, so I reached out to ask him if he'd meant to schedule both and remind him we were meeting. Ignored that email. I'm tired. They just do not care.

Tips?

I'm still fairly new to this, I'm at the start of my second year and this semester I taught some upper division courses for the first time. It was great - mixed bag as far as work quality, though. I have one student who I'm 95% sure is using ChatGPT to write their papers, but I can't prove it...

Anyway - I'm finding myself getting pretty worn out after reading a few papers, I'd appreciate tips y'all have for getting through this more efficiently. Already I'm thinking I gotta rework rubrics for future semesters to make grading easier.

Right now, I'm grading in chunks of about 5 papers at a time before I need to do something else. And it's still too early for some Bourbon, so...

Dear new faculty…. Listen to your seniors. You don’t have to obey, but, really, listen

I know, I know. I remember being new and full of energy and annoyed at all the jaded professors trying to block my way….but if they are recommending you not to do something, really listen to why they’re saying this.

Because when I review your syllabus and say, “ime I’ve had this policy before and it’s not great. These are the ways the students will get around it” but you assure me you can handle it, because you know better than me…. Then you come to me at the end of the semester asking me for advice on how to handle all the students who are using the loopholes I told you about…

….my advice will be to build a Time Machine and take it out of your syllabus when I first advised you to. Because taking it out of my syllabus was obviously the only way I could handle it.

“Good afternoon, professor,

I am a not-your-discipline major who is currently on the waitlist for your section this coming semester and wanted to express my desire to be enrolled.

Calculus is a subject that although being one facet of my major, is a topic I am very passionate about. I believe having you as a professor would be beneficial to me. Especially with the at times difficult nature of differential equations which I have had a basic exposure to in Calc II.

I understand that the class is at capacity, but I figured I would just throw myself out there to see if there was any chance I could be enrolled, through alternative seating, a permission number, by attending the first few lectures, or whatever way you see fit.

Thank you very much for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely, Student at your institution.”

Final grades are due next week.

Student is missing 14/16 assignments and 3/5 tests.

Wants me to know they are willing to do whatever it takes to pass the course.

I honestly don't have the words.

The closer we get to the end of the course, the further away it seems to be.

….and check to see if your students have written about you? Heh heh heh

I have been trying to set up a Github education account for so long. Unfortunately, as an adjunct, I am stuck behing a screen that is asking for a dated student ID. I have tried various ways to get around this, but they all end the same way. Can someone explain the steps to get this to work. If this is the wrong sub, maybe direct me to the right place. Thanks in advance.

This guy's got more engaging. And apparently German students are more fun than mine.

https://youtu.be/pSOlRUr5yCY?feature=shared

Has anyone read this Chronicle of Higher Ed article "A Case of Fraud: I fought for a colleague’s tenure. Then I started looking deeper." A candidate up for tenure apparently fabricated fake communication with a journal who said her article was about to be published. When the chair emailed the journal editor, they said they show no record of her article submission. The candidate later claimed she was being pranked by a non-academic friend who was pretending to be the journal editor to prove that they can talk like an academic.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-case-of-fraud

"Before her case unraveled, everyone in the English department was rooting for Cora to get tenure, including me. The road had been rough. She had taken on too much service, not just to the department and college, but also to national organizations. She’d had difficulty in getting the publications she needed. Her book had not yet been picked up by a press. Several articles were awaiting decisions.

I was in my fourth year as department chair, and I had already shepherded several candidates through the tenure and promotion processes. I hadn’t lost a single vote, even on those who had squeaked by with what the committee considered the bare minimum of research qualifications. The one promotion that my then-dean had absurdly asked the president to turn down was won on appeal. (The book that my colleague had used as his basis for applying for promotion to full professor was coming out in June. The vote for promotion was in early April. The publisher’s pre-order page was up, and it was listed on Amazon. Between the president’s decision and the appeal, my colleague had gotten a copy of the physical book, which he displayed at his hearing. It was a slam dunk, with the dean looking foolish and the president acceding to the will of the committee.)

So, by the time Cora came up for tenure, I was feeling pretty cocky. Championing my department’s professors through the tenure process is my favorite part of the job. There’s a clear objective and a clear path for achieving it, and it requires some skill, especially when a candidate has a book published by a lesser-known press or articles in less prestigious journals. I’m an intense advocate for my faculty, from adjunct to distinguished professor, and it’s one reason I’ve stayed in this job into what is now my 10th year. (It’s my 21^(st) year as a professor at my school, so I’m officially part of the old guard.)

One thing hangs over all of our tenure decisions: The administration does not automatically allow departments to replace someone who has been denied tenure. So if, say, my department had a medievalist who gets turned down, we might wait for years and still not get a line for a medievalist. I can say this with confidence because we had a medievalist who was turned down before I started as chair, and we still have not replaced him. It’s not that we don’t want a medievalist, but we are also a department that has had a number of colleagues in areas from creative writing to linguistics leave due to retirements, resignations for better jobs, and, yes, deaths, and almost none of them were replaced. If Cora didn’t get tenure, we might never be able to replace her.

In my annual reports on Cora, I was pretty clear that she needed to step back from her service obligations and concentrate on publication. I said it was unfair that no one was stepping up to take on service needs, but the responsibility wasn’t hers. I also advised her to give up on the book and use the chapters as articles."

I’m really suspicious of some of my students’ work but I’m getting really mixed results with online AI detectors.

What are people’s go-to for AI detection?

I teach a college transitions course for freshman on a university campus and they were required to submit a 3-4 page career exploration paper last week which I am just now getting around to grading. At least 1-3 of them clearly used AI generated content for a portion of their assignment. One was egregious and obvious even without running it through an AI checker, and 2 are a little wishy washy whether it's their work or AI generated content. I ran the work through multiple AI checkers, the egregious one came back as 47-50% AI generated and the other two came back as between 20-30%. My question is, do y'all use AI checkers for written assignments and do you consider them trustworthy? If so, which programs do you use and what is your threshold for an acceptable percentage of AI generated content?

Pre-AI, my threshold was 10% for plagiarized content but AI is a little less cut and dry. I am giving a 0 to the student whose plagiarism was the most obvious and I am not allowing him to redo the assignment, but I am up in the air about the other two. Should I give them 0s as well or just have a firm conversation and allow them to resubmit the assignment? For reference, every other student's paper came back as below 5% AI content.

I’m new to teaching college— this is my third semester. Anyone else notice an uptick in student complaints / psychological issues manifesting around week 12 of the semester? Suicidal ideation (why do they tell me?? 😫) he-said-she-said complaints, the Dean’s office getting involved with investigations etc? Is this something I can look forward to every winter and spring? I feel like I’m noticing a pattern.

I’m new to teaching college— this is my third semester. Anyone else notice an uptick in student complaints and psychological issues manifesting around week 12 of the semester? Suicidal ideation (why do they tell me?? 😫) he-said-she-said complaints, the Dean’s office getting involved with investigations etc? Is this something I can look forward to every winter and spring? I feel like I’m noticing a pattern.

I’m supposed to accommodate any disability, real or imagined. But say the professor suffers from a mild (?) form of ADHD and maybe goes on a slight tangent in lecture or slightly off schedule, they are lit up in the evals like you wouldn’t believe. Why? Shouldn’t grace (which I extend generously) go both ways? Customer pays the bills, so they call the shots?

At this point, I have gotten into a few tense email situations with students. I guess I’m looking for advice on achieving the correct tone in these e-interactions.

A lot of incidents begin with students trying to weasel points in an accusatory way: “you didn’t remind us of the due date,” “the instructions weren’t clear,” “other professors accept late work,” etc. My responses to these are terse, typically one sentence to point them to the syllabus or tell them they can ask questions on assignments prior to the due dates.

I’m pretty frequently getting long emotional responses, telling me my tone is rude. This also happens when I grade clearly last-minute or AI-generated work. Sometimes there’s literally nothing positive to say, so I very directly list the parts of the prompt that they did not adequately address. One student threatened to go to my chair and accuse me of bullying over my “tone”. I absolutely don’t say anything personal or insulting, but I do explain low scores and I don’t always wrap it in a compliment sandwich—and this is what students think bullying is?

I know it is impossible to judge without seeing an exchange, but is this “email tone” issue a problem for anyone else? Or do you always manage to be complementary?

Just completed grading a series of short papers which answered a series of questions based on an article. Plugging my instructions/questions into AI generates a predictable set of responses which are supposedly based on the assigned article, including one term which does not appear anywhere in the article or in any other course materials. AI repeats this term several times in its response as if it's the key to a correct response. I don't need to embed anything in white text or use any other Trojan Horse - on this assignment, AI plainly reveals itself and that is my small victory for the week.

I posted about this situation a few weeks ago, overwhelmed by the AI and plagiarism as a survival tool used by my students who are likely in a class that is too much for their current ability level. I got blame-shifted and gaslit when I contacted advising to refer students for support. Then, out of the blue, I got scheduled for observation--the day after the election, observer stayed in the class for an excessively long time. Then nothing. Yesterday, because it was the last of class/term, and I know I'm not getting classes there again (and have moved residentially), I turned in my keys on my way out. Got home, checked email, now the observer wants to meet and go over their notes and the concerns some students have brought to them. I don't mind being observed--actually enjoy it and the conversation it brings, and have a solid record of it. But this is different. I didn't sleep much last night and am just writing here because I can't get it off my chest elsewhere.