Prof denied Tenure for failing too many Students

Students Fail — and Professor Loses Job
Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail — a majority even — does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards?


These are the questions at the center of a dispute that cost Steven D. Aird his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University. Today is his last day of work, but on his way out, he has started to tell his story — one that he suggests points to large educational problems at the university and in society. The university isn’t talking publicly about his case, but because Aird has released numerous documents prepared by the university about his performance — including the key negative tenure decisions by administrators — it is clear that he was denied tenure for one reason: failing too many students. The university documents portray Aird as unwilling to compromise to pass more students.

A subtext of the discussion is that Norfolk State is a historically black university with a mission that includes educating many students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The university suggests that Aird — who is white — has failed to embrace the mission of educating those who aren’t well prepared. But Aird — who had backing from his department and has some very loyal students as well — maintains that the university is hurting the very students it says it wants to help. Aird believes most of his students could succeed, but have no incentive to work as hard as they need to when the administration makes clear they can pass regardless.

“Show me how lowering the bar has ever helped anyone,” Aird said in an interview. Continuing the metaphor, he said that officials at Norfolk State have the attitude of “a track coach who tells the team ‘I really want to win this season but I really like you guys, so you can decide whether to come to practice and when.’ ” Such a team wouldn’t win, Aird said, and a university based on such a principle would not be helping its students.

more:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/14/aird


Snip:
official university policy states that a student who doesn’t attend at least 80 percent of class sessions may be failed.

The problem, Aird said, is that very few Norfolk State students meet even that standard. In the classes for which he was criticized by the dean for his grading — classes in which he awarded D’s or F’s to about 90 percent of students — Aird has attendance records indicating that the average student attended class only 66 percent of the time. Based on such a figure, he said, “the expected mean grade would have been an F,” and yet he was denied tenure for giving such grades.

it's the students job to learn, not the teachers. It would do our college system (and our nation) a world of good, if they started making all professor accountable for actually teaching the subjects they are being paid to teach.

If you can't teach then perhaps doing research or field work would be better. Acedemics need to have the basic ability to teach. Even the harshests of college professors need to have at least a weak ability to teach. Sounds like this guy couldn't teach worth a damn.

Yes students have to learn but when an inordinate number fail, there is something wrong.

I had one that tested on stuff that wasn't even in the book or taught in class. He expected to take an interest and look up some rather obscure stuff. Rather difficult to expect on an elective subject that isn't part to your major. I think it was Geology or something.

ever have a professor who could speak english clear enough, for the student to understand? Another type is one that starts lecturing and completely loses all of his or her students two minutes into the lecture?

not that the students didn't know the content required. Should a student be failed just for not being there if they can pass the tests/papers otherwise? Not saying that is the case in this instance, but the reason given in the OP is attendance and not knowledge acquisition.

Ever?

When students are truant, don't show up, refuse to engage in learning, why is that the teachers' failure?

This attitude is what is destroying education at all levels. Teachers are not beasts of burden that can drag unwilling students across a finish line.

The job of the teacher is to offer the opportunity to learn. The job of the student is to make the best use of that opportunity.

Agree completely. THat's what makes me nuts about NCLB and EOG Testing in the schools. Teachers teach, but those who are not the least interested, don't attend classes, don't seek help, means I failed as a teacher? I don't think so.....

you get a lot of teachers that are there because they want to do research. They have no desire and no skill at teaching. I have always thought that college profs should have some education about educating if they are going to teach. I have no idea if this applies to this particular instance, but I know that I have had more "bad" college profs than "good" ones.

Effective instructional practices are important for every level. I would like to think that there is some accountability to University administration for instructional practices as part of annual evaluations.

but they tend to be of very limited value. Students just don't make much effort to fill them out, and if they can avoid doing so, many will. If there's a simple question like "rank your instructor's ability on a scale of 1 to 5" they will answer that, but if it says "explain why" the OVERWHELMING majority will simply leave the answer blank. So the instructor sees a collection of ones, fives, and everything in between, with no real explanation for the differences. The admin. will happily average these numbers together, print them out to 2-3 decimal places, sort them by instructor, and let each instructor know where they stand in students' estimation relative to people who are teaching entirely different courses. Decisions on retention, promotion, and tenure will then include these 'evaluations' as part of their overall assessment.

Although some schools try harder than others to come up with meaningful assessments, most fall short. I've seldom seen anything in the written responses that was of much practical value -- usually it's just the student saying something like "I really don't like this instructor" which is of no help in terms of suggesting change, or the perrenial complaint that "the test questions are nothing like the problems in the book" no matter how many problems in the book are included in the test questions. It's very, very much like being evaluated by low-attention voters. Only pandering to their desires, however much it might be against their own interests, ensures approval.

When that age is is debateable - in most jurisdictions children are held to be old enough to be prosecuted for crimes from their early teens, but not old enough to vote or drive until 16-18.

I would say that it's a gradual process.

Primary school children can't be expected to take any responsibility for their own education - the teacher's job is not merely to lead them to water but to ensure that they drink or - as you put it - to "drag them over the finish line", and a teacher who just "offers opportunities" isn't doing their job.

University students are more or less solely responsible for their own progress - by that level, I think your "offer the opportunity" philosophy works fine - by that age they should be taking responsibility themselves. On the other hand, part of "offering an opportunity" is to encourage as many students as possible to take it - a teacher who provides uninteresting, inaccessible lessons which it is theoretically possible to learn from but which discourage students from doing so is not doing their job.

At what rate the responsibility and the correct approach shifts between those two ages is more controversial, but I would say that certainly until you're dealing with 14 or 15-year olds, and probably later still, a teacher should be doing a lot more than just "offering opportunities".

While what you say has merit, I would say that it is the parents' job to make sure that students who have not reached that "age of responsibility" are making the most of their opportunities.

Teachers can and certainly should support that process, but they are not responsible for parenting for parents.

Perhaps you have to have been a middle school teacher, confronted by a 12 or 13 yo young person who has refused to engage in learning, who suddenly says, "If you give me an F, it means you're a bad teacher. You didn't teach me."

That's a direct quote. That student hasn't yet reached your "age of responsibility."

Frankly, I think that giving the student the "F" is the best lesson the child will have learned all year long: that there are consequences for your choices, and that you are responsible for the choices that you make.

Among other opportunities, my students and their parents receive weekly updates, phone calls, and are given abundant extra opportunity to get help, and to demonstrate that they are learning. If we reach the point of an "F" on a report card, they and their parents knew it was coming and had time and opportunity to change course.

Frankly, I'd rather use a different system than the standard A-F, but I don't get to make that choice. Meanwhile, nobody in any of my classes who shows obvious effort to engage in learning and who completes the requirements to demonstrate that learning will fail.

If they do, it's the consequence of their own choice NOT to engage.

I knew a graduate TA once who was able to give all "A"s to a class. It's fairly easy to do when all the students learn the material and demonstrate that knowledge by getting 90%+ on quizzes and exams. He explained that in the beginning, they made sure the students all had the right prerequisites, they passed out a syllabus that told them what they would have to study, and they made tests that closely followed the material that they were teaching. In addition, they used quizzes during the term to identify where students had not learned the material and they provided tutorials to cover what was missed.

It's no big secret how to teach successfully. The problem comes when teaching fails and the blame has to be apportioned. I could believe that every facet of the teaching process was deficient in the example above and also that the prof is a bonehead. He might as well be lecturing to an audience of mannequins, because it seems he was not able to adapt his teaching methods to fit at least some of the students.

because I was sick of students feeling entitled to a good grade merely for showing up (sounds like his students weren't even doing that). Students have learned how to advocate for themselves better than how to actually learn information. And I was sick of administrators not taking cheating seriously.

edit for typo :blush:

It was an anatomy and physiology course I was taking will attending a technical college and it was late in the semester when I was 40. We were to take a test worth 40 points (our grade was based upon total points accumulated) and when the teacher arrived she found out she did not have enough copies of the test, so she said she would go to her office to get her lectures notes in order not to waste a class time. While she was gone a good number of students decided to leave (they were all young people, no older than 20). When the teacher got back and saw how many were missing you could see she was pissed. She told us to take out a piece of paper and write our names on it. Good for 10 points--just for showing up, and staying.

Added on edit: A & P was one of the most failed (you had to at least get a C) courses at the college and everyone who was going into any medical field needed to take it so you would think the students would understand its importance.

years ago they told us flat out they were going to try and flunk us. It motivated for sure.

that attitude sucks. Shouldn't they be "trying" to teach you the information you need to be a nurse?

They called the pre-req's the "weeder" classes, to weed-out anyone who couldn't handle ridiculously hard tests and subject lessons that never even scratched the surface of the material you'd be tested on, or the depth of the material you'd be tested on.

Nursing school itself was a bit better. They were merciless and tough, but at least I felt they were teaching what we'd be tested on, and what we needed to know in clinical setting.

I had one anatomy teacher who gave us a test on Ch's 10-13. We had only been required to read Ch 10-12. Of course the majority of the stuff on the test was from Ch 13. His reply to our cries of "NOT FAIR!": You're in college. You should always be studying one chapter ahead of what I tell you to.

This is "Helps" wife. I am a college professor. I am so sorry to hear of Dr. Aird's dismissal, but I am not surprised. Dr. Aird, I send you my sincerest appreciation for being a man of integrity and principle.

Several dynamics intersect in this sad, common practice in the academe. First, I hope we realize this is symptomatic of deeper social issues. Minority students often enter the collegiate world disadvantaged by discrimination, social promotion in the K-12 system (approximately a 25% of high school graduates are functional illiterates), and very real social inequities of poverty, opportunity, and justice - including adequate funding for highly populated minority schools. Minority student pay the same tuition as their non-minority peers, and should expect, based on their efforts and access, to not be disciminated against by being placated...again.

We are called by our profession to honor the ethical standards and practices of our profession, which includes, most importantly, educating our learners. If students do not show up for class, do their work, or can't to their work, the burden to educate them must not only fall on the shoulders of professors. We are not babysitters. Most colleagues I know bend over backwards to help students who struggle. Too bad the institutions who hire us do not do the same. If students are remedial, and institutions take their tuition dollars, recognizing a student may not meet minimum standards of degree, then why don't some of these very institutions invest in programs to ensure student success?
It appears that holding on to tuition dollars is the means to the end of a college education. Rather than deal with the complex realities of such conditions, we put the responsibilities on the back of faculty. Shame on the institutions who promote students without the requisite knowledge and skill to succeed in work, life, and society. Disraeli said that "the great social equilizer of society is an education." If we do not help any student earn degree by merit, we are the problem of social inequity and not the solution.

So how does this type of behavior benefit students, faculty, educational institutions, and society? In the long run, it will destroy rather than sustain. I often tell my students this reality: Don't invest your time, money, and energy getting an education just to get the degree. Your degree may get you an interview, and it may get you hired. But the brutal truth is your employer will give you one minute of glory for your degree, and on minute two you better be able to prove you possess the knowledge and aptitude of your degree or someone who "gets it," and invested themselves in the great effort of learning, will replace you.

I didn't see any indication of what Professor Aird taught, but when I was teaching Japanese, I found too many students who had a sense of entitlement about their grades. Anything less than a B was an insult, even if the student didn't show up half the time and usually copied his homework off his equally underachieving friend.

Another problem was that students who were struggling tended to skip class rather than coming in to the regularly scheduled help sessions. If they didn't like me (and they weren't required to), I always had a Japanese assistant tutor available to coach the less capable students, but the tutors, too, spent many hours sitting at their assigned desks with no takers.

The American educational system is warped in many ways. Our culture as a whole doesn't value learning for its own sake, only as a means to getting a high-paying job. Getting high grades is a good thing, because it impresses employers, but if you actually know something, you're an intellectual snob. You are supposed to be athletic, dress fashionably, and be conversant with pop culture, but heaven help you if you like to read or play a musical instrument seriously or win the science fair or do anything else to indicate that you take learning seriously.

This is a problem that crosses racial and economic lines.

I would guess that Prof. Aird's students were going to college to increase their economic mobility but that they had come from unchallenging high schools and were not really capable of college-level work.

It sounds as if the college needs to tighten up, offer a required study skills class, and support professors who have high standards. At my last job, a group of us faculty members were once complaining about the many students who always acted so put upon if we asked them to do the normal things that college students are expected to do (read books, write papers, attend class even during Rush Week, study for tests, come in for help if they're stumped). Our dean admonished us, "But you people are the academic success stories. You can't have such high expectations of your students."

The college was still traumatized in some ways after near financial collapse some decades previously, so the dean's attitude was "retention at all costs."

This may be a problem at the college in the article.

I haven't heard the whole story after reading the link but it brings these questions to me because I have seen this type of thing happen before...

Personally I think it's unfortunate nearly an entire class fails a course. Our academic system is not forgiving to those who fail a class (might as well get busted) and can have consequences, like loss of scholarships/financial aid and academic standing.

So when an entire class fails a course, there are two problems -- this sounds like a freshman/early college biology class. So this might have been for most of these students their first course out of high school, and they are sorting out their expectations. If the class was in that much trouble -- failing earlier in the year -- then what is the protocol for warning students their final grade was in jeopardy -- before finals -- and offering some intervention, like tutoring or special sessions?

would attend special sessions of class.

The worst students shut down when they're having trouble. They not only skip class; they avoid help sessions.

My colleagues and I used to joke that our pre-final help sessions were attended mostly by the "A" students, who were afraid that they might have missed one tiny point.

I rarely had to flunk people, because students received their midterm grades and usually dropped the course if they were getting an "F." We faculty members received the full list of students who were at the "D" or "F" level in any course midterm, and it was perversely gratifying to see that the students who were flunking my class were usually flunking everyone else's classes, too.

Until a few years ago, I worked at a community and technical college which created a policy requiring faculty to both administer some sort of assessments so that a midterm grade could be determined and to report any to students failing or in danger of failing at midterm in the class. Additionally, the list went to Student Services and the Registrar so that they would be ready to assist students (or at least know what is coming their way). Faculty were not required to use a particular type of assessment, simply to be sure to assess work along the way in a manner appropriate to their pedagogy and course and inform students/college of concern at midterm.

The reason for this policy? Our retention rate was lower than our peers. It was determined that *one* factor contributing to the low retention rate was the fact that too many students who were failing courses didn't know about it until it was too late to either get their grades up or even drop/withdrawal from the classes.

The end result was certainly better for students, faculty and college. However, it was not policy *until* administrators saw tuition leaving the college.

high school teachers already labor under that with little apparent problem, but I fail to see that helping in this senario. The students just weren't attending class.

He taught a logic class, and he was a rabid republican who spent more time railing on Michael Moore (this was during Bowling for Columbine time) and the Democrats in office than he did teaching the class.

On the first day of class, he told us (a class of 40 or so) that it was his policy that he would give out no more than 2 A's, 10 B's, 10 C's, and the rest D's and F's.

He told us that he felt that Women were usually the worst performers in his class because women didn't have "logical minds" like men did, and he found that most of the questions that women in his class asked were easily answerable if they'd only spend more time reading the book than they spent doing their hair and nails.

He told us that we were free to complain about him as much as we'd like. He passed out pre-addressed envelopes to the Dean. He openly encouraged us to complain about him. He said that the more complaints he got the more popular a teacher he became, and that there was no fear is his getting fired or reprimanded because he had tenure, has had tenure for 10 years, and was never going to get his tenure taken away.

He told us women to specifically complain about his so-called (as he said) sexist remarks, because that only proved that women couldn't handle criticism and truthfulness etc etc, and that he had scientific proof that women were unfit to be in classes such as hard sciences, philosophy, engineering, etc, because of the chemical makeup of the female mind.

I had to take this class to progress in my program.

That was 5 years ago, and the fucker is still teaching. He was a HORRIBLE teacher. He would ignore women who had their hands up to ask questions and answer only those by males.

Once, a friend of mine (a guy) set him up--I asked a question and he dismissed me, suggested I actually READ the text required of the class, what was I wasting his time for blah blah blah.

5 minutes later my male friend asked the EXACT SAME QUESTION. Same wording, everything.

The teacher spent 20 minutes explaining, and re-explaining and going over again the answer to the question, following up later in the class to see if his explaination made sense, and giving him an invitation to stop by during office hours or email if he was still having issues with this particular subject.

I hated that fucker. I wish his tenure was rejected.

You had a horrible teacher but that doesn't make this guy one.

where a similar, yet quite different discussion was being held about this teacher, and was replying to other people's tales of horrible teachers.

I'm embarassed :(

really do try to treat every student the same regardless of sex, race, etc.

The prof you describe is an embarrassment to me also.

with a cc to the editors of my local newspapers, and to local news broadcasts.

While I don't agree that professors should be fired for giving "Fs," I do think that they should be accountable to their admins for appropriate instruction and grading practices.

The dean could at least be pressured into making sure that there were alternate courses, by other teachers, available.

does in class after one receives tenure.

Public pressure works. Some kind of changes will occur when it is made public.

internet to post student evaluations of faculty but that has shortcomings also.

A prof can be the target of a small group of students determined to tarnish or destroy a prof's career purely as a malicious act.

I don't know the solution but a really good dean, comfortable in that position and respected by the faculty can help in many cases.

A dean serves three constituencies, the president of a college, the faculty in her/his school, and the students in that school.

Those are conflicting groups in the best of times and impossible to deal with quite often.

Most deans don't last but a few years before moving on to other challenges.

and was given a curt "we've had complaints about this professor before and found them to be unfounded. We'll look into it....." :chuck into the waste bin:

As far as TV, newspapers.....frankly, I didn't want my grade to suffer any more than it already was. I, and others I talked to, feared retaliation. I *am* a female, remember, taking a class that he felt women had no business taking and that damn Title IX and Affirmative Action, putting the lesser proles into his class for high thinking males....pshaw.

Although in the end it may have been worth it--I got a 1.7 in the class and it was the only class in my history of college that I ever failed. The odds were stacked against me---no matter how much I wanted to prove him wrong, that women COULD take and succeed in a logic class, I failed and proved him right---even though the odds were stacked against me. No questions were answered in class, never there for after-hour office sessions, subjective test grading that never favoured his least-liked students......

I was far too busy with the other 5 or so classes i was taking to bother myself with that man. Would it have been right and just for me to take it further? Absolutely. I had neither the time nor the inclination to do it, though, and I have a feeling that because he'd had tenure for 20-something years or whatever, it would have done a fat lick of good in the end, anyways.