How To Complain To A Dean - Tumblr Posts
I'm sorry, professor, I consider publishing your course a day late, having a mandatory live zoom meeting during business hours to stay enrolled for an asynchronous class, and requiring students to use a $60 ***pdf*** that you wrote as their textbook to be exceptionally unprofessional and since I've still got 14 days to get a refund I'm totally not paying $150 to take your class.
Also, for all the newbie professors out there: a syllabus is not just a greeting and a list of assignments. If you haven't given your students AT LEAST your office hours, your late work policy, and your preferred method of being contacted, then you have not given your students a syllabus it's just sparkling announcements.
But really. Sir. SIR. You teach Speech 100. This is one of the most basic classes with like, 20 of the most widely available accepted textbooks and you want me to pay sixty dollars for a pdf of a book that you rewrite every semester so that there are no previous editions?
Buddy this is interpersonal communication, not introductory rhetoric. Why is one of your *four* total assignments about Socrates?
Maybe it's the fact that I've taken Spch 100 interpersonal communication three times already, maybe it's the fact that I grew up with somebody who taught Spch 100 interpersonal communication from 1981 to 2018, but buddy what the fuck are you doing?
"Some of our lectures will only be available for 24 hours so it is up to you to stay on top of it."
Friend, you are teaching an asynchronous online 100-level class at a community college during a pandemic. Get off your high horse, a third of your students are probably parents. There is no reason whatsoever to limit access to course materials to 24 hours unless you are doing it to be a controlling asshole.
Also YOU published your class a day and a half late! You don't get to publish your class late with an incomplete syllabus and tell students to "stay on top of it." Especially not since that means that people have two fewer days to buy your PDF textbook and only one full day to prepare for your mandatory 1pm on a Tuesday zoom meeting!
Why do you require me to have access to a printer for an online class? Oh yeah it's because you expect me to print out and draw on sections of your $60 ebook.
SIR. No thank you.
Kids, new students: this is a level of bullshit and disorganization from a professor that you do not have to put up with. This is a neatly ordered series of red flags that say "this professor is going to be absolutely unbearable."
Also *any* humanities class where your whole grade is 4 assignments should get serious side-eye. You should be able to pass most 100 level humanities classes by just turning in weekly assignments. 4 assignments means that by the time you figure out how the professor grades you're probably close to halfway through the class. Look for classes that require weekly participation as a major chunk of the grade because that way, even if you fuck up a project in a major way, just showing up can save your ass.