Favorite student emails

[FishProf]

As requested.

Summer classes started today.  Mine were all cancelled 2 weeks ago for low enrollment.  But yesterday....

"Good morning this is [Stu]
I enrolled in your class for summer one and I know that Monday is our first class, but I'm having issues signing in. I am curious to know if we are going to use Google classroom I would like to receive the code, please and the code for my Google meet as well. and I would also like to know what time the class will be starting on Monday

Sincerely, [Stu]"

I could have just said "all my classes are cancelled" but I wanted to be a little more helpful and point [Stu] in the direction of a suitable alternative, so I asked "which class?"

"I'm pretty sure it's the course that you're having today that's all I remember because it starts on the 19th and it's a [baskets] course"

At that point, I said all my classes were cancelled.  I can't help this one...

[MarathonRunner]

I do thank you for your financial sacrifice here.   I confess I had never given much thought to how these fora were financed, given that of course the Chronicle paid for everything in the old ones.  I assume you are buying access to some server or ISP, issues about which I also confess I know next to nothing.

I do not know as little about higher ed as you think I do.   I confess it has been a few years since I have worked for a higher ed institution.  It has been far longer since I worked for a k12 one, but (although I do have more overall k12 experience in any case), my knowledge of that aspect of ed is even greater.   And, of course, I also have an MLS, and academic experience teaching four separate classes at the uni level, as well as two of these and five others as well at the k12 level, as well as three more working for a senior citizen foundation, experience as a professional tutor, and experience working with homeschoolers.   No one here, at least no one who posts with anything like regularity, has anything remotely resembling this.

You may well be right about physical therapy education and professional standards.   I will ask my PT Tuesday, as I said.   But as I also said, I will take her word over yours.  And I still think she should be called doctor, but that may well be a generational/ New England thing on my part.

Four separate courses? LOL. That's nothing. I'm in my first year on the tenure track and have already taught seven separate courses. Yes, all new preps. This Spring semester, thankfully I'm not teaching a new prep as I taught the same course previously as a sessional. (Canada does fall, winter, spring/summer semesters at most unis.)

[kaysixteen]

No, as I said earlier today, for courses, read 'subjects'.  At five different institutions of higher ed and five separate hss-- sadly three of thes institutions, including one college, went belly-up.  It is simply world upon world harder to obtain (even near-) permanent employment at any sort of place, esp in higher ed, as a classicist, than as any sort of STEM person.

It was also mentioned just how important, and generally lengthy, to the goal of getting a tt position in STEM in, to serve a postdoc, without which an academic science career is apparently DOA.  I did not know these were now generally around four years in length, but apparently they are... making the total average time for PhD plus postdoc just a little longer than the average time nowadays for a humanities PhD. So I will acknowledge that ultimately these things, the two respective PhDs, are more or less equivalent.  It was further also mentioned, moreover, that many STEM PhDs never obtain a ft tt position, like a far greater percentage of humanities ones.   But unlike the latter, many of those scientists never sought one, even entered their grad school days never intending to do so.  It is of course not just postdocs that are largely unavailable (certainly not four year ones), and never needed, by, humanities PhDs-- in the vast majority of humanities PhD fields, nonacademic options for PhDs are all but nonexistent, and severe job prejudice against such PhDs in regular fields of employment is also very very common.

[eigen]

I didn't do a postdoc. Have now been tenured. Am in STEM. They're common, but not a strict requirement for employment. The more prestigious the institution, the more common they are. But this is not just the case for STEM. Humanities postdocs are getting more common, and in STEM parlance a visiting position between a PhD and a permanent position would be a postdoctoral position, since it's temporary and in a short period post finishing your PhD. Postdocs are also not common at all in math (the M of STEM) or in CS/DS (much of the T of STEM).

I suspect you're also exaggerating time to degree: when I look at my junior colleges (our recent hires) across humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, math, etc. they're all pretty similar time spans and pretty similar experiences: independent research leading to unique findings in your field that contribute to the knowledge in that field as assessed by a panel of faculty and written up in a dissertation. The data, at least through 2020, suggests that there's about a year difference in averages, which is pretty negligible. https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/years-attainment-humanities-doctorate#31636. It also suggests that humanities grad programs require more coursework,  but have a similar time spent on dissertation.

I think you're also overstating the prejudice against PhDs outside of academia. I know plenty of friends with humanities degrees who have pivoted and are quite successful.

[the_geneticist]

And back to our student email content.

Got this one last night

Hello, could I take the [baskets] quiz at the [testing center] tomorrow please? I have an exam right before my discussion so I can take it at the [testing center] instead. Thank you again, this is [stu]

Stu is trying to be helpful (I'll be there already!), but doesn't realize the testing center folks need 1 week notice & I'd have to send them the quiz.

[fishbrains]

Technically an email about a student, but a secretary in student services just asked if I knew why a student who filed a (BS) grade appeal isn't answering their email to set the date.

My deleted responses:

• How the f*ck would I know?
• Why the f*ck would I care?
• Why else do you think this students was failing when they used AI on that essay?
• Why the hell do you think I would help with this?

Actual response: "No." She's just doing her job. But a little irritating nonetheless.

[Minervabird]

To cut down on student email traffic, I tried one year posting the top twenty FAQs about the class on Blackboard. At the end of it, I said...if you have read this far, contact me, and if you are the first to notice my message, I'll give you 5 points extra credit.  I also told the students to read the FAQs first before emailing me.

It took about a week into term for a student to email me for the points, so not too bad.  When I would get a email query that was on the FAQs, I said...answer on the FAQs. It worked very well.

In the UK, we have second marking. So basically the instructor grades the papers, and then a second market takes a look at a proportion of them, and a mark is agreed with documentation why. We do this for more major assignments. There is an external examiner from another institution who comes in every year, and looks at the marks and classes and makes recommendations about consistency of grading, etc.  we agree grades and then this is ratified at exam board. This is more work, but it sure cuts down on student complaints about grades. The students' work is looked at twice, and sometimes three times.

[apl68]

As requested.

Summer classes started today.  Mine were all cancelled 2 weeks ago for low enrollment.  But yesterday....

"Good morning this is [Stu]
I enrolled in your class for summer one and I know that Monday is our first class, but I'm having issues signing in. I am curious to know if we are going to use Google classroom I would like to receive the code, please and the code for my Google meet as well. and I would also like to know what time the class will be starting on Monday

Sincerely, [Stu]"

I could have just said "all my classes are cancelled" but I wanted to be a little more helpful and point [Stu] in the direction of a suitable alternative, so I asked "which class?"

"I'm pretty sure it's the course that you're having today that's all I remember because it starts on the 19th and it's a [baskets] course"

At that point, I said all my classes were cancelled.  I can't help this one...

Students who think they graduated when they actually didn't...students who think they're in a course that's actually cancelled....  Sounds like some of them are in dire straits in one form or another.

[the_geneticist]

Technically an email about a student, but a secretary in student services just asked if I knew why a student who filed a (BS) grade appeal isn't answering their email to set the date.

My deleted responses:

• How the f*ck would I know?
• Why the f*ck would I care?
• Why else do you think this students was failing when they used AI on that essay?
• Why the hell do you think I would help with this?

Actual response: "No." She's just doing her job. But a little irritating nonetheless.

I know if your place is like others, they have to make a good faith effort to allow the student to talk with the conduct folks.

But, really?

You've done your part, they need to do theirs.

[fishbrains]

Technically an email about a student, but a secretary in student services just asked if I knew why a student who filed a (BS) grade appeal isn't answering their email to set the date.

My deleted responses:

• How the f*ck would I know?
• Why the f*ck would I care?
• Why else do you think this students was failing when they used AI on that essay?
• Why the hell do you think I would help with this?

Actual response: "No." She's just doing her job. But a little irritating nonetheless.

I know if your place is like others, they have to make a good faith effort to allow the student to talk with the conduct folks.

But, really?

You've done your part, they need to do theirs.

Yeah, they're training to be a kinder, gentler student affairs group. Probably don't need my sarcasm.

[kaysixteen]

The 'second marker' who is a prof at the same uni as the course professor, is the #2 also a full, or otherwise equivalently-ranked, member of the same dept?  I ask because offhand I know of no American institution of higher learning which does this, and am wondering whether, for all the lighthearted whining some people here do at semesters' (sic) end, regularly, almost like clockwork, methinks that, perhaps, deep down, many professors here, even low-paid and often-overworked, professors here would perhaps mostly be loathe to cede to another colleague the sole grade-issuing authority for their courses, which is an aspect of American professordom's (effective) understanding of 'academic freedom', at least in most circumstances (I would count myself in this class).  It is also true that many professors, at least those steeped in the SLAC tradition (which has a strong interplay with the k12 boarding school tradition, btw) actually *like* grading, esp grading of papers where the professor has the  opportunity to red-ink the ying-yang out of the paper, making oodles of useful remarks to the student.

[eigen]

We do dual reads for theses, but no other course grades.

It is also true that many professors, at least those steeped in the SLAC tradition (which has a strong interplay with the k12 boarding school tradition, btw) actually *like* grading, esp grading of papers where the professor has the  opportunity to red-ink the ying-yang out of the paper, making oodles of useful remarks to the student.

As a SLAC professor, I don't know a single colleague who would say they like grading. In fact, a now retired mentor was well known for saying "I'd probably teach and do my research for free, it's the grading they pay me for".

This is especially true for paper grading, across all fields at my current SLAC.

[kaysixteen]

Yes, second readings for theses and dissertations.  Probably three readings for some of these, esp dissertations where at least three would likely be standard.

You are also probably correct about your colleagues' attitude towards esp paper grading noaways.  Remind me what your school's course load is?

[eigen]

We're 2/3 or 3/3 depending.

[kaysixteen]

Hmmm... almost as soon as I got what I thought was a brilliant insight wrt why it might be that you and your colleagues dislike grading, namely that you might have to teach a whole lot of classes and/or students each semester, it dawned on me that the answer might also perhaps be that you do not have to do this.... because you have instead seen an R1-ization of your school, reducing, perhaps sharply reducing, teaching loads at the cost of an enormous increase, relative to say before the 80s or early 90s, in institutional research expectations placed on faculty, esp STEM fac, who are also expected to scare up grants (something that was not an expectation of your slac fac in your grandparents' era. 

I will make one more rhetorical observation here for now:  what do you think it says that uni faculty, now including slac fac, generally use the academese phrase 'course load', to refer to faculty teaching expectations?