University Etiquette

[Mopsy428]

I've seen lawyers do that (talk non-stop) for CLE courses. Look, I'm definitely on the side of getting rid of CLEs. I hate going to them, and I think they are the biggest wastes of money on the planet. However, suck it up; pretend to listen, and just.stop.talking! One presenter walked over to two lawyers who were talking, stood in front of them, and finished his presentation while standing up against their desks. I hope they learned their lesson! They were so disruptive.

[Garden Goblin]

If we have a team meeting over the phone on Wednesday and decide Person A is doing part 1, Person B is doing part 2, and Person C is doing part 3, and all parts are due on Sunday at 5pm:

1pm on Sunday is not the time for Person C to decide she'd rather team up with Person B on part 2 and leave Person A to do parts 1 and 3.  The correct response to Person A's objection isn't 'well you should check the team forum more often to see if there are changes' and completely denying what was said in the verbal meeting.  Person A is not being mean if she then states that all future communication is to take place in a manner the provides a written record and that all changes must be agreed upon by Friday by all people the change affects.

It is especially absurd to tell Person A that 'well in the business/classroom it works like...' when Persons B and C are first time students who have never actually worked in a 'business setting' and Person A has a decade of experience and just finished up another degree at the same institution.  It makes Person A cranky. 

[snowdragon]

Do not walk into a test of any type and start talking to the professor about your paper, due in a half hour. It's not the fault of the 30 other students who are taking the test right NOW. When the prof tells you to leave don't further disturb the class with your protests about how you need to get this done. Really - not the student's problem.

Do not think that because you had a class in a room that it's yours during exam week unless you are taking an exam at that time. Exams are not always given in the same room as the class and you don't come first over students who are scheduled to be there...no I don't care that you're studying and their oral exam is disturbing you. They are where they are supposed to be.
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Do not come to hand in your paper with out it formatted the way the prof stated,,,if she wants it in a manilla envelope, in MLA format don't do it in APA and in a folder with kittens on it.

For the Profs:

 Don't steal your student's work and donate it to an archive in your name. It's not your work.

 Don't try to start a race war, the results won't be pretty.  Discussing race issues may be germane to the class but calling your white students, "slave owners",, telling them that they are all guilty of being racist because they are white and that they all live in X area and believe Y is not something you could know and will make them very angry. When the black students tell you that you are way out of line, ask you if you even "like white people" and tell you that you are causing race issues on campus - dial it back several notches.

Don't share your favorite positions ( yes THAT , type) with your entire class, statements like "It doesn't matter how I get it, as long as I get it" , calling women the W word for women who are employed at night,,, ain't cool and screaming at some one to shut the F-word up when they protest is unprofessional, rude and sick. Really, you lost yourself a lot of respect doing that.

[Black Delphinium]

Just a lot of respect? Not his or her job?

[cabbagegirl28]

*majorfacepalm* at the offensive prof in snowdragon's post. That guy should be fired.

If the girls next to me don't stop slamming their door loud enough to shake the adjoining wall and give me a major tension headache, I'm going to the RA. It's 24-hour quiet hours, which means no talking or unnecessary noise in the dorm room or lounges unless it's 7-9 p.m. It was 11 at night last night when they were doing this, and I have an Abnormal Psychology exam today.
At least their fine will be going to charity (I think the local food bank).

[snowdragon]

Just a lot of respect? Not his or her job?

Tenure is a "wonderful" thing. He's been reported to everyone who would listen, but beyond that I don't know what the consequences were.

[AnnaJ]

Just a lot of respect? Not his or her job?

Tenure is a "wonderful" thing. He's been reported to everyone who would listen, but beyond that I don't know what the consequences were.

Tenure is not at fault here, it's the administration.  Tenured faculty can, and have been, fired at every university I know. 

From what you have said about this person, my suspicion is that this professor is a member of a minority group; if so, very likely the school's administration is reluctant to fire him/her for fear of bad publicity. If this person refers to white students in class as "slave owners" they will certainly be vocal about it if their job is in jeopardy.

Tenure is something faculty earn in college/university (I'm not too familiar with the process in K-12), and it can be dingdangity hard to earn.  I have seen cases where administration has granted tenure over the objections of the faculty, but that puts the blame squarely back where it belongs, on administration.     

[violinp]

Just a lot of respect? Not his or her job?

Tenure is a "wonderful" thing. He's been reported to everyone who would listen, but beyond that I don't know what the consequences were.

Tenure is not at fault here, it's the administration.  Tenured faculty can, and have been, fired at every university I know. 

From what you have said about this person, my suspicion is that this professor is a member of a minority group; if so, very likely the school's administration is reluctant to fire him/her for fear of bad publicity. If this person refers to white students in class as "slave owners" they will certainly be vocal about it if their job is in jeopardy.

Tenure is something faculty earn in college/university (I'm not too familiar with the process in K-12), and it can be dingdangity hard to earn.  I have seen cases where administration has granted tenure over the objections of the faculty, but that puts the blame squarely back where it belongs, on administration.   

Exactly. The administration at my old school allows a teacher to talk in graphic description about her sex life to her students to embarrass them, to tell other students' grades, and several other rather atrocious things, and then just throw up their hands and say, "She refuses to leave when we tell her to leave." Then call the cops to take her away, numbskulls! Frankly, she should've been quietly let go after a student who happened to live near her went over for a cup of sugar and the prof answered the door in nothing but bubblewrap, because that could have been potentially VERY embarrassing and detrimental to the numbers of students coming to the college - who wants to be taught by a person like that?

[AnnaJ]

As fall classes are about to begin...read the syllabus.  If you want to know whether or not the professor takes attendance, read the syllabus.  If you want to know her/his policy about extra credit, read the syllabus.  If you want to know if the final is cumulative, read the syllabus.  If the answer isn't in the syllabus, then ask the professor.

Asking questions that are answered in the syllabus is rude - we don't write them for our own amusement, we write them so that you, the student, have access to information that is important to your success in the class.  We do want you to do well, but our confidence in your abilities is shaken when we realize you haven't bothered to do the most basic task. 

[PastryGoddess]

Also, I just left the computer lab. I had to wait 30 minutes to print out 3 pages because the one printer was busy printing out a freakin' textbook or something for one person. The limit of printed pages is 20, so I don't know how she got away printing off two inches of stacked paper. Everyone in the lab was upset and late to their next class but she offered no apologies other than "I didn't know it would take so long!" Really? Printing off 500 pages didn't shock you or help you understand it would be inconsiderate to print it all at once?

I learned how to use the cancel job function on the printer because of people like that.

[snowdragon]

Your fellow students do not owe you their notes. I don't care what the circumstances are behind your demand. Having what ever office takes care of needs like this ask ONCE is ok. But if no one responds - getting your classmates emails and sending 6 demands for notes stating "It's my right to have this done" will not endear you or make anyone more willing to help you.

  the school may have to provide you with a means to get notes,that does not mean your classmates are obligated to turn of theirs on demand. It may mean that your professor hands you notes - or a note taker who is not a student may be hired.

[snowdragon]

If the location of the course is changed --tell the students via email or other official channels but letting students sit in the posted room and wonder where you are - is rude.

[MrTango]

Instructors: Do not expect students to have already completed some bit of reading when they show up for the first class.  There are two problems with this:

1) We don't have the sylabus yet, so how are we supposed to know what to read?
2) The bookstore doesn't accurately indicate which materials are required vs. optional.

My personal rule was that until I had a syllabus in hand, I would not purchase any books for the course.  There were far too many times where a book was listed by the bookstore as "required" for a given course but then the actual syllabus wouldn't even mention that book.

[Library Dragon]

Instructors: Do not expect students to have already completed some bit of reading when they show up for the first class.  There are two problems with this:

1) We don't have the sylabus yet, so how are we supposed to know what to read?
2) The bookstore doesn't accurately indicate which materials are required vs. optional.

My personal rule was that until I had a syllabus in hand, I would not purchase any books for the course.  There were far too many times where a book was listed by the bookstore as "required" for a given course but then the actual syllabus wouldn't even mention that book.

POD

Sometimes the students haven't been able to even purchase the textbooks.  This happened to me, it's also happening to one of our library aides.  The college bookstore doesn't have any more of textbook A and the off campus bookstore doesn't have it.  She had to order a copy online and is hoping it arrives soon.

[cwm]

Another note to instructors: If you're going to require reading from a book that's out of print, the class is grateful when you bring in printouts of what we're supposed to read. But if you forget to bring the printouts and you know that neither the school library nor the local library actually have any copies of the book, please make a small note to remind yourself that it was literally not possible for the class to do the reading. Especially when you, as the instructor, have no open office hours between the class period you forget the handouts and the class period we're expected to have read them.

Yes, this happened. Luckily I'd found a copy of the book on eBay and a few of my classmates lived in the dorms with me and could read it, but she tried to take participation points away from most of the class. We all had to remind her quite vocally that we didn't actually get the readings, we couldn't have read them. She finally remembered, after arguing with us for nearly twenty minutes, that her printer HAD been broken last Tuesday and they hadn't fixed it until early Thursday and oh yeah, she didn't give us the readings because she didn't have time to stop by the library to get everything printed.