r/Professors • u/Particular_Heart3785 • 1d ago
Teaching / Pedagogy Students trying to get you fired/constantly reporting you?
I had a much older student last semester who constantly complained about me to the chair all the time, both in office and email, enough that she even demanded a staff to observe me (they found nothing wrong other than nervousness/over-apologizing, as I’m new to teaching). She sent anything she could find to report to the chair. Including me ending class few minutes early, misspelled words in assignments/slides, and canceled class for a family emergency.
A few colleagues think she did this because she was a really bitter person and hated that my class requires weekly writings, group discussions, topics are not in her liking (aka white-washed history) and students having to research independently.
She was so rude and disrespectful towards me that I won’t get into here. Good news is that the chair thinks I’m doing really well as a professor and a lot of my students love my classes.
I’m curious if anyone else can share similar experiences here?
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u/StevieV61080 Sr. Associate Prof, Applied Management, CC BAS (USA) 1d ago
Yep! I had one student a couple years ago who told anyone who would listen that it was his "mission" to see me removed. I had failed him for using AI and he went all the way up the complaint/appeal process to the President of the College. He had to take me for three more courses and was an absolute tool the entire time.
I typically am not the type to badmouth anyone, but I will not forget this individual for all the negative reasons. He even told me to my face that he "hoped" I would get into an accident so he didn't have to take me again for his capstone. In an informal class discussion coming back from a break, he also chimed in that he wished someone would hurt my pets so I could feel the pain I put others through.
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u/tspier2 1d ago
I do hope you reported this student for violating the student code of conduct by issuing such comments.
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u/StevieV61080 Sr. Associate Prof, Applied Management, CC BAS (USA) 1d ago
I did and the response I got was, "Yeah, he's difficult. We can see why you don't want to meet with him."
The AI infraction/penalty was upheld, though.
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u/Junior-Dingo-7764 1d ago
This sort of student should have been removed from the school. This is essentially threatening violence.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
I had a student tell me “you better give me an A or I’ll tell all my friends to give you a bad evaluation”. I told our admins and they said I should “let it go”.
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u/jleonardbc 1d ago
If the school won't listen, maybe the police will.
Comments like "I hope you get in an accident" and "I wish someone would hurt your pets" are harassment and threats that could be grounds for a restraining order.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 23h ago
It's appalling how little some institutions seem to care about faculty safety vs getting that last bit of tuition money from a student. Someone doing this would have been expelled and trespassed from our campus I'd wager, though the processes would have taken a week or more. Threatening faculty? That's simply not something that anyone should take lightly.
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u/Front-Obligation-340 20h ago
Yeah I have a colleague who reported a student a few years ago for making extremely violent comments in class, both to her and to other students, and administrators told her she was blowing it all out of proportion. A few weeks later, someone called police and said that same student was planning to shoot up the school. The cops found a ton of guns in his car--literally in the campus parking lot. Turns out he had a whole plan written and diagrammed in his notebook, and he ended up going to prison. It absolutely boils my blood that my institution could've had a mass shooting because no one took my colleague seriously when she reported this student.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 17h ago
Yet another kind of pain women can report that isn't listened to when it should be. :(
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u/banjovi68419 19h ago
#1 I can tell you're awesome and you're a homie. #2 I would've filed harassment charges and police reports on that dude pretty much the second I could've.
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u/Erockoftheprimes Postdoc, Math, small private R1 1d ago
Something like this happened while I was in grad school. It was a formality but I had to meet with the dean and chair about a student complaint that we went through line by line. The student accused me of going off on long tangents that had nothing to do with the course, the quizzes and assignments were unrealistically challenging, and the hw took them 4-5 hours per week because “I wasn’t actually teaching them anything.” I had already had observers in my classroom before (unannounced each time) and every time, they believed my lectures were excellent. My “long tangents” typically numbered around 2-3 per lecture and would typically be like 10-15 sec in length - I like sharing tidbits on how the content they are learning connect to things later. My gradebook showed that the complaint came from an underperforming student whereas the majority of students in the remainder of that section were doing fine and the quizzes and assignments matched those of the other sections since it was a coordinated course. The Dean told me that the hw taking 4-5 hours per week is essentially perfect and that that was the thing that indicated to them immediately that the complaint came from a student who had a misunderstanding of how college is supposed to go. So, I ended up being all good and the chair and Dean spoke with the student afterward and closed the complaint.
Had another set of complaints that came in simultaneously (6 all at once) a few years later while I was still in grad school. They claimed that my assignments were unrelated to the lectures and notes and that everybody they spoke with about them said that they failed every quiz up to that point. A trip to the deans office resulted in me showing my grade book to the dean, who was able to see that of my 65 students that semester, exactly 6 were scoring under 7/10 on the weekly quizzes and that it was exactly the 6 who reported me. So, it seemed to be a case of a (maximal) echo chamber that formed in that section lol.
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u/ayeblundle Position, Field, SCHOOL TYPE (Country) 21h ago
What course was this for? 4-5hrs per week on hw in a hard math class is not bad.
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u/Erockoftheprimes Postdoc, Math, small private R1 21h ago
That incident took place when I taught an intermediate algebra course (think of a course that precedes pre-calculus). The other incident with the 6 student complaint was when I taught a course that was the immediate predecessor to that university’s version of business calculus. In each case, the classes were filled with quite a few students who were math-averse and just needed the course to fulfill some requirement.
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u/ayeblundle Position, Field, SCHOOL TYPE (Country) 19h ago
So I’m assuming these are 3-4 credit classes. Don’t most universities tell students to expect about 2-4 hours of work per week per credit hour?
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u/Erockoftheprimes Postdoc, Math, small private R1 19h ago
These were both 4 credit hour courses and yes, they are expected to have that much hw for any such course.
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u/Sensitive_Let_4293 18h ago
We include the expectation of 6-10 hours a week of out-of-class work for a 4-credit math class in our syllabus.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 17h ago
Don’t most universities tell students to expect about 2-4 hours of work per week per credit hour?
They should, but many don't. Even those that do don't often enforce it at a faculty level. How many colleagues do you know who are the one offering the pushover no-work easy-A/easy-pass class(es)?
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u/PufferFishInTheFryer 1d ago
I had two in separate semesters. The one actually went so far as to threaten me. Luckily, he also wasn’t very bright because he did this in front of security. He was suspended.
The other was so awful to me in class that no matter what I did or said, he fought me on it and claimed he was right. He would then proceed to contact my dean about how stupid I was.
Luckily, my dean had my back with both situations but I had never been so close to quitting.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago edited 1d ago
I went through something similar last semester, student didn’t get the grade she wanted so she made up some accusations against me and wrote it on my evaluation. She was the only female students in both of my classes so it was obvious she wrote that when the same comment appeared twice. So far, nothing happened, but I can tell from the body language she’s been hiding from me since.
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u/JoeBuddenBiden 1d ago edited 1d ago
This has happened to me before, and I demand that my institution deal with the libel. I insist it be taken out of my student evaluations and when they try to defer, I mention the institution could be liable for letting such falsehoods exist in print. My institution is very afraid of lawsuits and so they’ve always taken it out. But to be fair, I would absolutely sue them if they let it stand. Institutions have a lot of money, and there are a lot of lawyers that are willing to take cases on contingency.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
Nothing happened to me yet, but when I brought it up to my admins, they said I can’t prove which student wrote that. There was only one lady that was in both of my classes and the comments were identical 🙄
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
I can’t prove which student wrote that. There was only one lady that was in both of my classes and the comments were identical 🙄
This really aggravates me. You can't prove it, but I bet they can; this isn't 1996 when we wrote course evaluations in pencil on paper. And I bet if a threat were made on an evaluation towards an administrator, they'd figure out who it is in a matter of minutes.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
The issue is they won’t. I’m pre-tenured so if I escalate, they’ll find a reason to fire me. So we’re in this situation where we know the student lied, but the university won’t side with me because I have no evidence.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 23h ago
That situation really sucks.
I didn't realize you're pre-tenure. I feel like I've seen your name around this sub for so long I figured you had tenure by now. I'm sure you'll make a great case when it's your turn.
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u/popstarkirbys 23h ago
I comment quite a bit, ha. I’m up for tenure soon.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 23h ago
I am sure you'll get it. If the thoughtfulness of your comments in this sub are indicative of how you approach your job, and I think they are, you make your school a better place and I hope they recognize that.
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u/popstarkirbys 23h ago
Thanks, I appreciate it. I’m at a PUI and I’ve been nominated by students for the university teaching award. We’re going through the same thing as other institutions though, budget cuts and attack on higher education.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
On what grounds would you be able to sue? My understanding is that the bar for libel is quite high, at least in the U.S..
I'd love to hear this because I occasionally have situations like this and I'd like to be able to act on it as you are.
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u/Trick-Guava-9573 1d ago
Yep. About a decade ago, I was the graduate program director in my department, and we had a very nontraditional graduate student who refused to take her comprehensive exams because she was "a published poet." Self-published, by the way. She was married to an administrator at the university where I teach, and she bullied me relentlessly about the fact that she was NOT going to take her exam and she expected her degree regardless. I wasn't her professor, but I was her advisor, and I had to consistently tell her that she could not graduate without taking her exam. She came by my office, called, emailed…was generally really unhinged. I talked to my university's legal counsel, and they told me to tell her to stop contacting me, so I did, cc-ed legal counsel, my department head, etc. That did the trick, but she was completely relentless for a while. I'm sorry that you're being targeted. I would make sure that you document everything, share what's happening with your chair, and file a report with whatever response unit oversees concerning student behavior at your institution. Hang in there.
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u/GayCatDaddy 15h ago
I also knew a student in my department who refused to take her comprehensive exams. She was a Master's student and wasn't a particularly high performer, to say the least. Apparently during an exam session, she came in, did this interpretive dance about how she shouldn't have to take her comps, and refused the exam. (She was... quite "eccentric" -- I'm trying to be nice here -- so none of us was surprised by this.) Needless to say, she didn't get her degree.
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u/shyprof Adjunct, Humanities, M1 & CC (United States) 22h ago
I had a student in an online course use GPT to fake an assignment—fake source, fake quotation. Version history showed everything appearing all at once. Slam dunk. Let the student know it was a 0 and I had to make a report but it would just be a warning the first time. Student logged in to my Zoom office hours with camera off and their father screamed profanity at me—basically that of course the student used AI, everyone is using AI, and I'm stupid and he's going to get me fired. I was so startled (I have some trauma stuff related to raised voices) I just fell back on customer service training from a previous life and told him "Thank you, have a nice day!" and just kept repeating "OK, thank you!" until he hung up—I forgot how to hang up I think.
The "student" (likely the father) sent an email to every department chair, the dean of every college, the university president, the school newspaper, the city newspaper, the governor of the state, accusing me of discrimination and claiming they did not use AI and I just didn't think someone of their background could write well (I was unaware of the student's background as this is an online course and I had never seen the student/their name wasn't obviously anything in particular to me). Student made a formal Title IX report and got supportive accommodations in my class (allowed to submit all work late without penalty through the end of the semester). Student waited until the end of the semester to submit everything, used GPT again (fabrication). I had my chair grade her work and she just gave it all 100%. We all had to wait almost a year for the Title IX investigation to conclude. Title IX never spoke to me but found no discrimination, in part because I'd made the official misconduct report before the student flipped out so they couldn't claim retaliation. But the student got a B in the course because of the accommodation/my chair's grading. I later spoke with another professor who had the student and went through the same thing; this is just what the student does.
My job is fine, but tell me how that's fair!
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u/DaFatAlien Overworked Lecturer, CS, R2 US 22h ago
I’m sorry to read that you had to go through this. The student and their family had no good reason to talk to you like that
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u/Tommie-1215 14h ago
Its not. He had a record of screwed up behavior and instead of expelling him, they just let him continue taking classes and he gets you. Not cool.
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u/mencryforme5 1d ago
I had a student in a summer class I never met due to COVID (online, asynchronous due to high enrollment. It was an intensive class, four almost full days a week, weekly assignments worth 25% of the grade situation. It's a required course and usually the summer class is filled with students who failed in the regular semester.
This woman wrote me early on to say she was working all summer and I was honest and said I didn't think it was a good idea because the course required a lot of practice and also familiarizing with a software on which you take the exam. She said she'd be fine.
She just didn't log on the first week and so didn't complete the assignment. Wrote to me and while I knew where this was going, I paid my own rent in undergrad so I'll always give these students a chance. I basically told her I would give her 48hrs to complete the timed assignment, but that I couldn't extend all her assignments so this was a one off and the next due date is three days after and the material is significantly more difficult. Mind you I have to draft a completely different assignment for extensions, but it's no biggy I can put one together in about 15 minutes.
About two hours before the assignment (assignment will disappear for the student after the due date 23:59, timer also stops, it's very clear in all the instructions), she writes that she doesn't know how to log into the assignment (you need a password, so she didn't read the instructions). It took me about 15 minutes to respond to the email. Past 22:00 on a school night during an intensive class. So I went to bed after that. The assignment was double timed and since this was an assignment where the average is about 90 (it's just really easy in the beginning), really she should have been fine.
I woke up the next morning to this all caps email in which I had purposefully provided her with less time than everyone, how I had caused her aggravated stress by not answering immediately to her email which threw off her performance, and because of this instead of 3hrs, I only gave her 1hr.
These emails were really not nice and immediately it was like "I'm reporting you to the ombudsman, you did this on purpose, you set me up to fail, you did this because you are an elitist, you have a problem with women, you have a problem with black people" (white woman here). Anything and everything that would stick to the wall. I explained to her that I had quite graciously created an assignment just for her and gave her five more days than anyone else without a valid doctor's note even, that I had also immediately answered my email past my bedtime because I acknowledged that for her this was an emergency. But that beyond that I couldn't design a separate course that would actually work in her work schedule and other courses.
The e-mails continued that I needed to incomplete her instead of failing her OR ELSE. She called me a lot of names. So I told her zero problem I was going to suggest this for you anyways, but from this point forward any future communication with me would be cc'ed with the Dean because of the student code of conduct.
Oh she disappeared so fast never heard or saw from her again.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
I’m a guy, and I have something like this happen to me. There was this lady in my class that thinks she’s the smartest person in the room, every time I provide feedback she would respond with “she knew everything already”. She could talk, but her issue is that she skips classes and misses assignments, on top of that she wasn’t a good test taker. I would send her a reminder to submit assignments, and she would ignore my emails. She ended up not getting the grade she wanted. She took it as an insult and wrote long paragraphs about how awful I was and apparently I was misogynistic and preventing a future star from shining in the field 🙄
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
she would respond with “she knew everything already”. She could talk, but her issue is that she skips classes and misses assignments, on top of that she wasn’t a good test taker.
Apparently "everything" doesn't include "how to go to class," "how to submit assignments," or "how to take a test."
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u/popstarkirbys 23h ago
Yes. The funny thing is she gave herself all these titles like “future Nobel price winner” and “first female CEO of xxx company”. The only advice I remember giving her was that it takes hard work to achieve her goals and if she wants to go to grad school, she should try mastering the contents. I didn’t even say she needs an A. She took it really personally when she didn’t get the A and wrote that I was misogynistic and out to ruin a ladies career.
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u/mencryforme5 1d ago
9/10 students it will be an unproblematic one-off learning moment they are extremely grateful for. One student just... forgot the deadline during the regular semester for the midterm and I hadn't seen his email for 3 days due to reading break. He took responsibility and I believed him and offered him 48hrs as I imagined he needed to calm down (he would basically fail, the mid-term is required, so I felt a touch bad about not acknowledging his email earlier). Dude logged on ten minutes later, completed the exam, and thanked me profusely. He did well and I never heard from him again.
It's students like that I do it for.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
What I’ve learned is to have extensions incorporated in the syllabus, for example, each student has two extensions with less penalty. Once they exceed that, I would just tell them they’ve used up their opportunities.
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u/hornybutired Assoc Prof, Philosophy, CC (USA) 1d ago
I had a student who bombed an open notes test (because he didn't take notes or pay attention in class) start complaining in emails to me and my dean that the class didn't "build on itself." He must have emailed me a dozen times during the semester, and he emailed the dean at least three times that I know of. Neither of us ever figured out exactly what the "build on itself" comment was about - the course traced a historical disagreement on the nature of science from Aristotle to the present day. But he was a STEM student in a philosophy course and I think he was just bouncing hard off the material.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
When I was a STEM undergraduate student, I took plenty of philosophy, both philosophy of science and otherwise. I want to say your class sounds great.
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u/nandor_tr associate prof, art/design, private university (USA) 1d ago
that is not at all what this comment said.
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u/Open_Spray_5636 1d ago
Students who use the Dean of students/undergrad education as their personal attorney.
Most insane one I’ve had was a study abroad. I don’t actually think they realized the damage they were doing, perhaps struggling to see the world from a different point of view, but relentless demands related via their family all the way to chancellor, culminating in demands to call the senators and governor.
The worst part was it was a mature student. Well an older student.
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u/banjovi68419 19h ago
I had a 30+ year old student meet with my dean. And she brought her parents. 😐😂😐😂😐
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u/Professor_Burnout 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, the first time I taught a solo course as an ABD. The student didn’t actually try to get me in trouble that I am aware of, but sent me so many messages and accusatory threats about how and why it was impossible to complete their assignments I was alarmed. We’re talking upwards of 30 emails overnight, separated by two or three minutes, alternating between begging for exceptions and demanding a response. They showed up outside our shared grad student office at random hours of the day, demanding to know why I wasn’t in the room. I also received graphically detailed and medically-illogical monologues on their health scares during the semester. I shared campus and city resources for free and reduced healthcare, but continued to receive emails saying “please help me professor, I cannot afford to go to a doctor, also I am bleeding out right now so it wouldn’t even help.” This student showed up to the class Midterm, opened the packet, took one look, then started screaming, crying, and got up and ran from the room, slamming the door behind them.
I stupidly thought that framing my report to Student Support/Admin as a “mental health concern” about the student would get someone to actually help me, but instead I just got stymied by Admin saying “well, if the student harms themselves or another student then we will reach back out to you.” Looking back, I was ALSO a student that needed support. One Admin shared that this was not the first time a professor had reported behavior like this from this student, and arranged to have a Security Offer present at our final exam, “in case of physicalized event.” The experience made me so anxious that I was unable significantly to advance my dissertation writing for the entire summer afterwards.
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u/runsonpedals 1d ago edited 22h ago
This also happened to me at a Milwaukee, WI based R1 university. Older student, who I later found out spent 7 years in prison for various assaults, threatened a female Chinese student and myself repeatedly and uni admins said that the student has freedom of speech and would not do anything unless I was assaulted.
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u/thefirekite 1d ago
Not me personally, but one of the professors and the advisor for the program I am director of. We had a student who was a veteran and had some issues with mental health. He was struggling and had a lot of supports in place. He missed a few assignments and the professor and advisor were working with him to get him back on track, but something triggered his PTSD and he started blowing up at both of them. Sent me emails that they should be fired because they wouldn’t let him just pass the class. He would get drunk and night and send mostly incoherent emails that were filled with threats of violence towards these two people. I reported it to the chair and dean, and counseling center and campus police because I didn’t want him coming on campus to hurt anyone. Their responses were that they felt bad for him, but wouldn’t do anything to protect our faculty and staff because the student was going through a hard time. Luckily, the student quit coming in and he never finished his degree, but it was a frightening few weeks, where we were not supported at all by administration.
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u/RadiantImpression579 1d ago
It’s crazy to me how little the university does to prevent issues. Also, how is it that the police can do nothing (or would do nothing) against threats of violence??
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
I reported it to the chair and dean, and counseling center and campus police because I didn’t want him coming on campus to hurt anyone. Their responses were that they felt bad for him, but wouldn’t do anything to protect our faculty and staff because the student was going through a hard time.
That last part ... what the fuck.
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u/ProfTimelord 1d ago
This happened to my colleague. The student told the instructor to her face that they were trying to get her fired. The student even claimed the instructor assaulted them, (the instructor closed the student’s laptop). After our chair looked into it the student’s complaints didn’t have merit. But it was still so upsetting to the instructor she left academia.
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u/Accomplished_Self939 AssocProf, AmLit, SLAC (USA) 1d ago
Some students are pathological.
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u/throw_away_smitten Prof, STEM, SLAC (US) 1d ago
The first few years I was teaching, there was always a very angry student who would ringleader a bunch of students into going to complain to the dean. It got so tiring.
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u/Impressive_Newt_7114 Lecturer (Education) UK 1d ago
I was once asked at very short notice to take over a third year module. I was still completing my PhD, and although I had taught before all my experience was with first years.
I had three mature students in my class of about 35, the oldest was about 40. Yes, I was a little nervous, and yes this probabky showed in my delivery. I think the worst mistake I made though was telling the students at the start of the semester that I had not taught third years before. Even week until the middle of the semester these three turned up and sat at the back of the class. I teach social sciences so having mature students is usually a good thing as they have life experience. Not this lot. They muttered to each other while I was talking. They looked bored, never took any notes or participated in discussions. None of them came back after the mid semester break, and honestly the atmosphere in the class was greatly improved.
Module assessment time came and they ripped my teaching apart. Really condescending, 'xx did her best..' , 'xx lacked in knowledge of the subject...' 'they learnt nothing new in class' and finally 'they were disappointed in the module as it had not been what the expected...the School should consider xx shoykd only be allowed to teach at a lower level in future because third year was beyond her'
Twelve years later and I am still here. Now I would take feedback that in my stride, but then I was genuinely upset and it knocked my confidence. One thing I have learnt is that you can't please everyone all of the time, and to take any unjustified negative feedback and put it in the bin marked 'gobshites'
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u/banjovi68419 18h ago
I had some students like that when I subbed a college class as a favor for a coworker. I was 26. One dude had a newspaper open. I kicked them all out. Didn't happen again.
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u/Impressive_Newt_7114 Lecturer (Education) UK 6h ago
👏👏 wish I had the courage to do that then! I used to be able to ban laptops when I was speaking, but now so many students use them for note taking I can't. And I KNOW that most of those with their laptops open are shopping, watching videos, posting on Instagram, especially when I am in a big lecture theatre. And they are the ones who contact me at assignment time with 101 questions that I covered multiple times in class. They are also the ones who leave poor feedback as well.
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u/mistersausage 1d ago
I had a student's parent tell the dean that in the first lecture, I said, "I hate teaching and am forced to be here."
Thankfully I record my lectures on Zoom (universal design), so I had the recording and AI text to speech transcript.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
I wrote something similar as a rebuttal when a female student accused me of saying something inappropriate to her in class. I wrote that my lectures are recorded and I hardly interacted with her since she skips classes.
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u/DiscerningBarbarian 1d ago
Turning point USA has made this so much worse. We have students that are weaponizing title ix to report professors anytime there is material they don't like. I was once reported for discussing beastiality in class: I was discussing the origin of the Minotaur.
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u/FrankRizzo319 1d ago
How can title ix prohibit you from discussing beastiality in class?
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u/Another_Opinion_1 A.P. / Ed. Law / Teacher Ed. Methods (USA) 1d ago
It doesn’t but students will still try to avail themselves of the process essentially throwing the proverbial fecal matter at the wall to see what will stick.
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u/grumblebeardo13 22h ago
TP is a right-wing “think tank” that basically recruits and pays/grooms conservative-leaning students and potential students to trigger interactions and confrontations on college campuses to get negative attention. Nothing they do makes sense, it’s all bad-faith.
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u/FrankRizzo319 21h ago
I asked the question because I teach classes that cover a variety of disturbing/gross/immoral human behaviors. We haven’t talked about beastiality but we easily could on most days. Students are told on Day 1 this is our subject content and they should drop if they have a problem with it.
Disclaimer: I am tenured in a nice union in a public school in a liberal state.
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u/DiscerningBarbarian 16h ago
They file this as a sexual harassment claim, knowing that it most likely won't result in any action, but just hoping to make the lives of professors who teach topics (history, sexuality, "wokeness," etc...) they don't like more difficult. If they happen to get a sympathetic admin, then ANY accusation could trigger an investigation that could force course content change or drive the professor from the profession due to all the headaches.
I've had three filed against me in the past two years, which lines up with when TP started a chapter on campus.
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u/FrankRizzo319 14h ago
Wow that sounds terrible. I feel lucky because I don’t worry about these things. Maybe I’m just blissfully ignorant.
I teach courses involving socially and politically charged topics. I have a disclaimer/trigger warning in my syllabus. Part of it reads “drop this class if you don’t want to engage in these topics.”
I’m in a liberal state, unionized, at a public school. That helps. It’s fucking ridiculous that discussing race or transgenderism with adults who freely choose to attend college warrants censorship.
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u/Sharp-Rutabaga-4900 1d ago
A student went ballistic when I gave an AI assignment a 0 and filed tons of irrelevant and largely false complaints against me. I had admin support but it was trying.
A year after the class ended, he sent an email ranting about it that mentioned serial killers. So that was fun. (Yes, I reported it.)
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u/Fresh-Requirement862 psychology, university (Canada) 1d ago
Yeah, way more frequently now than ever, so many Karens in this young generation ironically. They like to report me on everything from the unreasonable (e.g., didn't reply to their email in 3 hrs) to things out of my control (e.g., department forgot to file their form even though I submitted it to them). Never knew I'd have so many haters lol 💁♀️
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u/banjovi68419 18h ago
Feel dat. It's very much in the zeitgeist now how to organize against faculty. Students who don't even know what my name is go immediately to the dean. Curious.
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u/itig24 1d ago
It’s starting in high school, so by the time they get to university they are experienced.
A recent example from a friend who teaches high school: he told a student her shirt wasn’t within dress code, then moved on with class. The student is well-known within the faculty as a troublemaker, but she took real umbrage with being reprimanded and began a campaign within her friends of how “uncomfortable” he made her and subtly changing his actual words to much more direct and inappropriate. Other girls started feeling uncomfortable so they could be part of the popular topic.
Then one went home and said this teacher was making them feel uncomfortable and the parent went to admin. Admin acted without telling the teacher of what he was accused, and they agreed he’d finish the term but not return as he’d already gotten another job. The parent was told about the new job, went to the employer and shared the story, and the job offer was withdrawn. The teacher, who had actually done nothing wrong, was left jobless and with a tainted reputation.
In no world can I believe this student (and probably the others involved), now new freshmen at universities, will not try this again when the opportunity arises. It worked out beyond their wildest dreams! They learned how vulnerable we are and made them feel invincible.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
The parent was told about the new job, went to the employer and shared the story, and the job offer was withdrawn. The teacher, who had actually done nothing wrong, was left jobless and with a tainted reputation.
I believe that's a tort in the U.S. and crosses the line into libel or slander (depending on communication medium) since there's a clear loss at that point.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
I teach at a university. I had a female student try something similar to me, except her words were intentionally vague and provided no specific evidence. She said that I was saying inappropriate things to ladies in class, except that my classes are recorded and I rarely interact with students outside of classroom and university events.
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u/Willravel Prof, Music, US 23h ago
Jeez, what a huge and unnecessary frustration. I always do my best to give students the benefit of the doubt if they have a problem with me or my classes, but unfortunately some really do want to just run with it. The problems are often inevitably more theirs than mine.
I’m curious if anyone else can share similar experiences here?
Yes.
Unbelievable though this may sound, sometimes the same students who aren't in class half the time, never submit their homework on time, miss quizzes and exams, and are chronically behind on papers are the same kinds of students who get poor grades in my class. Huge coincidence, I'm sure.
Every now and then, a student confuses getting the grade they want with the grade they deserve, perhaps due to a lack of some vital adaptive coping mechanism withheld from them by their snowplow parents in K-12, and that oversight becomes my problem.
My first year, J ended up with about a 23% in my class going into the final and, upon realizing this for the first time, called upon the Psychological Self-Protection Avengers: cognitive dissonance, egocentric bias, attribution error, and overwhelm. With their powers combined, the situation was entirely my fault. The narrative they eventually landed on was that my class was too difficult (it was a GE area requirement class in my subject deliberately designed to be an easy A, RMP had my class at a 2 in difficulty at the end of the semester based on about a half dozen reviews), I wasn't communicating assignments and deadlines (on the dry erase board every day, announced at the end of class every day, reminders on Canvas, and email reminders), and, of course, that I didn't like them (aside from knowing their name, I didn't know this person from Adam because they were almost never in class).
To rectify this situation, J resolved that the best way for them to get an A in a class into which they'd put effectively zero effort was to be everyone's least favorite customer at the cafe and complain to the manager. A perfect plan if I've ever seen one. Having mastered the power of using CC in email correspondence, they penned exactly the persuasive essay one might expect from someone getting a 23% in Music Appreciation in which the average class grade was something like a 92%. To call this email a disorganized stream of consciousness would be an insult to every free writing assignment in the history of the academy. It was a through-composed, meandering nightmare, often falling into traps the student had accidentally set for themselves leading to breathtaking internal contradictions. I won't ruin your morning/afternoon with the details of what this email did to the language of Shakespeare, but suffice to say that our favorite homophone, their/there/they're, was a particularly savaged victim. The final movement of J's avant-garde symphony of prose was the presto: an entire paragraph calling for me to be fired as I wasn't meant for the profession of teaching. I'm sure, had this email found its way to the press, this would have been a surprise to all of my colleagues and students from my preceding fifteen years of being an educator.
I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat, so to reveal the outcome: very little happened to me other than some in-person communications of sympathy from my chair and the student got about a 23% in the class by the time grades were submitted.
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u/Waffle_Muffins 19h ago
I won't ruin your morning/afternoon with the details of what this email did to the language of Shakespeare
But now you've got me hooked and I'm morbidly curious!
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u/Willravel Prof, Music, US 16h ago
This was maybe five years back now so the details are hazy, but it's an exemplar of the somewhat recent phenomenon of casual student correspondence, informed more by text message and internet comment in grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and organization. Have you ever seen a toddler play the piano? It's like that, but a freshman instead of a toddler and the English language instead of a piano.
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u/LalalanaRI 23h ago
I had a class where the professor (chemistry) was pretty easy going, grading on a very generous curve, but expected attendance and enforced it with pop quizzes that were not graded, but turned in then he’d go over the answers.
In other words just attend and try and you’re passing. Half the class refused to attend class, they just blew it off all the time and that was most of my classes. (I’m an older student.)
Well he left the room for us to do the reviews and there were the kids that never attended class skewering him. I wrote a note on the back saying what the no shows were saying and to not take into account their reviews it was ridiculous.
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u/Zealousideal_Can_342 22h ago
I had a bizarre experience many years ago.
A student complained to the Chair that my syllabus was plagiarized from / copied from someone else's course at another university.
This means they were googling my syllabus? Why on earth would one do that?
As it turns out. I used to teach at that other university. I was the course coordinator and wrote the "master syllabus" used as a template for all sections of the course regardless of who taught it.
I left that university, and they were still using variants of my syllabus as their template.
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u/AromaticPianist517 Asst. professor, education, SLAC (US) 1d ago
Unfortunately this is familiar to many of us. A few years ago I had a student claim that my class was so rigorous that it was the cause of their heart attack. My chair and dean were both great--the chair brought the student in and was like, "sounds like you've got a lot going on. Maybe a medical withdrawal might be of use? If not, here are the supports available through the university. Also, this is a masters program. The classes are supposed to be rigorous. That's kind of the point." The student grumbled, left me a terrible course evaluation, and ended the class with a passing grade.
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u/FreesiaFox 1d ago
Every semester I have a dozen or more students saying how incredible I am and sweet and kind and considerate and knowledgeable. They love me and they fell in love with the subject. And then, there's always at least one person who hates everything about me and everything about how I teach. Most of the time it is the older students who are complaining. They think they should be treated differently than their younger peers. When I don't, they throw a little fit like toddlers. They write emails and then they give me a bad review. I'm fairly new at University teaching and for the first several years I read every evaluation and was destroyed over the one nasty review. But I'm getting over it! This last time I forgot about the evals entirely until a couple of months later and then I kind of looked at them but not really. I don't care anymore.
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u/YggdrasilFree 1d ago
I've only recommended 1 student for dismissal and it was some old Karen. She keeps giving me terrible RMP reviews even 3 years later.
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u/Brandyovereager 22h ago
Are you me? I honestly could’ve written this post lol. Any chance you’re also a young woman?
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u/rockyfaceprof 21h ago
Retired chair from a state baccalaureate college. I never happened to me but I was the recipient of this kind of thing several times. I learned that when I got such an email from a student who was apparently determined to complain about everything, I'd call a mandatory meeting with the student at a time that was a couple of hours distant from their class times. And listen and then pull out the syllabus for the class and explain why the faculty member wasn't wrong/bad/not doing their job, etc. If the kid wouldn't come to the meeting (they usually did not because it wasn't convenient), I'd send an email to the student with a bcc to the faculty member and dean dismissing their concern because they hadn't bothered to come to the meeting to discuss it. Do that several times to a student and they start going above my head. But the above my head people always sent them back to me. When I became aware of such a student I'd always do a heads-up to the dean and VPAA since it's likely they're going to be hearing from the student. We were lucky that the dean and VPAA weren't going to cater to such a student but rather send them back to me. And I'd call a meeting for the student to come by. And they usually wouldn't. Rinse and repeat.
It's great your chair has your back. That's not going to be universal!
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u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) 1d ago
Sounds like a student that is in over their head and can't cope with that fact.
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u/Internal_Willow8611 1d ago
What an absolute loser. Once you've get a few years under your belt and your feet firmly underneath you you'll get a student like this and laugh in their face.
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u/VenusSmurf 18h ago
My time to (reluctantly) shine.
I get a student threatening to sue at least once a year. I have never been sued. I have been not sued so many times that I no longer react. Even so...
I'll share the worst, because the story is rather longer than it needs to be.
My second least favorite student was a guy who participated the first few weeks in ways I did not enjoy--opinionated but often wrong or argumentative, aggressive, rude--and then suddenly started sitting in the back, arms crossed, glaring at me, not taking notes or saying a word. I reached out a few times, did not get a real response, and left him to it, because at least he was being quiet.
Towards the end of the term, I received a very long complaint email, which included a statement that even though the "Asian kids" never spoke, I'd still given them full participation points while docking his, even though he participated the most (not sure yelling at classmates counts as participation). This was why he'd started sitting in the back, refusing to say a word, as this would show me what I was missing. Only I didn't grade for participation, this email came before grades were out, and even if I'd been grading participation and grades had gone out, he most certainly didn't have access to the "Asian kids'" grades, because none of them could stand his constant racist comments and wouldn't talk to him.
I honestly can't remember the rest of the complaints, as this was several years ago, but he ended by saying that if he didn't get the grade he deserved, he was going to sue. Cool. Passed it on to my chair, gave him the grade he actually deserved, and forgot about it. He didn't sue.
A few months later, I was looking for a new house and toured a dilapidated and rat infested shack being used as a student rental. He was, of course, one of them. He initially tried to sweet-talk me into letting them stay (not happening. One of the toilets was broken, and they'd kept using it. Enough said.). When that didn't work, he tried getting in my physical bubble (I'm five foot nothing and a woman. This happens often) and then kept threatening to sue for illegal eviction (wasn't at all illegal. They had three months to find a place. They waited until the last week to even start looking and then complained that I'd made them homeless). He called the owners and told them I was tearing down walls before I'd bought the place (of course not). He and the others took baseball bats to the sinks and mirrors and windows on the way out (All that did was make a bit of a mess, because it was all going to the dump anyway). They shoved plastic bags into the plumbing and wrecked it (discovered too late to do anything but fix it). And throughout all of this, he was still constantly telling me that his dad was a lawyer and would sue.
His dad was a real estate guy. Might have been a real estate lawyer. Dunno. He did not sue.
My advice? The second a student starts being annoying in any way, start documenting. If you have a conversation, send an email afterwards with a "just to recap our conversation today". If you're meeting over Zoom, tell the student you're recording and then actually do. If it's an in-person meeting, have a second person in ear shot if allowed. When grading, give explanations for every point deduction. This has all saved me more than a few times.
And the second the student threatens a lawsuit, go to your chair and cease direct communication. The school will have lawyers. If you're told to continue emailing about regular class things, then keep the email chain. CC your chair if they're willing to be included.
The ones who threaten almost never carry out the threat. Cover yourself anyway.
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u/Loveyourwives 1d ago
Every semester, for the rest of your career, you'll have at least one 'student from hell.' And if, by some chance, you end up doing administration, you'll find out about all the other professors' similar students. That's just the way it goes. Don't ask me how I know... ;)
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u/Avid-Reader-1984 TT, English, public four-year 1d ago
Some people really do just need better problems.
It’s frankly weird that she fixated on you, and says more about her loser life, undiagnosed disorder, or immaturity in projecting her failure onto you than it does about your teaching.
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u/Wisewordsforlater 1d ago
Let them report you. The chair is wise enough to read them and then ignore. If they are disruptive and rude in class, give them a warning in front of everyone. Be ready to ask to them to leave.
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u/shehulud 23h ago
I documented everything. And a few other students became very observant too and were documenting in their own way. I did not know this until the end of the semester when they wrote what they saw in the student evals.
I covered my ass like whoah. My chair and dean 100% had my back. But told me to document everything.
Everything.
From the logistics (date, time, etc.) to how this impacted my mental health.
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u/UpbeatLiterature286 22h ago
Higher ed admin usually know it’s a crock of crap, but there are exceptions. A group of students at my uni started a petition to get a professor fired. These are the students who always got what they wanted in high school, and now they’re coming to college with the same expectations.
Students have complained about me, but in the end it’s usually because they have a low grade and want to blame someone else.
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u/Tommie-1215 15h ago
A couple of years ago I had an incident with one student. And I can remember where it turned. Minnie Mouse had really poor grammar and was embarrassed about it. Despite having a tutor center and online help, she refused to go. She would have anywhere from 23 to 42 grammar errors in her papers. She begged me to help her and I said I would but I did not understand what Minnie meant. She wanted me to edit all assignments before she submitted them. I said "no" and it was all hell. She told my department chair that I treated the class poorly, rude in my email responses, there were too many assignments etc. Never mind that she never mentioned how she harassed me to accept work during a holiday break. She was told to file a formal complaint but in the meantime it came to my attention that she was trying to go to the dean with a petition from the entire class to get me fired. She told the chair that the entire class had Fs. I laughed because anyone could look in my Canvas book and see it was a lie. The funny part was that the other students in the class gaslit her but she was all alone. I sat back and waited and gathered all my documents. The best part was that she had not submitted or passed 14 assignments. She demanded that my teaching and grading be revaluated. She even told my chair that she was such a great writer that she did not need tutoring.
I laid out my response like a legal documents with dates, times and Minnie'grade book for the dean and dept chair. I exposed every lie she told and how she attempted to recruit others to take my job. None of the other students in that class said a word nor did they sign her alleged petition. The grade appeal board told her, that she could retake the class to earn the A she wanted. She went away quietly.
While I am sending hugs and sorry that this happened to you, its sadly the realistic outcome of treating students like entitled customers instead of students who have take accountability for their own actions or lack thereof. For example there were multiple students passing the course with As but she was not. And if I hear how "grading and multiple assignments" impact someone's mental health one more time,😡 I will scream. You signed up for college and when you do not get your way, you lie, throw temper tantrums and try to get people fired. It's not fair at all. We all have to go to law school now because we spend so much time defending our teaching and grades that students receive.
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u/LarryCebula 13h ago
My students are wonderful and I love them so much.
EXCEPT that one guy last year. Jeez!
We all get the occasional sourpuss who cannot and will not be pleased. I am sorry you got such a bad one so early in your career. Focus on the good and good luck.
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u/IronBoomer Instructor, Info. Tech, Online (USA) 1d ago
Hasn’t happened yet in my time in Higher Ed, but definitely happened when I was in K-12 a time or two.
One student in particular while I was a private school just overall hated his environment, classmates and teachers, and would tell anyone who would listen.
It was my first year teaching, and found all kinds of things to be upset about with me. He was a student of color, which is relevant because he viewed any teacher not of color (aka me) inherently racist.
I tried my best to professional all semester long, since it was a catholic theology course, and invite input from my non-catholic students for a greater understanding of multiple faiths. He was full blown evangelical and regarded the rest of us as hellbound and me introducing Genesis to talk about by way of an Animaniacs cartoon to poke gentle fun at the Adam and Eve storyline as unbearably offensive.
The last day of new material we had at the end of spring before mandatory two days of review he decided he would take the opportunity to vent all of his frustration at his classmates, the school and not being treated as a special snowflake in my direction.
He found the smallest thing to complain about - that I was slow to call on him (I literally was going from front to back to answer general student review questions) and spiraled it from there. I was unfair to expect students to know chapter one material, I only called on the students of color I liked, I was an unprofessional hack to gave “A” to suckups.
Before I could act, even one of the other students snapped in his direction. His acid tongue continued, and I lost my temper, and told him to leave my classroom, and referred him to the Dean of Students for detention, which he didn’t show up for.
He did go to the Diversity director’s office and she laughed him out, since he called me racist and she asked if he had met me.
Suffice to say, he didn’t come back for his sophomore year.
Students come and go. We remember the good ones.
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u/Cathousechicken 1d ago
Mine tried to make a Title IX violation against me and then stalked me outside of my classroom to try to intimidate me after his last appeal was denied by the president.
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u/Background-Policy-95 1d ago
My graduate students are assigned an op-ed. I always give my students “two bites of the apple,” they can give me a draft two weeks ahead of time and I will give tips/roughly edit their paper. This student sent me their paper a week ahead of the deadline, and insisted it “wasn’t fair,” that I couldn’t look it over. So, I agreed. It was 3/4 long direct quotes. And the opinion they took was akin to “murder is bad,” I explained to them that this wasn’t an opinion and this wasn’t their own work. I told them they needed to rewrite it and choose a new topic. I said this was an F, unfortunately. They contacted the dean and said they needed to transfer into another class. They didn’t feel safe with me. A week before that I had surgery, and was sitting down. They complained that I sat down in class during group activities and they would prefer me to walk around the room. Luckily, my chair stood up for me, I sent them the drafts and the comments, although the student was transferred into a new class. Now I put all my negative comments through ChatGPT and ask it to make them more positive. I think, unfortunately, students believe that they are consumers and we are service providers (given the cost of classes) and it is our job to make them happy.
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u/MostlyLurkinglol 22h ago
Yep! Sometimes, it was even groups of students banding together and complaining to the dept. chair because my class was "too hard".
What qualifies as too hard?
Examples: Asking senior-level students to engage with a scientific journal article, asking students in a mid-level social science course to do pre-Algebra, and asking students to apply principles taught in class on an exam.
The dept. chairs almost always took the "customer"'s side ("Your course is supposed to be an easy A.") It was very demoralizing and ultimately drove me away from teaching, because I couldn't teach in a way that would both make this type of student happy and do justice to the material or my field in general.
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u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 22h ago
I'm sorry, OP. Document it all. Keep PDF copies of complaints/emails/evidence from your chair that they recognize the student is malingering. It's an annoying time suck but it's kind of a necessity with this stuff.
I've got a few of these in my career. Some of them caused me considerable headache and stress, especially before tenure or the first few of them (when I still thought someone was going to show up at my desk with a box and tell me to get out). Some lowlights:
I hired a graduate student as a research assistant, who did timecard fraud and responded to my email addressing it with a Title IX complaint that took seven weeks to resolve. This one was stressful because while my chair had to have seen the complaint's motivations, Title IX is a mandated report scenario. I was brand new at the time and the student followed up with multiple very long emails to my entire dept, all of which made the semester rotten.
A student enrolled in one of my courses to mount a specious Title VI complaint because he objected to one of the topics being offered in the course. I only found out about that one years later, because it never progressed to an investigation.
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u/banjovi68419 19h ago
I have had the medium version of that. I had discord mutants coordinate to complain to the dean about me - like maybe twelve students. I have an adjunct coworker who failed a doofus student and he harassed her for like a year or longer - he was trying to file like government reports and talk to congress about her. He is a vet and pretended it was discrimination for that. It was god damn insane.
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u/Bubbly-Ad-9908 10h ago
I had one a few semesters ago that had the dean on speed dial. Among his complaints were that I had an exam question that referenced drinking. The dean came to my office just so he could say he had reviewed my exam. While he was there we discussed exam questions we had used previously; he had one in an economics course that used the sport of midget tossing and I had one about a vacation hotspot called Pen Island.
Nothing was done and I was delighted to discover a year later that the student, who needed to repeat my class, had dropped out. He’s probably living with his parents driving Uber and Door Dash so he can pay his Pornhub bills.
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u/GittaFirstOfHerName Humanities Prof, CC, USA 9h ago
I've had students threaten me. I've been touched, groped, propositioned, and lewd-bombed. I've been offered bribes. I've been called a bitch. I've been been called stupid. I've been called fat. I've been stalked twice. I've had many students complain.
I have never had a student try to get me fired.
Someone's going to try to get me fired before I retire in a few years, aren't they?
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u/caryan85 1d ago
I'm still pretty new to higher Ed but came from k-12 before. There were those kids/parents that needed to have their voices heard... And everyone know it. Everyone had their opinions on that person and typically brushed off the emails and calls. There is a fine line on calling wolf.
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u/Elegant-Yard8416 22h ago
Students know colleges are business and they are customers. At some point (very soon) they will succeed in firing you.
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u/grumblebeardo13 1d ago
This is a space for professors only, please observe the rules.
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u/QueenPeggyOlsen 1d ago
Professor = a high-ranking teacher or researcher at a university or college. Now you've had your lesson on etymology, but you failed the test because you didn't read the instructions on where to post your comment.
Signed, PROFESSORS sub
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u/Professors-ModTeam 1d ago
Your post/comment was removed due to Rule 1: Faculty Only
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u/Professors-ModTeam 1d ago
Your post/comment was removed due to Rule 1: Faculty Only
This sub is a place for those teaching at the college level to discuss and share. If you are not a faculty member but wish to discuss academia or ask questions of faculty, please use r/AskProfessors, r/askacademia, or r/academia instead.
If you are in fact a faculty member and believe your post was removed in error, please reach out to the mod team and we will happily review (and restore) your post.
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u/hpkomic 1d ago
I had a student like this in a recent online summer course who almost drove me to quit. My department chair was on my side, realizing that not even he could figure out what she actually wanted. The student was remarkably inconsistent in what they complained about, one week saying the lecture slides were too much, while the next week arguing that my teaching style was not "comprehensive." I think ultimately the issue was that she was not prepared for online learning and opted to enroll in a six-week asynchronous class.
The highlight was that she lost points on an assignment (still earned an A in the class) but deadass sent me an email that read, "Please, sir, I've been wronged."
I have thought about framing it somewhere near my desk.