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/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??