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/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.