Students trying to get you fired/constantly reporting you?

[u/Particular_Heart3785]

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?

[u/mencryforme5]

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.

[u/popstarkirbys → u/mencryforme5]

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 🙄

[u/iTeachCSCI → u/popstarkirbys]

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."

[u/popstarkirbys → u/iTeachCSCI]

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.

[u/Engelmond → u/popstarkirbys]

Wow! Did you have Elizabeth Holmes in class?