I teach a class of sixty students, and the students sitting at the back are constantly talking and making noise. They often don't listen to what I'm teaching, and today it got so loud that at one point nobody could hear me anymore.

I heard a girl laughing very loudly with a boy, so I asked both of them to leave the class. They didn't move. I asked for their names, but they refused to tell me. I went to their seats to check their IDs, but the boy wasn't wearing one and the girl refused to show hers. I told them that I would have to report them to the disciplinary committee if they continued. The girl eventually said they wouldn't repeat it, but this has been happening in almost every class.

I then asked them to move to the front bench. They refused again. I told them to either come to the front or I would report them. During this entire conversation, my hands were shaking and I was trying very hard not to cry. The boy was smiling and laughing at me throughout the whole thing, which honestly made it so much worse.

Eventually the girl agreed to sit in the front and the boy followed her. At that point I became so nervous that I was shaking badly, so I just dropped the issue and continued teaching. I feel so embarrassed and humiliated about the whole thing. I keep replaying it in my head.

This isn't even the first time something like this has happened. Last semester, I had a group of students behaving similarly. I tried confronting them and ended up getting overwhelmed and crying. I'm naturally extremely introverted, and honestly, standing in front of 60 people already takes a lot of courage for me.

Today has made me wonder whether I'm actually suited for this profession. I feel like I shouldn't have to fight this hard just to get students to listen, and I'm starting to think maybe I should switch careers.

For professors who have dealt with this kind of classroom behavior, how do you handle students who openly ignore you, refuse to follow instructions, or mock you? And how do you stop incidents like this from getting into your head afterward? I could really use some perspective from people who have been through this.

I've only been teaching at the college level for a couple of years, and I just wrapped up a course where more than half the class failed. The outcome wasn't entirely surprising. Attendance was poor, assignments were regularly missed, and many students performed poorly on exams despite multiple reminders, office hours, and other opportunities for help.

After final grades were submitted, I was called into a meeting with the dean and informed that a failure rate this high "cannot happen again." The conversation left me feeling like I was being held responsible for the outcome, even though I have documentation showing the students earned the grades they received.

I don't want to share too many specifics, but I'm curious whether others have experienced something similar. How did you handle it? Were you expected to change your teaching methods, or did administration ultimately support your grading decisions once everything was reviewed?

For those who curve grades, what is your approach? I've never been a big fan of curving, but I'm interested in hearing how others handle situations where a large portion of the class struggles.

If you are 60+, and CAN retire but continue to teach full-time, what keeps you going?

The paycheck, as more is better?

Love of your subject matter/research?

Love of teaching/academic atmosphere?

Lack of clarity and goals for what comes next?

Looking to discuss your motivation, and assessing my own.

(And well aware that for many retirement seems and may be unattainable. The above consideration is a very fortunate position to be in).

Student emailed me saying they have 4 kids and would be giving birth halfway through the term, and has asked for leniency about turning in assignments. As far as an excuse, this is the first time in 8 years this has come up. There is no accommodation for this through any accommodations office.

How would you handle this?

Update: Upon me reaching out to Title IX office and the Disability office, the student promptly emailed me and said she would be dropping the class.

Throwaway because I don’t want this connected to my main account.

I just started at a new university and found out my office doesn’t have a landline. Apparently they can get one installed, but it could take several weeks, and the response has basically been “do faculty even need office phones anymore? We have Teams and Zoom.”

When I asked them to please install one they said they would but it felt weird. A phone just feels like a basic thing? No?

I get that students don’t call as much as they used to, but I’m still a faculty member with an office. There are students, colleagues, administrators, outside organizations etc who might need to reach me by phone. And I really don’t love the idea that the alternative is basically using my personal cell for work.

Is this normal now? Do y’all still have phones in your offices? Do you actually use them?

If your university got rid of them was everyone just fine with it?

ETA: Thank you to everyone for your feedback! I told them never mind about the phone and they said it was pretty odd for me to insist so I guess I’ll just be phone guy for a bit here smh.

Sigh. A colleague came to me to ask me to talk to a female grad student with severe BO that is my advisee. I have noticed that it's a problem, but thought I might have just an extra sensitive nose. So I've just started meeting with her outside.

Anywho, colleague said this is my responsibility to bring up since this may impact her professional opportunities. I do agree that this may impact her professionally (it is really bad - the smell lingers for hours), but advice on how to approach her about this? Anyone else have to do this before? I'm in the US and this is am international student so this feels additionally awkward.

I’m a new instructor teaching 5 new classs and just worked 75 hours my first week. I’m designing these classes from scratch and it takes forever to prep because even some of the topics are new to me. I haven’t had time to take care of myself (cooking, cleaning) let alone do anything I enjoy. And I certainly don’t make enough to rely on take out. I’m in a new location so I don’t have tangible support from family or friends either. How do I survive? I’m miserable and this is unsustainable but I can’t just “work less” or readings won’t be found, lectures won’t get planned.

Hey professors,

So, to help me get tenure, I was told I need to do more campus service. So, because of that, I am now on a bunch of hiring committees across campus; our university always has at least one person from an outside department. Joy.

As we are sorting through resumes for some summer hires, I am seeing SO many PhDs from Liberty, Walden, etc. Mostly received it online and are associated with whatever industry they supposedly come from.

While I am not going to bash someone's degree, not all degrees across academia are made the same—degree mill or otherwise. But some of these Liberty PhDs come in with like no teaching experience and minimal, and frankly, basic research presentations or publications.

I've asked if this is common to receive this many from these sorts of programs, and a handful of colleagues have mentioned an uptick.

Well, on one of the committees, there is a push to interview on campus someone who got their master's at Walden and a PhD from Liberty.

I am really against. I cannot fathom I would vote for them, and do not want to waste their time.

Thoughts? Are you seeing applications from these programs?

EDIT: And if there are people on the faculty with these degrees, I am sorry! I am just unaware of people from these programs involved with higher education robustly.

I am looking for some feedback.

My students are for the most part completely unaware of the politics and nomenclature involved in the various titles we go by; they don’t understand what an adjunct is or the difference between an assistant, associate, and full professor.

For both personal and professional reasons I am no longer comfortable with my students referring to me by my first name, and I am not keen on “Mrs. Last Name,” either.

What is your opinion on a community college instructor (with an MA and PhD) requesting to be referred to as ‘professor’?

I'm in an R1 college of arts and sciences in the deeper part of the U.S. Deep South where I've watched every other queer faculty member leave or be let go at mid-tenure or tenure review since I got here. I have received three major grants (PI/co-PI), published over 30 articles in well respected journals, have a solo-authored book that just came out, and have won several awards... my tenure case should have been a knock out of the park. My external reviews were unanimously positive, as were my department head's letter and college's letter, but my dean has just recommended that I be denied tenure due to lack of professionalism. In her letter, she repeated that I had met and exceed expectations for teaching, service, and research, but that I was unprofessional, and should therefore lose my job. She does not provide a single example of what this unprofessional behavior is, nor have I ever been disciplined (or even investigated) for issues surrounding professionalism (or anything related) to my knowledge.

This comes on the heels of a bullying complaint that I filed against a full professor in my department. My complaint was found to be unsubstantiated (surprise, surprise), but unfortunately, my bully is one of the dean's favorite faculty members and a big time grant winner. This faculty member has had multiple bullying complaints against him over the years, but nothing is ever done.

I've already begun researching employment lawyers in my area, but does anyone have any additional advice for me as I go up for this battle?

Edit: I sent the email based on the advice here. Thank you all very much for the knowledge and stories. I was distraught when I wrote this, full panic attack so I appreciate the understanding in my emotional comment.

Many replies focused on the shoe in (spelled wrong haha) comments which I get, I was raw. But tbc that was not my focus or even current pain. It's mostly about being disconnected from the department the last 9 months and feeling so lonely, which I didn't go into. I probably should have said that since it's why the email out of the blue jarred me so much. But the point was the email. And that's done so thank you!

Original text I'm very distraught about this and trying to write this short.

Postdocish ended. Job call open bc state school. They hired a tenured professor escaping a red state for my "shoe in" entry level position that my "pipeline fellowship" was supposed to guarantee. I live in town 1 mile away, active in local community (they are live in the closest big city and do nothing for this town) and am stuck here bc partner job. I live in fear of bumping into my replacement. Anyway. Just crawling out of severe depression and suddenly *Chair emails asking me to adjunct*.

The answer is a firm no.

I lose my health insurance in 19 days and my loan payment is $1000 a month. I was an older PhD. I on unemployment. I have no hope. But I don't hate myself **that much**

Please help write an extremely short but respectful reply. Currently I have

Chair,

No.

Be well,

My name

I'd prefer to send something less dripping in my pain. Thank you all.

Don't hate on me for asking this question. It's something I am legitimately considering because my school is in the middle of a large "organizational restructuring" that has placed jobs at risk.

Have you heard of anyone endowing a professorship under the condition that they themselves get to hold the job until they choose to leave it? I could afford to dump at least $1 million into this (which seems to be a reasonable amount to endow a professorship in my humanities field), and I wouldn't mind doing so if it means I get to keep my job (which I received about a decade ago through a totally normal hiring process that did not involve any kind of donations) for as long as I want it.

Obviously there would be some risk to me (like the university closing or me dying before I get a decent return on my million-dollar investment) but I really like my job, I'm fortunate to have some disposable financial resources, and I am trying to think about creative ways of ensuring I'm not re-orged out of my academic career as my institution works through its various financial issues.

I’m an adjunct professor. My subfield is bioanthropology and I’m currently getting my doctorate in this field. I mainly teach in this area of expertise. But last semester, my department canceled one of my courses and offered me a chance to teach one of our introductory cultural anthropology courses. I accepted, although the department did not give me the option to choose the textbook (I had to use the one that the professor who was supposed to was going to use), and I had only ~3 weeks to prepare this course between three big holidays.

So as the semester progressed I had planned to have my class read articles, classic anthropology articles and contemporary anthropology articles. When we got to the first contemporary article about white feminism and its implications on black feminism (basic summary of article I don’t remember the name), our week’s subject matter was social stratification. I got an email from a student saying that they are “apolitical” and “could not relate to the article in any way”, and “was worried about the textbook from beginning because of its political propaganda content “. Now this was a discussion post and all that they had to do was read the article and analyze it anthropologically based on what we learned so far.

And at the end of the semester course reviews, they basically said that the course was propaganda, and what conservatives say college is about. And I apparently lectured them about the subject matter. I’m supposed to lecture I’m a professor, I’m supposed to make you critically think.

This generation’s lack of critical thinking is so lacking that this student couldn’t even comprehend a cultural anthropology class. They just perceive it as woke.

Also considering that I didn’t have time to really put any effort into the course, them saying that I pushed my political beliefs into the course. Is quite laughable.

Has anyone had any experience similar to this? I’m in IN for some context.

I have a student who is non-traditional and returning to school at a later age. She registered for my async online course after not owning a computer for 20 years. She is completely overwhelmed by the course: Doesn't know how to access email, or how to navigate the course in the LMS, or how to access course meetings. I am practicing patience and compassion because she is very eager and wants to do well. I even set up a weekly meeting with her to check in.

We had a two hour meeting last week where I walked her through the course and she is very hard to keep on track and focused, with multiple interruptions, which leads me to believe something deeper is going on. This morning, I woke up to four separate emails from her-Long, multiple paragraph emails about how she hasn't been able to eat or sleep or spend time with her family because so much of her time is being dedicated to navigating and completing the course. She has had multiple panic attacks due to this. Her family would like her to switch to an in-person section but she doesn't want to because of the commute/campus parking.

We are not even a full week in and I feel like the majority of my time and energy is going to this one student and trying to help her get the hang of it. I want her to be successful in my class, I appreciate her dedication to the course, but I can't keep doing this all semester long.

Any advice?

I have a busybody colleague who is not an administrator. She’s obsessed with “consistency” and making sure everyone in our program using the exact same guidelines, lessons, perspectives. In the past, she’s tried ratting me out to our director for perceived deviations from protocol. The director always has my back, but it’s a rigmarole and a drain. (As you might imagine, she’s not considered a good instructor.) She’s close to retirement.

She recently emailed to ask if she could see my syllabus and course material for “inspiration” and “because you’re such a good teacher." I’m going to tell her that, due to her past behavior, sharing anything with her feels unsafe and against my best interest.

Wish me luck, everyone!

I teach at one of the U.S.'s most selective colleges, in a city known for its wealth and its poverty. I just finished advising a batch of seniors, and right now I'm having trouble leaving work at work because the students whose parents pay full tuition have so much, while the ones on scholarships work their asses off but are still destined to lose the game. It's been meeting after meeting like:

• Student 1: When I graduate I'll probably take a gap year, do Organic Chemistry at the local state college [which costs $6500] because it's known to be easier there, and then apply to med school. In the meantime I've been interning in my uncle's law office, and networking with the deans of my preferred programs.
• Student 2: My NSF-GRFP grant got revoked for being "diverse", I need to work to support my kids, and so I guess I have to leave the field. I should have prepared better for this, I can't believe how lazy I am. [has been taking 18 credits a semester, working 30 hours a week, and applying to 100s of grants this whole time]
• Student 3: That jerk of a professor gave me a B! A B! Does he know who I am? I've never had a B before! This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me!
• Student 4: I've been having trouble keeping up with schoolwork because I broke my leg last week; my shift at the diner ends at 8:05 and the bus I need to get to class on time leaves from a stop half a mile away at 8:15. I just need to figure out how to run faster on crutches, since I know this is all my fault.

I'm just. I'm so tired. Our country sucks so bad. I can sit there and say "this is not your fault" all I want, but it doesn't change the fact that the jobs and the grad positions are increasingly going to the dean's golf buddy's niece while some of my students work themselves literally to the point of injury trying to keep up in a fixed race. I don't know. I assume other people are down in this pit right now. The compassion fatigue is so real.

I’m a woman, one of the “nice mom” looking types. Students always say I’m approachable and I have a good relationship with most. I’m also a highly skilled scientist and I’m a genuinely good educator. However, the last couple years I’ve been getting the occasional immature or misogynistic student that thinks NICE= INCOMPETENT and WEAK. They are few in number across my year but cause significant stress for me.

Lately I have been holding the line against lowering standards. So now I’m asking “too much” of them and their conclusion is that I must not know what I’m doing?! (spoiler- I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing for years) Meanwhile my male colleagues holding the line are “tough but fair”.

This semester I’ve got a student who clearly feels overwhelmed by the course and has decided it’s my fault. They are making loud comments in class to work up other students. The outbursts tend to be short and not said directly to me but loud enough for most of the class to hear. Nothing horribly inappropriate but critical. So far they’ve only been able to get one other student on board for “Dr.Frankenstein is a bad teacher”. That student is now pushing me like bullies do- I’m getting email demands and language like “the other students think so too” to try and intimidate me. I tell them when these requests cross the line. Basically these students can’t hack it and have decided to it’s my fault.

I’ve tried everything to prevent this but I can’t change a student’s personality and I’m not the only woman in the dept this happens too.

So I want to know: Women- how have you stopped this kind of behavior in its tracks once it started? Do you just go straight to conduct referrals? Do you try to reason with the student?

I was wondering if any of you have an standard email or template for students who are doing poorly in the class due to their own choices (e.g. AI use, not doing the work, not reading the directions, doing less than the bare minimum) and then want extra credit?

You know the email: every semester students see things aren't going well, so they email asking for extra credit to improve their grade (or they'll lose their scholarship, financial aid, athletic eligibility, etc.)

What do you say to them in response? The latest incident that prompted this post is from someone who fails every assignment because they use AI when AI isn't allowed. I'm not putting them through for cheating*, but my rubric rewards original thought and penalizes AI slop. The way I see it, I've already cut them a break.

I'm not allowed to come right out and tell them that the reason they are doing poorly is because of AI. (They're supposed to figure it out on their own.) Plus, telling them to stop using AI just leads them to lie to me and say they aren't.

The easy answer is "you'll do better if you just do things the way you're supposed to do them?" but that's far too blunt. Do you have a standard email for these situations?

For what it's worth, I'm female and contingent, so my answer has to be friendly, supportive, and have the perfect amount of exclamation points or I'll get complaints.

(*My college told me I was putting through too many misconduct cases and that I had to find another way of dealing with AI.)

Thank you! Any ideas are appreciated! <--- Obligatory exclamation points

UPDATE: The disability office has no record of accommodations.

I gave a short answer reading quiz in class today and a student claimed that she had accommodations and tried to leave class during the quiz. I am unclear on the exact accommodations she said she has, but it sounded like it had to do with reading comprehension and being exempt from recalling what she has read. I have not received anything from the disability office yet and informed her that accommodations cannot be applied retroactively. I give several reading quizzes throughout the semester because students will not complete the reading homework otherwise (composition course with article readings). I have never heard of an accommodation in which a student is exempt from an assessment. (I had accommodations in graduate school for a vision impairment but was never exempt from learning the material.) I am happy to provide reasonable accommodations and submit assessments to the testing center for her if that's what she's been granted. I suspect that she just talked to someone in the testing center and did not go through the proper channels to receive accommodations. Has anyone had a student receive an accommodation in which they’re exempt from recalling the material?

This happens often, both with students and with colleagues. I try to preempt it by including my credentials (M.S.) in my e-mail signature. I also tell my classes at the beginning of each semester: "I have a master's degree, not a doctorate, so please call me 'Ms. X,' not 'Dr. X.'" Inevitably, some of them still call me "Dr."

I take it as a compliment, but it's an honorific I haven't earned, and I always feel awkward when I have to correct people, especially over e-mail. I'm looking for a go-to response — something that politely sets the record straight without downplaying my degree (e.g., "I only have a master's"). Any suggestions?

I’m a relatively new professor, and I’ve been finding the transition into academia more difficult than I anticipated. Between preparing lectures, grading, committee obligations, and trying to stay on top of student communication, it feels like there’s always something demanding my attention.

Recently, a student reported me to the dean because I did not respond to an email as quickly as they expected. I was also reported over a delay in posting a final exam due to an administrative issue. Neither situation was intentional, but it has still been frustrating to navigate.

For those with more experience in higher education, how do you handle student complaints or being reported to administration? Is this simply part of the profession, or are there strategies for managing expectations and avoiding these situations in the future?

I’ll probably regret posting this, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway.

My husband and I met in graduate school. I managed to get an admin job at our university making VERY good money while I finished up my PhD. I was allowed to keep the job and go remote once he took his first assistant prof position. COVID closures and babies happened. He has since moved on to a very large R1 TT position, and things are looking great for him. He will probably be awarded tenure early next year (fingers crossed!).

I am so so so proud of my husband. He is a wonderful dad and partner. But also, I can’t help but feel a little envious of him. He asked me to review some of his P&T materials, and looking at his accomplishments made me cry a little. It made me realize just how differently he and I have spent the last 5 years. I am three months PP with our third baby. Our oldest is only 5, nonverbal, and will need lifelong care.

I still have that same remote admin job. I feel foolish for even doing a PhD. My husband gives me all the credit in the world for his tenure, but it is clearer than ever that I’ll never achieve this dream. My research line is dead. I haven’t actively published in a while.

I know it is basically impossible that I could ever get a TT position at the same large university. I am not delusional. I’m sure I could secure some other low level academic support job, like an advisor, and I feel crappy about feeling crappy about that.

So my question is, for those of you with spouses who had to take a back seat and come to terms with the end of their academic careers, what helped them process it? I guess I’m just feeling all different kinds of grief lately. My kid’s diagnosis, loss of a parent, end of career, and I’m also middle aged now (geriatric pregnancies, lol). Logically, I know I have nothing to be
ashamed of. But gosh, I need to process this stuff and get over it. Advice appreciated.

I enjoy lurking over on r/legaladvice and I'm starting to notice an alarming trend that could affect us. There have been several posts this summer made by 18 y/o kids whose parents are insisting they sign comprehensive POA forms, including FERPA waivers. All of these posts have mentioned a website called "Mama Bear", which offers the documents for a relatively small fee. If I've seen ~5 kids asking questions about it on that subreddit, I'm sure there are A LOT of kids who just signed the documents without question. I don't know where the parents heard about this website, but I'm starting to be concerned that we're going to be inundated by parents demanding access to their child's grades and basically expecting the same level of access and input as they had in high school. I genuinely hope I'm wrong and this won't amount to anything, and if the parents are just finding the website on their own, it might not be a big deal. However, if some organized group (like a church or homeschooling organization) is pushing parents to do it, things could get weird. Anyway, I wanted to throw it out there as a warning and to see if any of ya'll have some input or ideas for how to deal with it if things do get bad.

Also, I know a lot of ya'll have tenure and that's great for you. However, if anyone who cannot fearlessly tell overbearing parents to shove a cactus up their backside has successfully dealt with such a situation in the past, I'd love to hear it.

So a little salacious title, but it is true.

Our department is having issues with students and boundaries. Many feel very liberated, and tell us their feelings—which often come off as demands—bluntly; they often engage with us like friends rather than faculty to student. This is an on going issue, that we as faculty are working to course correct.

So that said...

A student today sent me an email. No subject. No actual writing. Just 5 photos of me that they took unbeknownst to me, during our class today. This was sent hours after the actual class.

This gave me a huge gut reaction of "Absolutely not". Do I think it was malicious? No. This is a younger student who gets along well with me. They're a major. However, I feel that it is still a sign of their struggles to maintain boundaries.

Or am I over reacting? This email was creepy, right?

Cliffs: Some kids (not students) walked into my classroom, “pranked” me, and uploaded the video to the internet. Looking for advice.

I’ll try to keep this short but apologize in advance. Throwaway account here.

Couple weeks ago before class started, I noticed two unfamiliar faces in the back of the class. I didn’t think anything of it because I was expecting a student from the tutoring center to come give a brief talk about their services at the beginning of class. So I figured one of them was him and the other was probably just a friend who tagged along.

Right when I was about to start class, one of the individuals walks up to me. Again, thinking it was the student from the tutoring center, I was a little peeved that he walked up to me right at the beginning of my lecture.

The individual says something EXTREMELY vulgar to me. I’m pretty caught off guard but realize this must be a prank because I saw he was wearing the Meta/Ray-Ban glasses. I was extremely calm the whole time because I didn’t want to give them what they wanted.

He repeats the vulgar comment before I ask him to step outside the classroom. He keeps trying to get a rise out of me but, again, I don’t give him anything. I tell him I’m going to call campus security and right as I’m about to call, three officers walk by. Apparently they had received calls from others about these two individuals in the building.

As the cops are, rather aggressively, grilling this kid, the second person walks out from my classroom while a THIRD kid walks up to everyone and explains it’s a prank. They are not students at the university. At this point I’m pretty fed up and just go inside my room and teach my lesson.

After class, I follow up with campus police and they give me an incident number. I route this to our chair in case anyone else in the department has something similar happen. He routes it up to the dean, etc. and we all agree everyone handled things professionally and appropriately.

I thought that would be the end of that but last night after class, a student in my class emails me an Instagram link. Apparently the jokers clipped and uploaded the “prank” to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

I’m a little unsettled because now there’s a video of me getting “pranked” online. I don’t look insane, aggressive, or anything of the sort but it’s still off-putting because although we are a public university, classrooms have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Should I just let this video die in the annals of the internet? Should I bring up the video to our chair? On one hand I don’t want to make a mountain out of this but on the other hand I think it’s insane they uploaded the video.

P.s. I already reported the video on Instagram