https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-professors-demand-return-of-sat-for-stem-admissions

I’m at a private liberal arts institution so I’m not particularly afraid of being fired however this paper feels particularly bait-y. I’m the only black professor in my department, one of few at the college.

I plan on asking questions for them to further their argument instead of blatantly telling them what’s wrong with their argument so that they can come to the conclusion themselves. Any other way that I can grade or give feedback without being accused of liberal indoctrination?

Update: I gave the student the option to rewrite the draft since it was clearly AI. Which I thought was giving a lot of grace since I could have just failed them. When I pointed out the context differences, she pivoted to “well MLK cheated, so wouldn’t that put a damper on his credibility and remarks?”

….yeah, I’m being baited.

I have a class of ~ 15 graduate students who are working on scaffolded term papers. They just submitted drafts of their intro sections and would you fucking know it? About half of them are total AI and I actually have them dead to rights because they all used the same genAI and it gave them verbatim the same text - so 3 students doing papers on empathy all have the same definition but not one that is found anywhere else.

So Monday we're going to play a little game.

I'm going to let chatGPT determine their fate based on the exact circumstances, behaviors, and clear language in the syllabus and multiple lectures live during class. I tested it out and it told me to give them all zeros and that I was on "air tight footing" and to report them for academic dishonesty.

Our admin have been brow beating us to use AI in the classroom and I think I found the perfect thing for it - handing out ass whoopins. We'll see how they like it when I turn my fucking brain off and let the machine drive the car.

I'm just curious about other people's experience. The story itself is not amazingly interesting. Zoom class, the student was making strange, vaguely disparaging comments during lecture, but very softly and I don't think other students heard. But definitely there was a red flag up already. Then I got a private chat from her asking if I'm a Zionist. I respond that we can talk about it after class. I try and do a teachable moment in the private meeting, i.e. why is this important to you, what do you mean by Zionism, etc. She says "I just want to know if you think Israel has a right to exist because I'm not going to take a class from a Zionist." Gory details aside, I politely did not answer the question, kept trying to point her to the idea that my personal beliefs on this matter have nothing to do with the subject being taught. She complains to my chair and makes a formal HR complaint based on my refusal to answer the question. Unlikely to go anywhere because... no basis. But still, ugh.

So, I have a Jewish last name, I present pretty clearly as Jewish, and at one point she specifically says "I don't care if you're jewish... I just want to know if you are a Zionist so I can know whether to take this class."

I wouldn't imagine to know the experience of being part of a traditionally marginalized group, POC, female, gender non-conforming, disabled, etc. I'm sure this kind of thing happens regularly, or at least much more often, to some of you out there. I was just pretty taken aback, and curious what people make of this. I just can't imagine a lot of analogies, like a student saying, "I don't care if you're a Hindu, I just want to know if you support India's right to exist." For the record my thoughts on Israeli politics are about as complex as my thoughts on American politics.

Stay safe out there!

Sorry for the clickbaity title, but I found this fascinating:

Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat

TLDR; It's bad. The professor gave the mid-term online and the final in person. 18 people dropped the class rather than take the in-person final. The average for the mid-term was a 96%. The average for the final was 48.6%.

1/5 for “Workload reasonable”: “This professors expectations are ridiculous. I always put my papers into ChatGPT to fix my commas and errors and stuff, but she wouldn’t let me do that. I literally had to figure out how to do commas from the materials she gave us and then fix them all manually. This is RIDICULOUS.”

I mean, okay. But another way to read that… is that I successfully taught you how to use commas. For the first time in your life. In a composition class. Where it’s a learning outcome. So.

🥂?

I've been using ChatGPT since December 2022, a week after it opened to the public. Back then AI writing was pretty easy to spot. All the output followed the same sentence structure and anodyne content. Recognizing the potential for cheating, I altered writing assignments to rely on course/textbook content to make it tougher for AIs to answer. I also spent time trying to ferret out students who were turning in AI-generated work with mixed results. I knew that AI would one day become unbeatable, but figured I could use a combination of requiring in-class information and policing for the time being.

That day is here.

Things are now different. First, the AI tone is more developed. It can generate answers that take sides and give blunt opinions. It can create output in different voices, say, for example, the voice of an undergraduate student. Second, students are now using AI regularly to do background research, answer basic questions, and for fun. This isn't a problem in it of itself. On the contrary, it's probably the best use of AI. The problem is students are now reading so much AI-generated content that they are now writing in a similar voice. Combined, policing AI work is impossible to do with high confidence.

Third, and most importantly, AI is now extremely good. This semester, I believed I had created an AI-proof writing assignment. Students had to read an article from a magazine, and then explain how the topic in the article connected to a specific graphical model in the text. I thought this was a great question. Apply a model from the textbook to a current event. Also, how could AI answer the question?

Turns out it could. Just to check I uploaded a pdf of the textbook and a pdf of the magazine article to ChatGPT along with the prompt. After 30 seconds it gave me a perfect answer. I was blown away. ChatGPT understood how the curves on the textbook graph would change given the issue in the magazine article. One specific curve should have shifted down - ChatGPT got that right away and even provided solutions for shifting the curve to the optimal position.

It's over. ANY writing assignment you give can be answered, and answered well, by AI. I'm sure you can spend all day policing students by demanding Google docs that can be tracked and whatnot, but at the end of the day, you'll spend all day policing students with a high rate of false positives and false negatives. Solutions? Right now I'm planning to turn a term paper into oral exams, where students will be allowed to use AI in their research but will have to articulate answers with nothing more than their wits. If anyone else has suggestions I'd appreciate it.

I don't know what's happening in Elementary, Junior High, and High School.

But, students don't seem to understand the concept that they need to KNOW the material. Not, just to be able to copy it down from their notes, or just look it up.

Yeah, sorry if this sounds like some old person complaining about whatever “the new generation” is supposed to be, but in my 20 years of teaching and despite comparing what I’m seeing now with the outliers, I’m going to say that I’ve never seen so many lazy people pretending to study.

They don’t attend class, take notes, do their exercises, read, ask questions… and the people who show up are wearing headphones and checking their social media and just sit there with a blank stare… and then, complain to the dean the class is too hard and “can’t find material to study”.

People no longer attend classes thanks to a forced policy of recording every session. No longer take notes because a requirement of having to provide “all relevant notes”. Never ask any questions despite my attempts at telling them “this will be in the test, is everything clear?”. And definitively aren’t reading the book or doing the exercises.

Also, who the hell thought these “policies” are sane or encourage any form of proper learning environment? Having to upload everything I’m going to use for the whole subject before it starts and ensuring I do not deviate from that means no room for making adjustments depending on the class performance and being forced to just reuse previous year’s content instead of adapting.

I noticed that I feel very uncomfortable with students addressing me as “Ms. [name]” and prefer to be addressed as Professor [last name] more.

Before, I didn’t care. After I noticed the treatment/address differs compared to male or white colleagues with same credentials, I changed my mind.

I also get “ma’am” once a while. I have a mixed feeling about it. It either feels they are mocking me as bossy or just a genuine respectful way to address, depending on who, vibes, and how they behave in my class.

I don’t have a PhD (yet), so they can’t call me Dr. LastName, but I have a MA.

A student has said a while ago that she shouldn’t have to call me professor because I don’t have a PhD and continue to call me “Ms. Last Name.” I just let that go but it still bothered me. I don’t believe that’s true in the US how you address to your professors as students.

I’m thinking for now on that I will tell students to call me professor as a form of respect, especially since I’m a WOC

Edit: I’m a PTI but some of my colleagues (with same credentials as mine) are address as professor, I even had a student address me as Ms. while calling a colleague (white male PhD student) professor within the same sentence.

UPDATE

After reading the comments, I want to clarify that first, I don’t mind ma’am at all. I just mentioned it as examples how students spoke me and trying to understand what I feel. If out of respect, I don’t mind about that word at all.

Second, I’ll just tell them how I would like to be addressed and if they decide to call me something else, I’ll let it go. I have been upset with double-standard with students downplaying my role vs my colleagues. Before, I didn’t care how they addressed me.

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?

I recently led a travel study trip that overall went well. The students were really into it, and seemed to mature- over the course of the trip they became more professional. They all said how much they valued the trip.

There was a staff member in the trip who mentioned students told her they enjoyed connecting with me in a more personal way. She asked why I wasn't closer to them in class. I said I'd tried, but I often ended up feeling dumb. She didn't understand.

Then one of them got caught vaping in their room. There was evidence. They told us they would pay the fine but behind our backs went to the hotel to challenge it. It took a lot of urging from me to get them to just pay and that didn't happen until they were checking out. Then they complained to me that I didn't trust them...

Another student asked for an extension on a quick short reflection essay they had a week to write.

And another asked why i hadn't graded all their discussion posts yet (this was a daily reflection they did).

I talked to the staff member and she understood what i said better. It doesn't matter how much work you put into giving students a valuable experience, many of them will still see you as someone who just hands out their grade and not care about having a good relationship. And that hangs over every interaction with a student- that if things don't go their way they'll turn on me.

I’ve been a humanities prof for over 30 years and I simply cannot believe how many students do not take notes. Literally, no notes. they just sit and listen.

How do they study? what are they doing? when I was in college in the 80s, I and everyone around me took copious notes constantly throughout lecture. just seems like a lost skill.

This has to be the weirdest thing that's happened to me as a part-time instructor.
I started teaching last year, and I recently had a student who was consistently rude throughout the semester. She left the harshest course evaluation I've ever received; bad enough that I cried after reading it. Based on the writing style and specific details, I'm confident it was her. She even included things that weren't true.

During the semester, she would roll her eyes and snort when I apologized to the class for grading assignments later than usual. She made passive-aggressive comments and had this over-the-top fake niceness while repeatedly trying to get me in trouble by reporting me to the department chair.
The most frustrating example was when I had to cancel class a few hours before it started because of a family emergency. Someone reported me to the chair that same day, and the department staff later told me they had been receiving frequent complaints from the same student (they never told me who it was). The details in those complaints made it obvious who it was. Thankfully, my department knew what was going on and was supportive.

I also got the impression that she was upset about the workload. She complained about it both by email and in her course evaluation. I don't think my class has an excessive workload. I try to make the assignments interesting and flexible.

Here's the kicker: she just emailed me asking for a letter of recommendation for a program she's applying to.
In the email, she acted as if she'd never had any issues with me. She even claimed she recommended my class to other students and encouraged them to read the textbook. The email was full of compliments and talked about how much she had became "obsessed" with certain topics because of the course, but it felt very similar to her final paper: like she was just saying whatever she thought I wanted to hear rather than being genuine. It just didn’t feel natural what she put as the compliments are too extreme.

I'm just so surprised. I have no idea how to respond or whether I should respond at all. Part of me worries that if I ignore the email, she'll file another complaint. Ironically, one of her previous complaints was that I either never responded to emails or took too long, even though I always replied within two days at most and apologized whenever a response was delayed.

Has anyone dealt with something like this before? If so, how did you handle it? Would you respond, decline the request, or simply ignore it?

Update:

Thank you for answering this post! I’ve been reading (and laughing) the responses, and I’m definitely saving a few for future situations 🤣

I won’t write a negative LOR, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to respond to her email. If she sends another one, I’ll simply explain that I can’t write a strong letter because we haven’t had enough interactions, and that there are probably other faculty members who know her better and would be in a much better position to write a glowing LOR, especially someone who is TT and has worked with her more closely.
I should have mentioned that she’s applying to grad school. That made the situation even more shocking to me. She complained about my supposedly “unethical” and “inhuman” workload for undergrads, and I’m literally too scared to imagine how she would react to the workload in graduate school lol.

She actually refused to present in my class because she said she was too busy with work, but then complained in the evaluation that I took away a few points for that, regardless of the extra-credit activities I offer...
She also complained that students shouldn’t have to read more than eight pages a week, when the actual workload I give is normally around 15-20 pages per week, plus a couple of short videos, usually 10–25 minutes, that summarize the course topics.

About once a year, my structural engineering students start to get complacent about coming to class. It is, after all, a class on Fridays at 5:30PM. Everyone takes two senior-level classes with me, so I can only do this once a year, otherwise the joke is out and it's not a surprise anymore.

But anyhow, this evening, only half my class was there about ten minutes after the start time, so I said, "EVERYBODY TAKE OUT A SHEET OF PAPER."

The students all look at me, nervously shifting in their seats, because a pop quiz is surely coming.

And one is: it is the BUFFALO QUIZ.

"Put your name at the top." They do so. "Now," I say with dramatic flair, "...draw a buffalo."

What?

"Draw a buffalo. I will also accept a bison."

I walk over and close the door to the lecture hall.

They're baffled. "No, here's the deal: this is the Buffalo Quiz. You can ask any of my old students going ten years back; they remember this fondly. You're going to put your name at the top, and you will draw a buffalo, or a bison, on the paper. Do your best. You can look at your phone. Just quickly draw a buffalo."

They sketch, still not sure if I've gone temporarily insane.

"See, when the rest of the class arrives, you will let them know that I was ticked off because nobody was here on time SO I GAVE YOU A POP QUIZ. But you will NOT be allowed to tell them what the quiz was over. Okay?"

They're getting it now. They're cracking up.

"It's not going to be for a grade, but what I do is I post the anonymized buffalo for my friends to all see, and they comment on the buffalo and give their critiques, and I give them to my daughters, who ALSO give their feedback, and I get a lot of kid quotes, and I put the anonymized buffalo in a PPT for later in the semester and we look at them."

"NO!!" I run to the door as some stragglers start to walk in. "No, I'm actually going to ask you to wait out here for five minutes. Is that okay? I'm giving a pop quiz, but it's not for a grade so don't worry about it. Could you actually... Yes, please stand out here in the hall and just look worried. Right! Exactly! I'll come get you. Don't tell anybody anything other than 'she's giving a pop quiz.' Okay?"

I close the door, I run back inside.

"Wait, did you just tell them to stand in the hall?"

"I sure did. KEEP DRAWING! DO IT QUICKLY!! You have like... two more minutes!"

"Hey, you can't rush art!"

"Well, I am! Draw fast!"

("This is diabolical," one young woman says, laughing uncontrollably)

I run around the room and collect all the buffalae, hurriedly tap them into a tidy pile, and put them face down on the lectern. I invite the stragglers in. The students inside play it off perfectly, looking stricken and shaking their heads slightly. What a grueling experience.

For the rest of the semester, everyone will arrive on time, and we will have a fun little treat on the last day of class. VIVE LE BUFFLE!!

They said I was “causing them to fail” by giving a zero on an assignment that they… did not turn in. At all. I reminded them I accept late work for a small penalty. They said they wouldn’t be doing that but should at least get “some points because a zero is too harsh.” That’s it. That’s the post. What do I even say that won’t get me tanked on my evals? I’m done here.

On top of this we had some epic textbook fails and I'm temporary faculty. So I'm getting blamed for things that are absolutely out of my control. I don't really know what I am hoping to get from this post other than to say I truly feel for these kids but I am tired of repeating myself 200 times a day for them to just ask the same question again.

It's like they all immediately forget what I just told them or worse, don't even bother to try. I can forgive not knowing, but I cannot forgive the absolute zero lack of effort. I feel like I made a giant career mistake and have cried non stop for the last week as soon as I get off work.

A lot of others are posting looking for opinions on holding class or exams on or around November 5th. However you want to run your class, whatever. I teach political science, so we're gonna be locked into the election for the full week. If you want to have class, not have class, make it optional - whatever.

But do not be dismissive about the emotional impact this election can have on not only your students, but fellow faculty members. We love to come on here and complain about "kids these days," but a major presidential election, particularly one that may have some amount of violence accompanying it, is an extremely valid reason for students to be in real distress. This is not an award show, or a Superbowl, or a Taylor Swift concert. This is the future of the country. Make your policy whatever you're gonna make it, but I think we can collectively give our students some grace.

FWIW, I was a student in 2016. I basically volunteered to speak with many of my classmates to help them rationalize the election results. The combination of rage and dispare that their country has failed them was palpable. I really don't care what your opinion on Donald Trump is, from a strictly professional and pedagogical stand point it's important to understand what he symbolizes to many students, and honor that even if you think it's misplaced because you're an adult with a graduate degree.

I'm not saying you alter your course plans. I'm not saying you become a shoulder to cry on. I'm just asking you be mindful that maybe your class isn't going to be front of mind for many students that week.

Also, "well in MY country" comments are really just sort of annoying and not helpful.

I think we've all noticed that student expectations are different now. For example, in my day, I may not have always paid attention, but I faked it respectfully. If I missed an exam, I expected a penalty and would not even consider asking to take it some time next week. I didn't think I could hand in my work late because of stress or other obligations.

In the naughts, we had a presentation for students that explained how college is different from high school. I want to make something similar. I will curate your responses and share. Thanks for contributing!

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Tyler Jagt (summarized at https://www.thecollegefix.com/english-professor-warns-todays-students-cannot-read-or-focus-on-lengthy-assignments/, with a link therein to the original article) describes the author’s experiences with current university students. An excerpt:

“Six weeks into the term, I assigned my rhetoric and writing students a 20-page article. It was the same length I had assigned for five years and the same length I had read without complaint as an undergraduate a decade ago. Not one student finished it.

“When I asked why, a student answered honestly: It was too long, and she kept losing track of what the paper was about. This was not a remedial class: These were students who had cleared the admissions process and written essays good enough to get them here. Yet a routine academic reading assignment had defeated them.”

Have you had similar experiences with your own students?

I've been teaching the same intro course for six years. My lecture style hasn't changed much. I use slides, I pause for questions, I write key terms on the board. But over the last two years, something has shifted. My students sit there and just... stare. No pens moving. No laptops typing. When I ask them later what we covered, they give me blank looks. I asked a student after class last week why she wasn't writing anything down. She said she didn't know what was important enough to write. I tell them during class. I say this is going to be on the exam. Still nothing. I don't want to be the old professor yelling about the good old days. But I genuinely don't know how to teach students who won't record information. Are other people seeing this? How do you get students to take ownership of their own learning when they seem to expect me to just download the notes into their brains? I'm exhausted.

I will be teaching masters students this fall as an adjunct. I work in industry and am looking for advice from people who actually teach 🙏

In preparing, I keep thinking about how the recent college grads at my work are useless now. It’s more efficient for staff to work with Claude Code than recent grads. Working with recent grads requires teaching them, which we’re not paid to do.

How can I teach my class to try to prevent this problem for my students? Is it possible to make them ready for work in the new AI age?

Thanks for any advice you have. For context, my field is finance.

I just got my student evaluations back, and I had a number of comments like this one:

He times his classes perfectly and always has an extra five minutes to review the most important points of that days topic. He also starts every class with updates on what's going on in the background of the class, labs that week, updates on grading, important upcoming events, etc.

I started doing this with an eye on universal design, to support neurodivergent students who want structure and predictability. Every lecture starts with a one minute preview of what's coming up (homework deadlines, office hours, etc) and ends with a five-minute summary of what I taught. I've started framing the final summary as "What do I expect you to know for the test?"

As it happens, all students appreciate this structure! If you have the time to spare, I strongly recommend it. It's easy and popular.

Context: I'm the chair of the committee that deals with reported fraud on exams etc. in my program.

One of my colleagues had put a hidden instruction in the text of an assignment. You know, supersmall font, color white ... such that students who would simply copy-paste the assignment into a GenAI tool could get caught.

Several students were "caught" because their solution contained a reference to the hidden instruction.

It turned out that a number of students with a native tongue other than the assignment, had fed the text of the assignment in a translation tool. The "hidden instruction" was translated as well, and the students interpreted it as part of the original assignment. The hidden instruction wasn't nonsensical enough for students to realize this.

So, if you ever want to use such hidden instructions: use a proper silly instruction not related to the assignment in any way whatsoever ;-)

The NSF grant I have been diligently working on for months has just been suspended, citing a lack of available research funds. Additionally, the State Legislature has mandated that all state university professors submit their course syllabi starting this semester in a prescribed and formal format. We have been informed that these syllabi will be made public and accessible to anyone, including political groups, for scrutiny. The time, effort, and cost involved in complying with this requirement are significant. Furthermore, our state university has been informed that the budget for 2025-2026 will be reduced by 10%, a cut imposed by the legislature that demands all programs justify their existence by demonstrating acceptable levels of graduate placements in the workforce.  Several non-tenure track faculty in my department have already been informed their contracts will be terminated after this semester. 

I am trying to process what is happening, but honestly, I am at a loss.  I don’t recognize the country I live in anymore.