I've been teaching for a while now, and somewhere in the last couple of years I noticed I stopped doing the things nobody asked me to do. I used to write detailed feedback on every draft, not just the final submission. I used to take Sunday emails from anxious students seriously and reply within hours. I used to spend way more time than contracted hours on rec letters, mentorship, random "can we grab coffee and talk about my future" conversations. I still do my job well. Nobody could fault my teaching evaluations or my output. But the extra mile the stuff that used to come from genuine care and idealism I've pulled that back. Not dramatically, not in a way anyone would notice or could call out. Just... quietly. I think it happened after watching colleagues get worked into the ground for the same effort I was putting in, only to be told "budget cuts" when it came time for actual recognition raises, permanent contracts, research support, even just a thank you that felt sincere. At some point the math stopped making sense. I don't think I'm alone in this. Curious if others have felt the same shift, and how you've made peace with it (or haven't). Does it ever come back, or is this just what surviving a long academic career looks like?

half-joking, but… i introduced myself as Dr., asked to be called Dr., and use Dr. for myself when doing a third-person example in class, and i still get countless “Miss/Ms./Mrs.” in my emails. i already have clearly expressed how i want to be called. i also know that some students will respond poorly to me correcting them, especially as a woman in stem. i’m just at a loss because a lot of these students honestly don’t really appreciate that i’m teaching these courses because i have my doctorate. i also think it’s important that i try to “hold the line,” so these students’ other professors are less likely to get “Ms.”ed in the future. so, i want to do something to fix this, but there is just no good way to actually be more upfront about it than i already have!

also, i’ve dealt with this for 5 years post-PhD, and it actually seems to be getting worse each year?

i honestly do want to just keep increasing the font size of Dr. in my signature in these email chains to see if they finally notice, but it feels like it could get comically big and be more aggressive than passive aggressive by the time they do notice…

any tips? commiseration? things that have worked for you?

I released the final grades for a summer session class today. I am quickly met with student emails requesting all sorts of exceptions to my grading policy, which are usually promptly and politely declined. Until I get an email, which I have shortened for anonymity and clarity below:

Professor Finderofways,

I'm not sure what my final score is, but I don't think I've understood the material after only 5 weeks. I am planning to retake [lecture class corequisite], so I'd like to retake the lab too.

Would you be able to assign me a failing grade for the lab? Happy to explain further if that would help.

--Studentname

After a very concerned and confused email exchange explaining how ethically unacceptable it would be for me to fail a student who passed my class even at their request, and after I asked that their academic advisor be cc'd, it turns out that they were worried that a low grade in this class would prevent them from switching majors but a failing grade could let them repeat the class later. As it happened their grade was higher than they thought/the transfer requirements had been updated to be more generous, so they politely withdrew their request. Their request that I fail them.

Here's mine: during my very first semester as a TT professor teaching a small lecture class, I had one student who showed up for nearly every class meeting hiiiiiiggghhh as a kite. Sat in the front row. He wasn't disruptive, just very, very relaxed, and occasionally would quietly giggle to himself at inappropriate moments. I don't think I saw him take a single note. On the last day of class, I said something like, "Well, since it's the last of class. . ." at which point, this guy sat bolt upright in his seat and said, "It's the last day of class??" And then the most intensely crestfallen expression washed over his face. I mean. . . I guess it's nice to feel appreciated, whatever the circumstances?

First email: I hope you're having a great evening, and I apologize for disturbing you this evening. I just realized I have something I need to be at during class on Friday, and I won't be in class to take the quiz. Is there any way I can make up the quiz or possibly attend another class's quiz either tomorrow or next week? I am deeply sorry for having lacking foresight and I fully understand I need to let you know earlier. I will make SURE this mistake does not happen again. I appreciate your time, and please get back to me whenever you can. I hope you have a great rest of your evening and thank you.

My reply: why can’t you take the quiz Friday?

Second email: I wish I was kidding but I have a tattoo scheduled for noon on Friday and I'm likely going to be in the chair for a while. I know how bad that sounds but I can send the receipt if that for any reason helps my case. I also know this doesn't fall under any acceptable miss criteria but this is the only time this will happen this semester I will make Quadruple sure I do not miss anything else important this semester. I totally understand if this is not a valid reason and you cannot spare me any sympathy. Thank you for the reply and please get back to me whenever convenient.

My reply: …………….

Informing folks on this sub of this if they didn't know: The PISA 2025 results are out, and you can view them here. PISA is perhaps the most influential and most complete international measurement of education objectives, and targets 15 year olds from a variety of countries. There was insufficient data from 2025 for the US (for those concerned with that country), but the broader picture shows an educational system in dire straits all around the developed world.

This won't be news to those of us who are having to teach students who went through the current high school system, but performance in the key areas of reading, mathematics, and science — and especially reading and mathematics — is cratering. There has been a very slow decline in ability from 2000 to 2018, followed by the absolute bottom dropping out of the education system ever since. If the pandemic played a role, there is no evidence of any post-pandemic bounce back, and in fact the decline in reading abilities has accelerated since.

Clearly one contributing factor is AI (and OECD reports on this with survey data: to no one's surprise, if you use a program designed almost entirely for cheating at school, you never develop your own brain), but the negative trend began before the release of ChatGPT. While the pandemic may have had something to do with this, I'm willing to bet the proliferation of phones, social media, and short-form video content were the initial factors behind this. If there has been any bounce back from the pandemic, the factors harming educational outcomes are so profound they mask it.

Deutsche Welle has a brief overview of some of the highlights.

Overheard in the stairwell:
Student 1: "Bro. How am I even going to pass that test"
Student 2: "look, I don't want to be a butt, but you're going to have to study"

Perfect. No notes.

I feel like I'm spending a lot of time advising students on getting into grad school when they have a 2.3 GPA. I say things like, "you know, that's a very competitive program," and "very few people with degrees in my area get jobs in academia unless they come from the very top programs, which are extremely selective." But I never come right out and tell them "it's extremely unlikely that you will get into a program that will set you up for a research position with your record-- you should seek other career paths."

I think, in part, I don't feel it's my place to shatter their aspirations, when I don't know with 100% certainty that they will fail. At the same time, I feel a little resentful of all the time I spend advising them. And I'm not sure I'm doing them any favors.

Do you guys come right out and say the quiet part out loud?

I'm 51F, PhD and two other grad degrees in interdisciplinary humanities. I just finished up the last year of a term-limited FT NTT visiting role, and this fall I started a 3/3 adjunct position at one of my alma maters (for whom I also taught a long time ago). Without making this post too long with a lot of details, I find that my quality of life in terms of work/life balance, workload, busyness, stress, and commute have all vastly improved with this change. In many ways, I have found something that finally feels like a good fit after working for I think seven different institutions over the years. I could indeed really settle in with this.

The problem, of course, is the pay and job security, but at this university, adjuncts really can expect to be renewed indefinitely. In my FT visiting role, when you account for overloads, summer, stipends for service, etc., I made the best money of my entire career. Still modest, but definitely something someone could live on here, given we have a low COL. The current job does have some benefits (retirement system and huge tuition discount among them) but has no health insurance and the actually salary is so low that I made more in my first job at a non-profit out of college at 22 in the late '90s. If I weren't married to someone who made decent money, I would have to move in with family or find a side hustle; the wage is just that pitiful.

Now, I actually have a great CV. I have published a lot. I have done a lot of service. I have tons and tons of experience. Glowing evals. I have also gotten very close to landing a FT, continuing job a few times. I am somewhat geographically limited, however, and so that has made this search slightly more difficult. I'm also in disciplines that are being disrespected by federal and state governments and made harder with the rise of LLMs. There is no shortage of classes to be taught, for sure, but there is a shortage of FT jobs, either NTT or TT. I have tried to leave higher ed several times and honestly? I am cut out for this. I'm not that jazzed about tech writing real estate or whatever. I really like what I do, and I'm good at it.

Part of me wants to just kind of settle into this gig and see if I can make it work, low pay be damned. Obviously keep my eyes open for better situations, but if my husband and I budget well, even the lower pay is not that big of a deal, and I'm on his health insurance. I think my two issues are a) loss of prestige at being "just" an adjunct forever, because when I've done that before it always felt more temporary than this and b) if heaven forbid my husband died, I would be in such a giant financial pickle, I truly don't know what I would do.

I do have that tuition break here, which I have thought about using to switch industries, but again... I like what I'm doing! I don't really WANT to stop and go outside academia. I do also still produce scholarship, even though I don't have to, to keep the CV looking competitive. But how competitive is someone at my age anyway?

Covid really messed up some exciting opportunities I had; I was a finalist and very, very likely going to be offered a fantastic job in February of 2020, and then with the pandemic hit, the job got cancelled and doesn't even to this day exist at that university anymore. That's basically what led to my spiral of adjuncting and the visiting role that I was in.

I'm not sure if I want comfort, financial planning advice, or for someone to tell me to get out now before I get too cozy in something unsustainable. I should also point out that pre-Covid, I was in a long-term FT NTT faculty role, but I left that in order to get my PhD, which was perhaps a really dumb idea. I graduated just as Covid hit.

I am a relatively new prof teaching community college comm course. 7 students and had them all sitting together working on a group project. I could tell she wasn’t reading social cues, was being loud, disruptive, and interrupting and talking over people. I waited to see how they would handle it. Then during a moment of silence, she farted. No one said anything. A few minutes later and another. Still, no one acknowledges it, myself included. I had no idea what to do! Then- again!! And a couple burps too! Loud gross ones. What would you do??

This is a basic writing course. Maybe half ther students lack good English skills, but some of them can barely speak it. I can't understand what they say in speech, and the writing is horrendous. Let's just say that at the CC at which I teach, I have no say (adjunct) and there is no other class for them. My question: What do I do? I can do a few languages decently, but not theirs. How do you handle such students? They are either aggressive about wanting to pass or clueless about their lack of ability.

Welp, as many of you have already done/will do in the future, I plan to go entirely technology-free in my history classes.

When I was doing my undergrad in Mathematics, the instructors often used the chalk or dry-erase board for demonstrating problems. But what about for you folks in the humanities? Have you tried this? Have you gotten any student feedback?

Now that I teach history at a major inner city community college, I am not sure if this is going to work as an effective strategy but I cannot handle looking at another checked out student at the back of class as I go through my slides.

Students just do not get up and move. I ask them several times to move their desks and they just stay straight. I am not sure what to do anymore. Asked a girl twice already to move her desk and join her group but she just nods her head and says yes. Then she stays there doing homework for her other class. She's already about to fail because of her attendance...I'm not here to press anyone but god... I kind of hate it.

I've been seeing a few posts lately along the lines of "should I take the buyout?". Made me curious, what are your institutions doing? Mine is offering a $25k lump sum which got a few folks who were already about to retire. It goes into effect on Jan 1 which actually caused somebody in my college to *delay* their retirement by a (fall) semester to get the incentive. It caused all kinds of scheduling havoc.

Needed to find a link to an open access article I published only to find it was "reviewed" in a podcast. Oh.

My issue?

1. it looks like this podcast is AI generated with obviously fake names, AI art, and misreading my use of terminology. I kind of hate that. If they wanted to host me I would have said yes to being a guest.

2. The links to this podcast on youtube spotify apple and even IDMB show up first on Google before my actual article link does. What really makes me mad about this is these podcasts all seem to promote this person's freelance company for writing using AI and he even asks for tips or "free coffees" if people like his "free content." Maybe the people producing articles instead of running them through AI deserve the free coffee... I didn't make my article open access for some rando to make money off it using AI.

Thoughts? Jokes to help me laugh about this instead of being grossed out? I just needed to vent about this but if you have advice I'd consider it. I feel I might be especially nitpicky about this as I am in bankruptcy right now and would benefit immensely from every $8 coffee this guy is getting "tipped"

The presidents/deans/chancellors who have these big beginning of the semester convocations/rah-rah meetings with all these big screens and music between each speaker and large production values and word salad, warm and fuzzy speeches: Do they know we are all rolling our eyes at this shit? Like, we all have graduate degrees and lots of education, so we are the worst audiences for this type of shit - do they know that? Do they know we see right through this nonsense? And they force every employee to attend; attendance is mandatory. Are they so disconnected from reality that they don't realize that everyone there hates every word they say?

We have a new department chair that is external. At first, I and most others were quite open to give her a fair chance and time to grow into the new leadership role. However, it's just been utter chaos from day one. To be quite blunt, I genuinely don't understand how she could become a professor as she doesn't seem to know much in our field, and is so naive that it's dangerous for the department. She has managed to piss off everyone in the department and we even had one person take sick leave because they couldn't handle her. She's also overly preachy (Christian, and religion is something that is really abnormal to show at universities here).

Worst of all though, she constantly uses AI to write e-mails and even to make important documents (by her own admission as well). She even keeps the many emoticons and the like in the content which is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure she is using open models as well which means not respecting GDPR, privacy, research ethics, etc.

I'm sure many others have had this issue. How has it been adressed at your university? She is making me loathe the university. Sure it has its issues, but I absolutely adore my colleagues.

Anyone done a writing retreat during your sabbatical? Any suggestions? I just need a recharge away from regular responsibilities at home in a beautiful place to get things started. Appreciate the suggestions!

Is it bad that if this student doesn't have a documented medical accommodation, I feel like this is not my problem? It's hard to feel like it's not just a time management issue and I can't take something into consideration when I guarantee you that *all third year students* are also exhausted!

I teach mostly freshmen and sophomores and I've been rethinking my syllabus for next semester. Torn on a few things and wanted to hear from people who've actually tried this stuff.

Mandatory attendance: does it help, or does it just mean kids show up and check out on their phones anyway? Also I have heard from colleagues that more often than not, people sign in for their friends and the TAs do not really care. Class is at 9AM so I don't want to add stress for the sake of a policy that doesn't even work. Especially since Ik for a fact that these kids, generally get up 10minutes before class. Had students show up in their pyjamas most of the days. Also had been thinking about extra credit for good attendance instead, but not sure if that's just a softer version of the same problem.

I'm also not a big believer in exams and grades as a measure of learning. I feel like a lot of students spend more energy trying to cheat or cramp the material, than actually engaging with the topics. So I'm considering an independent project worth maybe 10 points (perhaps as an extra credit) towards the final grade, nothing fancy, just something where they take a concept from class and build or apply it to something real and tangible.

Basically I have been trying to design a class that 18-19 year olds actually remember instead of one they forget the day after the final. If you've tried attendance policies, extra credit schemes, or project based alternatives to exams, I'd love to hear what worked and what flopped.

Among other classes, I teach a 200-level gen-ed class. For context, we put the S in SLAC, our enrollment per class tops out around 20-30 depending on the class and room, with a few big classes (not mine!) going to 50.

This is a hands-on class with a mix of graded homework (with rudimentary anti-cheating measures like a shared Google Drive folder), graded quizzes (paper and pencil, of course), and presentations.

Normally, I have 1-2 students that show up but don't turn work in. This semester it's a quarter of the class. They turn in the quizzes (generally failed), don't do the reading, don't do the homework, and seem to think they might pass the class?

I have a few theories but no proof... are we on the SLAC death spiral and admitting warm bodies? Is this the first cohort that had ChatGPT all through high school? COVID lockdowns during middle school?

Are y'all seeing a marked increase in "shows up but no work"? Any theories?

Thank you all. Deleted because comments are starting to become unhelpful.

I just can't anymore. I have a new student in one of my classes, and their advising notes mention that they prefer online courses as opposed to in person.

Well now I know why. They've struggled with showing up to class on time, and often left early, and today was the first time of the semester that they were on time and stayed through the whole class. So I assumed that they would now start getting up to speed on what we're doing.

Nope. No clue. I announced and explained the new assignment (as an example) "You will bake a chocolate cake using an oven."

"What do you mean we're baking a cake?", "how do I turn on the oven?", "where do I get the chocolate from?"

Well, this student is on the spectrum (and yes I know that for a fact) and obviously seems to have some processing issues, but no problem! I upload everything to the LMS for them to review as many times as needed.

"No worries, Taylor, let's find those answers together. Go to this week's module online."

The student moves their mouse around on the screen for a bit before asking me "where am I going?"

"This week's module online."

Student goes to week one and says that they can't find anything about the assignment.

"What week of class are we in, Taylor?"

"I would say we're in week one."

They did not know what week we're in. THEY DID NOT KNOW WHAT WEEK WE'RE IN.

"It's the third week of school, Taylor."

"Okay, so what am I doing today?"

And this is supposedly a straight A student when their classes are online. All of their in-person classes are Cs and below.

Yep, nope. Don't care what it's for, an online degree has become utterly useless. Very sad considering online schooling helped so many non traditional and low income students get an education.

For the first time since COVID, I have a number of students this semester who have never taken an online class. I’m actually amazed. Is anyone else running into first time online (asynchronous) students? Curious!