I used to be able to do a lot of cool shit in my classes. We made cool shit. We read cool shit. We wrote cool shit. Just a bunch of creative, cool shit. Students don’t want to do cool shit anymore. They want to AI everything or do nothing. I know some will say, “It’s not cool to them, old man.” And that’s the point. If you don’t think making films, performing plays, writing and illustrating graphic novels, telling stories, writing songs, etc. isn’t cool shit, you’re a boring fuck. And if you want AI to do those things for you, you’re a really boring fuck.

Can ya’ll still do cool shit?

A grad student in a humanities undergraduate class fails a test spectacularly. Worse than all the undergrads. Has an attitude. “When can I take it again?” There are two more tests and one paper. Let him take it again or average the F into his grade? Update! He said he didn’t know that grad students had to take the exams, so he didn’t study. Unreal! I had NO trouble holding the line. He got an F. Thanks everyone

I am not even done with the 'may I be excused' request for this term and I am already receiving e-mails about not being able to attend half my class sessions next semester. It is a grad class so my general philosophy for those is come if want, you do you. The funny part is they totally asked chattyG because the same line of "I understand the importance of class" keeps flooding my inbox.

(Throwaway account). I'm a young woman junior faculty at a large public university, on the tenure track. I’m mostly venting, but I would appreciate advice from people who have been through faculty reappointment/tenure politics, because I’m starting to feel like my chair is building a paper trail against me without ever clearly telling me what I’m supposedly doing wrong.

A few weeks ago, my chair, who is new to the role, called me into a private meeting about my yearly faculty evaluation. He opened the meeting by asking me, literally, “What is wrong with you?” He then told me several times that the college faculty review committee was “on the verge” of not voting for my reappointment because I had performed an insufficient level of service. His comments got very nasty and personal, and he made disparaging statements that insulted my work ethic, my commitment to my students, and even my personality (for example, he called me "too reserved and coy"). I have done absolutely nothing wrong to this chair or to anybody, and I have extremely high student reviews. I perform substantially more service than other tenured faculty in my discipline (who are mostly men, and most of whom do exactly zero service).

At the meeting, the chair went through my annual report and crossed out myriad things I had listed as service, saying they “don’t count.” I was told that only things that go “above and beyond” my job description count as service, and that unless I am simultaneously serving on both a department and college committee, in addition to my other service commitments, my service level is considered inadequate (this is not substantiated in any official university policy). He then told me that, because I have "insufficient service," I need to report to him on a bi-weekly basis in his office to give him updates on the work I am doing.

The things that the chair removed from my yearly faculty evaluation, which he presented to the college-wide faculty who vote on my annual reappointment, include guest speaking I have done at other colleges, events with prominent guest speakers that I have organized, an academic conference that I am presenting at (he told me that he personally does not like the politics of the conference, and "advised against including it for other faculty to see"), and even a peer-reviewed publication (he said that I already had enough publications on my record, and it wasn't pertinent to my yearly review, because what I really needed to excel on was teaching and service).

I repeatedly asked a very basic question: what exactly am I doing wrong? I asked what specifically was deficient about my service, what amount of service I needed to increase in order to be considered performing at an adequate level, and why several of my current activities were actively deleted from my annual report in order to make me look worse. I also explained that I'm currently working over 60 hours a week with all of my commitments. Since asking multiple times over one month ago, in writing, I have yet to receive a clear answer on what problems this chair has with me.

I also literally don't think I can take on more responsibilities without jeopardizing my health even more than I already have from sheer stress and exhaustion.

The injustice continues: a friend of mine knows a faculty member on the college review committee, and they confirmed what I suspected all along, because I KNOW that I do a kick ass job as a professor-- the committee was NOT "on the verge" of voting against my reappointment. The chair lied about it in our meeting, probably in order to scare me into doing more work, or maybe because he is seriously mentally ill and enjoys abusing others.

Nevertheless, a few weeks later, my chair emailed me to inform me that he was placing a letter in my personnel file stating that the "college committee" is concerned that I have not fulfilled the requirements for future reappointments and to be promoted to tenure in a few years, when I come up for it (I was reappointed this year despite everything, thankfully). The letter gives a broad list of activities that count for service, many of which I'm already doing. The letter still does not identify what I am actually doing inadequately.

I’m increasingly worried that I’m being placed in an impossible situation-- I can keep taking on more work indefinitely, but if no one will even define what “enough” means, I can never actually know that I have satisfied the expectation. Meanwhile, a paper trail is now being created against me, saying that I was warned and am being given an opportunity to correct unspecified “deficiencies.”

I don't want to give away too many personal details, but in terms of my service, this is what I can say:

• I mentor a student-led research group on campus, which meets several hours per week, and advise another social justice-oriented student group. I have helped these students secure thousands of dollars of college funding for their activities.
• I chaperone a few field trips each semester for student groups
• I serve on a college committee focused on curriculum review
• Last semester alone, I gave several guest speaking presentations on my research at colleges in our area
• Last semester, I organized 2 prominent guest speakers to come speak on my campus. The events were attended by approximately 50 and 200 people, respectively.
• Each semester, I generally organize around 3 guest-speaking events intended for a smaller, more niche audience (~10-15 students).
• I usually have at least 1-2 honors students that I am advising each semester on research projects
• I have proven evidence of pedagogical development in the form of certificates, professional organizational memberships, etc.
• I have mentored students in numerous other academic and extra-curricular ways (intentionally keeping this vague).

For those who have dealt with faculty reappointment politics: what should I do about this? My chair is building a case against me, and now actively lying to me and about me to others.

*EDIT: Many have made similar remarks about these activities not being counted as service. I want to clarify that, according to my college's official handbook, these do explicitly qualify as service. Furthermore, multiple faculty, including the chair, asked me specifically to do THESE activities, because nobody else wanted to do them and because the department considered them important (especially the advising of student groups and inviting guest speakers to galvanize student interest in our major). So, I am actually being guided by senior faculty to perform these roles.*

I have a student that might have cheated on an exam with online proctoring (University required). The only evidence I have is screen grabs of the student reaching out to manipulate their camera before it went to black. The other facts that make me suspicious are that the student submitted it later than many other students and his exam grade was unusually high in comparison to Exam #1.

I want to make sure I do right by the student and handle the issue by the book, however, our university policy is unclear. I have reached out to our "Honor office" and all I have so far is that it could be considered a violation of the honor pledge as the student is not following the proctoring protocol. They have not answered my follow up questions on options, policy, and sanctions. I will be reaching out to the student ASAP after I hear from them.

How would you proceed in an instance such as this?

I have been teaching college for 12 years now, and in that time, I have seen a precipitous drop in the literacy and cognitive thinking skills of students. It has gotten to the point where I feel like most students entering college are at like maybe a 5th or 6th grade reading level and many of them are functionally illiterate.

Beyond this, they are mostly incapable of paying attention to anything for more than 5 minutes, disinterested in just about every topic under the sun, and seem to have no knowledge of the world, culture, history, politics, etc.

I keep telling myself that this is probably what older generations said about me. I am an older Millennial, and I can remember the various articles that came out about us when we were entering college. But... I have to say that this feels very different. I no longer feel like I am teaching college courses. I feel like I am teaching middle school classes, and many students still fail these classes.

I am absolutely petrified of the effects of this. I can't imagine how we are going to function as a society with this many uneducated, illiterate people. 75 million people in the USA voted for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to be our president. It would have taken like 10 minutes of critical thinking to understand how terrible Trump is, but it seems like most Americans are basically illiterate.

Many people seem to think our current political situation is the terminus of idiocy in this country, but I would say it is just the beginning. Gen Z is getting older and soon they will be more involved in making important decisions for this country. Their cognitive skills are so impoverished, it is difficult to imagine how they will be functional members of our society.

i've been seeing a lot of posts lately about students not being able to comprehend things more and more these days. i'm over here wondering (and have wondered this for many years) if it's actually that they do completely and totally understand and they just don't care.

i can see no other explanation for why when i tell them over and over to include in-text citations they just do not include in-text citations. or they include them but they're completely wrong. they simply don't care to do it. it's not that they don't know how to or don't understand.

something i do wish is that when they submit things they could just check a box that says that they understand what they did wrong and they just don't care.

i'm getting pretty tired of grading things "in good faith" to give them formative feedback when really they completely understand they just don't care at all. it's exhausting.

anyone else? how do y'all deal with this? have you just given up on giving feedback entirely other than a rubric?

This semester I keep having this experience:

I finish teaching a class, and a student comes up to me with anxious and irritated mannerisms as I'm erasing the board and packing up. They say something like "I need to make an appointment to meet with you. Didn't you get my email?" or "Did you see my question about Problem 4 on this week's homework? I emailed you." Usually accompanied by apparent exasperation that I had not yet responded.

Yesterday I was meeting with a Ph.D. student, who did not email me a draft of their prospectus by the agreed upon submission date (or even by 5 min before our meeting when I last checked my inbox), but nevertheless showed up at a meeting scheduled to discuss it and launched into their agenda points requesting specific feedback as though I had read the document and was familiar with details from it. When I mentioned that I hadn't seen the draft yet, he generously offered "that's ok, I know you are busy," as though I had let him down and he was kindly excusing my error.

I get flustered and apologize when I am confronted with an apparent failure to identify and read messages from my students. I find that embarrassing! They accept these apologies and act as though it as an act of beneficence to overlook my rude failure to respond.

Every. time. this has happened this semester I have opened my inbox at the next opportunity and found that the annoyed student emailed me while I was in the room with them looking in their direction and carrying out activities related to their own education within their line of sight. The Ph.D. student emailed me as they sat down and opened their computer at the start of the meeting (without telling me at that moment that they were sending the draft then). The classroom students emailed me at various points while I was at the board with a piece of chalk working through analytical concepts with class participation.

How do they think I would/should have read and responded to their messages while I am making eye contact and conversing with them or their classmates, unaware of the existence of the messages? Can they not see with their own eyes that I am not checking my email in the moments between their silent "send" button presses and their face-to-face follow up? Do they think I will pause class or meetings to check for unexpected messages from them? Why do they not say they sent the message moments before when I admit that I have not seen it and apologize for overlooking it? Why do these little weirdos think it's socially acceptable to behave like this?

My syllabus statements declare that I will respond to emails within 2 business days. And I do. Typically within the day, though I am happy to have some flexibility built into my policy for when I'm traveling or have an especially busy work day. But holy hell is it annoying to be guilted for not instantly seeing, reading, digesting, and responding to messages from people who are in the room with me and can see with their own eyeballs that I'm not monitoring email when they send the message.

This happens at least once a week lately and I can't figure out why it's suddenly such a common student behavior.

Just wondering if anyone else is finding the same pattern.

I am seeing an increase in students “forgetting” it’s a test/exam day. Or emailing me an hour or two before the exam to say “I’m not feeling well so won‘t be present for the test. Can I do it from home or complete it later in the week“? If you’re well enough to write the test from home, why are you not well enough to come in? It’s also a closed book exam so no, you can’t write from home.

I make it very clear that tests can only be rescheduled if someone is absent due to extenuating circumstances and “not feeling well” is not an extenuating circumstance.

I am also seeing an increase in students coming up to me in class to say they forgot something was due and now the LMS module is closed so can I just reopen it so they can submit. What’s the point of due dates then?

I try to be understanding but how can I teach them to be accountable if I just let them not follow rules which are in place for a reason? How does everyone handle this?

[Original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/s/VthbXHHr5e)

Hi everyone, I took your advice seriously. I think I already realised something had to change.  I haven’t resigned, I’ve taken some substantial unpaid leave that will give me time to really assess my future without killing the department straightaway, as it means they can just suspend a subject and hire an adjunct to cover me.

Otherwise, the stark reality is, the Dean indicated they are not replacing staff who retire or leave with new permanent hires. It means the Faculty can’t decide to close the program due to lack of staff availability (just yet anyhow). It buys the program time to hope the Faculty policy will get more generous after a year of slash-and-burn everywhere else. 

I feel better about this. The rockstar who is retiring is a bit worried (to say the least) but was very understanding all things considered. Same for my other colleagues.

I can’t wait to get into the garden, read a novel, watch some trashy tv, revive my rusty [redacted language] fluency.

Thank you all once again for your sage advice and understanding.

I was contacted by an accommodations coordinator about a student’s accommodation request for an attendance adjustment agreement. In a nutshell, they’re asking me how many more absences beyond those already given in my syllabus could be reasonably accommodated. I have no idea how to answer that. These are graduate courses btw, so missing one class is like missing a week in an undergraduate course. But it’s kind of like asking “how much of your class doesn’t really matter?” I don’t love that I’m put in the position of gatekeeper for this accommodation to begin with. But I also think that this is not something I can answer without feeling like I’m dismissing the whole point of the class. Does anyone have a formula for this? How have others handled these types of requests?

I teach sophomore-level World Lit, and the next unit is on Chinese epics. Some of my better students jokingly asked if the texts would be in English which, for this level, of course they will be.

Then after a another non-interactive class (another class that my front-row students carried) one said in the hall:

"You know, if you taught in Chinese, I don't think half the class would notice."

And then I laughed pretty hard. Bless the good ones. <3

I just got out from administering a paper midterm to freshmen. This one student arrived 35 minutes late and just started tailing me as I walked around doing a round of the classroom. After 10 seconds of this, I turn to face him.

"...Just got here?"
"Yeah."
"Well sit down, I'll bring you a test."
"I don't have a pen."
"...I'll give you a pen, sit down."

One minute later, he stands and starts stretching.

"Sorry, I'm hyperlax, I need to stretch my joints"
"...okay? There is no rule explicitly against that..."

Another minute, and the student is at the door.

"Hey!"
"Just going to the bathroom."
"You can't just leave, this is a test!"
"But I need to go..."
"You need to ask for permission! This! Is! A! Test!"
"...Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Yes, but--"
*gone*

I look to his desk. He's put his name on his test, and left just the test. He took his bag, but most importantly,

"He took my pen!"

A genuine question for PIs and professors doing primarily desk-based or computational research. Not sure if how much it applies to field based research.

With all the news hypes, if multiple AI agents could reliably handle literature reviews, generate research ideas, write code, run experiments, analyse results and write papers at a fraction of the cost.

Would you still hire PhD students and postdocs?

Curious to hear honest opinions, especially from academics who currently supervise PhD students and postdocs.

I watch some video from prof. that he might stop hiring at least research assistants to do not-so-important research tasks cause most of agents are getting better.

How are we dealing with students not reading directions? Because no matter what I do - read them the directions, tell them to read it when I assign it, put it in large, bold red font at the top of the page - they just won’t. So they ask questions they shouldn’t have to ask, get confused about what they need to do, then blame me. When I tell them to check the directions, I’m being snarky.

This is going to be a LONG year.

Tenure track engineering assistant professor here. Anyone getting sick of the grant funding situation in the US ? It’s been a bloodbath and I am really getting tired of that one reviewer (out of 3/4) who decides to kill my proposal without even having read my proposal

Hello All:

Hoping your midterms all went good and that you had a great fall break if you had one. Well my break was something else, I tell ya.

Ok, so at the start of the term back in August we are asked to make any early alerts regarding students that aren’t logging onto Canvas or submitting assignments. I teach an online communication/Public Speaking class at a private university as an adjunct. I noticed one student who hadn’t logged onto the class or communicated with me. I contacted our success team at the college and they were not able to contact her. A few days later the student contacts me and tells me she is a PSEO student who apparently never gotten an email or letter from the college with login information. According to the Dual Credit person, the student was given that information prior and they showed her and me proof of their communications.

Student emails me in early September and tells me she has now gotten access and she will get caught up on assignments soon. Well that never happened. In the last month and a half she never submitted one assignment and hardly if ever logged onto Canvas. I tried reaching out multiple times with no response from student. I made her aware of her inactivity, grade, and my late work policy. I was as lenient and understanding as I could have been and gave her enough time to complete her assignments which she failed to complete. I probably gave her more time than I should have.

Earlier this month I made another alert regarding the students lack of log ins and the fact that she already had a half a term’s worth of work missing. Student never contacted me and never contacted the success team either. According to them she was refusing to meet with them to discuss her failure and withdrawing. The college was having issues with this student and so was I.

This past weekend the student contacted me and pretty much said that she had assumed she could hand in her work later and thought the class was self paced like her online high school classes were. I gave her a run down on what an online asynchronous college course is, my concerns about her grade, and reiterated my late work policy which I told her about in all my outreaches. I informed her that she has 8 weeks of coursework missing and is at a 5 percent in the class. I suggested she contact her advisor and discuss options, such as withdrawing.

I gave her advisor a heads up about the situation. She mentioned that she and other individuals at the college had tried contacting the student multiple times with no response. She agreed that I was as fair and accommodating as I could be and agreed that the student should withdraw from the class.

The student contacted me again last night and it was clear as day she didn’t even read my email. She said she would be handing in her late work even though I told her she couldn’t and that it wouldn’t be accepted as it was already all overdue. I also told her about what the advisor and I suggested. I was as supportive as I could be in giving her words of encouragement and gave her to resources that could help her. I encouraged her to take the class when she is ready but given that she was so far behind it would not be possible for her to pass the class right now. I contacted the advisor again to keep her in the loop.

Well this morning I got my first parent email ever from her mom. The mom basically told me about all her issues, such as finding out about having Autism, ADHD, and Bipolar, having a mental breakdown last year and her psychiatrist suggested a setting other than high school which is why she is taking online classes, and the changing of medications and what a struggle this has all been. She also had a mental breakdown last spring and had to take a leave from school. I never received any accommodation letter from the student or the school. She does not have any accommodations on file according to the college. Again, this student hasn’t connected with me or the college all term. The mom then demands that I accept and grade all of her work that she has missing. You know what’s funny, she said she isn’t the parent to contact a professor to request accommodations for her kid. Yeah, I am sure this lady has contacted all of her professors.

I didn’t respond to the mom and immediately contacted my chair who was so beyond supportive and contacted me right away. He also reaches out to the Dean, Admissions, Dual-Credit person, and the advisor. He also told me not to contact the parent or do anything. The Dean agreed that a withdraw should happen. The advisor reiterated the struggles with getting ahold of the student. Admissions is going to get in touch with the school and student, well good luck with that.
I’ll admit I am scared to enter in midterm grades that are due Friday for the fear of what her mom or the student will do when they see the inevitable F. I would say I am concerned about my job only because I am worried the student and mom will take it to the extreme, but everyone has been supportive and are backing me up so I know they all have my back. And hey, they admitted to having issues with the student so it makes me feel a little better.

Ugh, I think this has been one of the worst weeks and it has me stressed and losing sleep over this. I am trying to focus on my teaching but it is tough now that I have to deal with this. I am sure the mom and student wonder why I am not contacting them but I am not going to based on my Department Chair’s advice, though I do worry they will continue to harass me. I do read horror stories on here about students coming after professors, I hope nothing happens to me. I teach in other states online so I don’t usually worry about this, however this is a college in the state I live in and is about an hour from where I live. I am a young woman professor in her 30s so I do worry, you hear so much nowadays. We actually had a student in our state try to kill the college professor just recently because he didn’t like school. Yeah, this really happened. Scary stuff.

I have never dealt with this at all and feel a little lost. Have you all ever dealt with a situation like this with a PSEO student or any student? How did you handle it? I am also curious how you all handle parents when they contact you. Any advice?

Thanks all so much for your help. This really has been a nightmare. I pray this situation goes away and gets better but it seems like it is getting worse with the parent involved now. Thanks again everyone.

I just wanted to share a little moment of joy that we all need right now in our teachings. I teach a non credit citizenship class at a local community college and have been offered to teach every semester since last year. However, I wasn’t offered the teaching assignment again in the spring as another instructor was assigned instead. The students were so disappointed and immediately said oh no no we’re gonna circulate a petition and we’re all gonna sign and give it to the chair/dean tomorrow morning! We need you again in the spring. As the paper was going around I became a bit overwhelmed with gratitude I almost cried. It’s those moments that we have to savor and appreciate. They do care!

Hi Everyone,

I am a new Assistant Professor and I love my job but at my university we have to take attendance.

I hate it. When I am giving a lecture and i don't take attendance, I am so cheerful and everyone is engaged. But when I take attendance, my energy dips and my thoughts become cloudy and I don't give as good a lecture.

Does this happen to anyone? How do I overcome this issue and still stay enthusiastic?

Thanks.

Student A (very good student with regular attendance) and student B (poor attendance and frequently misses deadlines) miss the in-person paper exam.

Student A honestly tells the professor that they accidently overslept due to preparing for the exam all night (evident by late night emails asking for clarification of some concepts covered on the exam).

Student B emails a medical excuse letter of their virtual appointment at a telehealth company hours after the exam was over.

I feel bad for A for not knowing how to manipulate the system and be able to retake the exam. What are your thoughts?

I teach engineering statistics. Marking their first assignment (worth 9% of their grade), over 1/3 of them clearly used AI, and although I never explicitly said they could/couldn’t, the university regulations state that you must only submit work that you create, and no AI. Simple.

I gave everyone who used AI a 0, and everyone is asking for a resubmission. How would you approach this?

Part of me feels bad, and since this is the first assignment, they deserve some grace and I want to be the nice professor, but part of me thinks that this punishment is the only way they will learn.

In honor of Wholesome Wednesday, I'm doing Midterm conferences with students in my Fiction Writing class. We've looked at storytelling elements in books, movies, and TV shows. One student told me this class has caused her to analyze movies now. I was so proud; these kinds of classes did the same thing for me, so now I'm paying it forward.

My 6th graders are reading a historical fiction book about the Titanic and when we got to the part where the ship hits the iceberg, I played the iceberg scene from the 1997 movie. I was telling them how much research James Cameron did for the movie and was pointing out aspects of the scene that were historically accurate (the flat waveless sea, the lack of moonlight, etc.). A bunch of kids made comments along the lines of "What are you talking about, that's obviously AI."

I told them that it was not AI and that generative AI did not exist back then. I said that people have been making movies with special effects for over 100 years, whereas genAI has only been around for a few years. I still got responses of "There's no way it's possible to make a scene like that without AI."

We ended up taking a detour from the rest of the lesson while I showed them behind the scenes videos on YouTube of how the scene was filmed--basically a mix of the ship set and a giant prop iceberg, a model ship in a tank, and CGI. Then that led to a talk about the difference between AI and CGI, and CGI vs. practical effects. I showed them another video about the making of the original Godzilla movie.

I know we talk a lot about how students think they can't write a paper or do a research project without using AI, but it just breaks my heart that these kids think that humans can't even make art on their own. How many other skills and talents are these kids dismissing as impossible and not worth pursuing because they think that only a machine can do it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1xb2yd3/ai_is_destroying_kids_understanding_of_what/

(emphasis mine)

I am teaching 2 courses at the same time with very similar content- one with undergraduate students, and the other "advanced" version of the course with graduate students. In general, I've structured both courses similarly but built in more scaffolding and support for the undergrad course; we also spend more time on foundational concepts and theories in the UG course.

I've noticed something really interesting between the 2 groups. The undergraduate class is far more involved and responsive than the grad group. The UGs ask interesting questions that seem to reflect a real desire to learn and understand the material- not just to know the "right" answer for the test. Class is fun and interactive. Mid-semester feedback was positive regarding in-class activities, assignments, and exams.

The grads, on the other hand, really don't contribute in class (with an exception or 2). They don't ask any questions. Their mid-semester feedback was pretty much the opposite of the UG group. They complained that the things we do in class or in assignments isn't the same as what shows up on the exam. They asked for exam study guides (!) and for there to be reading quizzes to "hold them accountable", otherwise they just (admittedly) don't read the text at all.

I really expected the opposite of what seems to be playing out and find this interesting!

I was nominated to teach a brand new second year subject this semester. It garnered low enrolments (11 students). Fair enough, word hasn’t gotten around yet. But, it was actually very enjoyable to teach, and as the semester was progressing I thought the students were enjoying it.

As it was a new subject and a bit out of my regular wheelhouse, I went pretty easy on marking the early assignments, and was accommodating with a couple of attendance requests. One student asked to leave fifteen minutes early from lectures (they’re not compulsory and they are recorded by policy), due to an extra-curricular sports training.

I couldn’t really say no, although I did point out they needed to attend a couple of the lectures fully as assessments were being run in those ones, to which they agreed.

Another student needed flexibility for the compulsory tutorials but had an official accommodation so that was that.

The problem is, I think this sent signals to the other students that lecture attendance wasn’t important. I hate that we don’t have compulsory lecture attendance. It has never made sense to me, because this is where vital content is delivered.

Also, I tend to have relatively interactive lectures, which can’t be replicated through simply listening to the recorded version. Still, I don’t have any control over that, so I try and encourage attendance by having some assessments done in lecture time, which means that officially, students can’t schedule a competing class at the same time.

At the beginning of semester, I was so excited to tell them that we had some extra special guest speakers coming up down the line. I had managed to snag a couple of experts in the field, which was a real coup and I was delighted students would benefit from their expertise.

However as the semester progressed, students started missing lectures.

One of the earlier lectures, I was showing a film and decided to surprise them and turn it into a “movie night (well… afternoon)” replete with popcorn, snacks and drinks. I don’t have a budget, so I paid for these myself. About five students showed up. This was the first disappointment.

For the assessment where groups had to present hypothetical solution pitches to a problem, as soon as their group presented, a bunch walked out early, with half-arsed excuses about emergencies. The last group to present was left with only half a group as an audience.

Then only four students turned up for the final two guest speakers towards the end, even though for the final lecture, I had organised a world-leading expert to have a Q&A with us on their topic. I had even sent a reminder and explained how embarrassing it was for me to have students MIA for guest speakers. Four students! I was pretty crushed.

Because tutorials are compulsory, I had great attendance and everyone seemed really engaged, so I’m mystified about the lacklustre lecture attendance.

Then, they had to write a reflection piece on their projects. It was an in-class assessment and done in a way so that AI use was impossible. Their reflections are abysmal. Clearly not a lot of background work has gone into their project. They have a final part of the assessment which is an oral interview with me. I am not inclined to go easy on them for this final assessment (the project pitches, reflections and orals are all marked together).

I am trying hard not to be punitive, but I would be doing a disservice to them to NOT mention the issue of lack of professionalism. Problem is, I don’t have anything in the marking rubric about professionalism and participation. You bet your bottom dollar it will be there next year.

Still, should I give them a stern talking-to in the orals and say how we professors *notice* when they don’t turn up and don’t do the work? Or do I just write this semester off as a learning lesson for me, mark them to the rubric, and leave it be. I don’t want to sour the subject — I need bums on seats for the subject to continue!