Tough Professor Removed; Students' Grades Raised

LSU removes tough professor, raises students' grades

By Scott Jaschik

Dominique G. Homberger won't apologize for setting high expectations for her students. The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn't use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn't want students to get very far with guessing.

Students in introductory biology don't need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university's administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-15-IHE-tough-prof-removed-LSU-15_ST_N.htm

To call the administration "chicken shit" on this one is to insult the feces of chickens.

Homberger said she was told that some students had complained about her grades on the first test. "We are listening to the students who make excuses, and this is unfair to the other students," she said. "I think it's unfair to the students" to send a message that the way to deal with a difficult learning situation is "to complain" rather than to study harder.

Further, she said that she was never informed that administrators had any concerns about her course until she received a notification that she was no longer teaching it. (She noted that the university's learning management system allowed superiors to review the grades on her first test in the course.)

And while her dean authorized her removal from teaching the course, she said, he never once sat in on her course. Further, she said that in more than 30 years of teaching at LSU, no dean had ever done so, although they would have been welcome.

"Why didn't they talk to me?" she asked.

I had a math prof who taught pre-calc the same way. By the end of the semester, there were 17 students out of the original 50. Thank God I stuck around. One of the best classroom experiences I had in college.

But given how many university administrators view teachers primarily as customer service specialists rather than educators, no way he'd be allowed to do that any more.

Must be nice to have a courseload that allows for the writing of daily quizzes and correcting of said quizzes (among other things.) I can't imagine doing anything close to this, for no other reason than I'd like to keep my 8-9 hour days from becoming 11-12 hour days.

I'm guessing there are T.A's and scantrons involved. But still, coming up with TEN options on a multiple choice test... that's going to take some time.

This is the real reason for her removal: "The class in question is an entry-level biology class for non-science majors, and, at mid-term, more than 90% of the students in Dr. Homberger's class were failing or had dropped the class. The extreme nature of the grading raised a concern, and we felt it was important to take some action to ensure that our students receive a rigorous, but fair, education. Professor Homberger is not being penalized in any way; her salary has not been decreased nor has any aspect of her appointment been changed."

At first I was thinking, "there goes academic freedom", but looking at the situation from a broader perspective, Professor Homberger doesn't seem to be concerned by the failure rate, and she should be.

It would be nice to see what these quizzes were like, though.

Not always.

The last quiz I gave had a multiple choice section that was a bear. It is an entry-level course, so student knowledge in the subject is nil. The subtleties in each answer (4 or 5 choices) were brutal.

Students wanted a study-guide, which I do not believe in at all, so when I made up a guide, of course the exam was going to be tougher.

At my private university, grade inflation is high. And I definitely participate in that.

That's not much different from the fail rate for the math class I mentioned in my post. Those that stuck it out were massively rewarded (not necessarily with a good grade). Those that quit got nothing, which is what they deserved.

So for me, here's the key passage:

Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who is the founder of GradeInflation.com, a website that publishes research on grading, questioned whether LSU was really trying to help students. "How many times has Dean Carman removed a professor from a class who was giving more than 90% A's?" he asked.

Those teachers do more damage in the long run. Not from the "customer relations perspective," of most administrators these days, but from the perspective of education.

good distinctions, but in the math class -- which i believe was calculus (!) -- you would expect a higher percentage of failure, maybe, than in an entry level biology class, even if the students were math majors. calculus is a bit more difficult for most people than a entry level bio class.

when i was a substitute for a whole semester ( high school Spanish ) i discovered that the teacher i was replacing had given more than the maximum number of points for turning in a daily "agenda" notebook. there were homework and classwork assignments in the notebook, but she was marking off points when the students' names and dates were not on every page.

i can understand the rationale for that if these were separate sheets where some additional work would be required of the teacher or a TA to figure out whose papers those were, but they were in a notebook, and the names of the students were on the front of the notebook.

i think the teacher had some "issues", but who am i to judge...

on the 90% As question: i think some rare teachers might be justified in giving that many As, if they were really good teachers and the metric was equitable. but it would be an oddity.

Those are mostly fair points, but to get back to my anecdotal evidence, my experience was in a pre-calc class, with very few if any math or engineering majors. And I was an English major. Mostly what I got out of getting my assed kick early on was the idea that hard work would be rewarded. And it occured to me at some point in that semester, if I attacked the classes I was actually GOOD at in the same way, I would get a lot out of my education. And that worked, too.

Now, the issue of "issues" you raise is interesting. Getting back to the article, I don't know what "issues" the bio prof at LSU might have had -- but I wouldn't rule that out. However, if the article was accurate, the Dean should've addressed the professor directly first, at least through the department chair, before removing the prof, and the Dean probably should've actually attended a session or two (or sent the department chair to do so). That way, if there were issues in play, there'd be some evidence. As it is, the Dean's action sends a couple of bad messages that are going to create further problems down the road.

calc or precalc...same difference

i would always favor face to face discussion about a thorny subject like grading. but you know how off-the-wall school people are, always getting offended by the slightest minor rebuke.

your idea would cost time and energy, whereas just giving her the boot costs nothing, unless she makes a stink.

as for the "down the road" ramifications??? since when was that a concern for a school administrator, unless there's money involved?

am i kidding?

and just to be clear, i think your battle plan is aces...

I don't necessarily believe difficulty can directly correlate with learning either way.

I'd say the classes I got the most out of in college (it being my last semester) were once a week night classes with a really chill, laid back department head. I learned more history in those classes then in the classes with the guy everyone likes for some reason because he is funny, but it's basically a high school class in terms of what we do, i.e no analytical thinking.

I also learned a heck of a lot, not necessarily facts and whatnot, but how to think and debate/argue a point in my very open psychohistory and asian history courses I took with this crazy, kooky dude who must be at least 80 by now

But then there was my U.S National govt. class full of 18 year olds who were going to "Tell the dean" and get mommy and daddy to rescue them because they all failed a midterm. That really was very easy for those of us who now how to do college work............ One girl in that class told the professor flat out in class she couldn't go to the final the day it was scheduled because she had to work, and didn't want to lose hours to take one test. That went over well

My favorite teacher story is from a former professor at Vanderbilt. Said that must've been a good job because it's a prestigious university. He said he hated it. The student would deserve an F, he'd give him a C, and he'd get a call from the chancellor asking why the son of such and such didn't get an A.

Had a couple classes like that. It helps I enjoy history. Had one teacher that'd been at my college for a long time and I'd love his stories of Cold War Europe and travelling through the Eastern Bloc when he studied there. Had a strong affinity for beer so every story included at least one.

Ya this guy would tell us about back when he was in the KOREAN WAR and his first year at the school in 1966 and make us read these 1950s psychohistory books that were ridiculously outdated.

Great guy though, except the freshmen that take the core classes hate him, all the history majors love him

normally i am very pro-professor in these kinds of situations (the hubby's a professor, so perhaps a little biased) -- however, it almost sounds like a case of the prof who's usually teaching grad students thought she'd go all hardass on the little freshy non-majors.
if these people had gone to college in the UK they wouldn't even have to take a class like this. and if you read down into the comment sections, there's someone who was actually in her class, and said that it was actually an interesting class but there were problems with grading and test answers, and apparently the prof would mock the kids who were honestly asking for help and guidance.

this kind of balanced evaluation of situations of the sort being discussed drive me nuts.

are you taking the piss? sorry, my brain has shut down for the evening, including the sarcasm meter.

i was trying extra hard to give you the sorts of plaudits that would properly follow a post of the depth and breadth that yours represented...except for the "hubby" part...i could have done without that.

gotcha. thanks. next time i'll go with domestic partner or spousal unit.

17 attendees completing class out of 50 enrolled=34%.

Drop rate = 66%.

Number of remaining 17 attendees who received F's=N/A

There appears to be insufficient data to determine total % failed and dropped of the original class membership.

Shouldn't you have taken college algebra instead?








P.S.I also caught non-comparable timeframes,but why be picky?

Watch it, unless you want me to tell you about taking calculus over a five week summer term.