Ask HN: What can I do about bad professors?

Gotchya

Seek out opinions and seek agreement from classmates with direct experience.

Report individually but en masse. (Don't go together as a mob, but do all file individual reports. Less threatening, and it lets the administration independently collect and collaborate details from different individual.)

Don't threaten. Just state the facts, and try to remain collected, clear, and focused on a productive resolution.

Quietly put the word out for future classmates. Pay it forward by helping them to avoid being screwed. It's an imperfect marketplace, but eventually the school will find interest in "resolving" the situation with an instructor/professor that students actively avoid. In this latter step, avoid situations that can open you to personal liability, if the attendant risk to you is significant (e.g. online reporting sites). In this modern age, "word of mouth" can still be tremendously effective and verbal communication continues to be used to avoid a record that can work against the communicator (in this case, given your analysis is correct, a form of "whistleblower"?).

P.S. If there isn't widespread agreement and support among your classmates and associates, then it may be time to revisit your own assessment.

Akin to this, it shouldn't turn into a witch hunt. Give specific reasons if/when you advise other people to avoid an instructor; if your argument is primarily emotional, reassess.

1) If you want to try I think the best place to start would be to sit down and talk to the professor. I get the feeling that a personal talk is more likely to lead to a change than an email or something. There's a notable chance he reconsiders his ways. It might be kinda awkward, but if you really care, then that should outweigh the awkwardness.

2) You could also talk to (or email) some dean or administrator. Like others have said, they probably do kinda care, it's just that most of the complaints they get are bad. If you have intelligent things to say, they'll probably listen.

3) You could try to organize a bunch of students to complain, or to not take his class. This may be hard to organize, but would have a bigger effect.

- From what I understand, having tenure doesn't mean that you can't fire a professor, just that you have to demonstrate in some sort of legal hearing that they aren't doing their job. So it really just makes firing bad professors more inconvenient. It's amazing how schools claim to care about providing students with a good education, and at the same time allow absolutely awful professors to continue to teach. At the very least accept them as sunk costs and find someone else to do a good job. It might be a good idea to politely mention to the dean/administrator that the inconvenience of firing a bad professor is less important than the benefit of providing future students with a better education.

- Is it worth your time to do anything about it? The chances you have an impact might not be worth the time it'd take to try. Your time is valuable and I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff you could be doing. With that said, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long to set up a meeting or write an email.