This smells like a fake story created for trolling purposes.
Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
51–60 of 659 posts
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#52It is absolutely insane that the professor cannot eject an auditing student from their class. The relevant university is apparently a joke at the expense of fresher student safety.
Could you clarify how student safety is being threatened by what's described in the post?
Safety, literally? Maybe. But if the women are feeling demoralized and it’s preventing their access to those courses, then I’m confident the Title IX office will be able to look into it. Google U, JDs are focusing too narrowly on harassment. It could be analyzed as the policy of allowing this is having a disparate impact on women’s access to certain courses.
It’s not unreasonable to ask people why they’re doing in your class.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#53Don't let senior level students audit junior level classes? Why are they even there besides the reasons outlined in the problem? This is a problem with the University because they don't want to acknowledge a problem. Do they really think that's going to last? If it was my daughter who left the class because she was harassed I'd be very angry.
Why do people see this as even remotely unethical? It seems to me that it's great that plenty of younger people are getting essentially free tutoring sessions and fun friendships/relationships out of it. Unless there's sexual assault/battery being alleged here, this is both ethical and good for all the students involved!
At the very least it seems demeaning to the women taking the class, if not predatory
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#54Ingenious and hilarious. Trying to shut it down is probably going to create more interest, Streisand effect type thing. I would leave it to burn out on it's own. It sounds like a net positive on the whole. Hard to tell if there is really a problem here. "a number of female students" reached out to her with concerns, but "a few fellow profs either find it comical, or are happy that open labs are so full of volunteer t…
Yeah this professor seems to be taking this really personally, like some fictional crusty dean. Simpson!
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Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#55Ingenious and hilarious. Trying to shut it down is probably going to create more interest, Streisand effect type thing. I would leave it to burn out on it's own. It sounds like a net positive on the whole. Hard to tell if there is really a problem here. "a number of female students" reached out to her with concerns, but "a few fellow profs either find it comical, or are happy that open labs are so full of volunteer t…
I agree that shutting it down would likely backfire if the prof tries to shut it down too aggressively, but I don't know that I follow the conclusion that this is mostly a positive. There's some selective minimizing of the students that feel uncomfortable and maximizing of what some of the faculty think:
~Sure, some female students feel weird about guys in their class pretending to be in the instructor so that they can trick the hot students into "private tutoring", but some of the faculty think its funny. Sounds like a net positive~
There's a bit of boys will be boys energy in this reply.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#56I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would - then the problem would basically solve itself. Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.
Women aren't dumb. They almost certainly already know what the deal is, and I doubt they'd be phased by it if they were attracted to a guy.
I lament to say it but I tend to agree.
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" was my first reaction, and I felt awful & loss hearing your comment (because I simultaenously also agree!), but I'm also back to some transparency in the end, if less hopeful (that this would turn out/cleans us of what feel like thin actions). It's up to people to decide, hopefully from an informed place! Simply posting about this & hopefully awareness taking off & giving folks warnings what is afoot here is basically the one responsible step, that at least tries to inform potential datees about this pretty icky predation (but which alas to everyone, also makes sense).
This definitely feels not good to me, in a big sense. But I have a hard time convincing myself it really matters in a case-by-case sense. If someone's cute and has prospects, is doing something actually interesting on their own & has potential I respect, and has the time and slack to come meet & be interested in me while (hopefully) also enjoying & sharing a subject some, I'm not really sure that I'd be all that bothered. Even knowing there's a bit of sham, a bit of a waste, a game at the heart. They're going out of their way to find a connection. Like, ok, this person gave up a sensible path to go do something stupid to come meet me... ok, weird, but ok.
I still think there should be a disclaimer at the start, make it known. Not that adolescents really have the fully developed limbic system to handle/make use of the info fully, but at least to open the idea first, give em a better chance. Heck, let's deploy some ML: "HAL 10k reports 20% of the boys in this class have no business here whatsoever; it has no contribution/would be easier than their regular classes, & their intents are suspect!" Match data with data! If the diversity data gives insight one place, equity insists we give counter-data on the un-diverse, and in that seems like a solid chance to start to make pretty strong inferences about what is up.
Or just more simply, pointing out the stats in general: that these classes have rather surprising new attendees en-mass, and showing what ranking of predation the class has on the predatory website being described here, for what search critereon. Rather than be specific, just leave it at the general non-judgemental but also generally most would conclude yuck. Let the information go two ways.
But to return to my parents point. Yeah. I think we should prepare & equip, make known & make bidirectional some of the what-is-what here. But I also don't think, even knowing & seeing, it'd be that much of a hinderance or burden in many cases. I started with a so what, and that still kind of is my final conclusion. But I still feel the need for sunlight, the need to make it a reasonably fair so-what, versus a Dark Forest scenario.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#57Ah, the destruction of centuries of academic freedom and open learning in the name of social justice.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#58If a male engineering student chooses, say, a drama elective in hopes of meeting more women, that's fine as long as he takes the class seriously and treats fellow students with respect. He might even learn something. But someone with a strong math background shouldn't be allowed in a 100-level math for liberal arts students class, regardless of motive.
I took one such class, of latin, which unexpectedly was all women except me. The class itself was okay but the environment was terrible, I wouldn't recommend unless you really want to study the topic. Ended up quitting but read the textbooks anyway. Depending on how you look like, you get treated like a creep just for being in such place, no matter how respectful you are.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#59This sounds like the college age mischief you read about in the biographies of founders who go on to build multi-billion dollar companies.
Ladies, let the sweet engineering student help you with your astronomy homework and buy you a chai latte.
The world needs more smart babies.
Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service
#60I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would - then the problem would basically solve itself. Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.
Why would you think that?
Young women aren't oblivious to their own charms. They know what they're doing. They're getting free 1-on-1 tuition from a nerd, and the nerd gets to be within 3 feet of an attractive young woman - maybe even more than that, let's not be naive about college campuses - which might otherwise be impossible. Everybody wins.
You might even upset the women most of all! When the quiet part is said aloud, you take away their plausible deniability. You're calling them out even more so than you are the men.