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Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

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Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#361

Post by pgayed »

weakfish wrote: post #332
nhchris wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less attractive girls get less male attention no matter what. Why would it be any more demoralizing if that attention comes with tutoring? Why would it be distracting? It seems everyone is complaining except the girls getting tutored. And if they did complain, if some guy was pushy or wouldn't take no for an answer, then deal with him the same as any other such guy - that they're attending a class for the sake of dat…

It would be demoralizing because your attractiveness shouldn’t factor into whether you can get academic help

The individuals offering sessions are not employees or staff of the university.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#362

Post by ryandrake »

jxramos wrote: post #166
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #25

Ingenious 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 think they need to get into more detail regarding >... uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place. What amount and what actions specifically, like are the guys ogling the girls non-stop. What are they talking about exactly.

Yea, the word "leching" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, and the edit doesn't really add much information:

> (edit: there are no unwanted advances, but it's painfully obvious to some students of what's taking place)

OK, but what's taking place? That's pretty important. If they're catcalling, harassing, whistling and other kinds of inappropriate behavior, that seems to be a clear cut discipline problem that should be dealt with via the university's discipline and sexual harassment policies. But OP specifically says no unwanted advances, so what on earth is OP talking about? It's definitely not painfully obvious to me.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#363

Post by type-r »

whacim wrote: post #281
kweinber wrote: post #170

This is an economics problem and this teacher should work with their Econ department to change the rules for course auditing and increase reputational costs to disincentive this behavior. A few options: 1) Make auditing those classes more expensive by limiting the total number of courses a student can audit, or capping the number of students that can audit those courses. 2) Make auditing a remote-only class option. 3…

It is difficult to suggest solutions without knowing exactly what the course is, but designing a class project to develop a solution for an analogous problem might be a solution. Assign the students a project to filter out students with ulterior motives from a theoretical class. The engineers will then be forced to produce a solution for the problem of their own creation while subtly alerting other students that not…

This is a fantastic suggestion. Probably not going to be applied by this professor but I love the symmetry of 'playing games' back and forth. Sounds fun honestly, as either side.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#364

Post by runarberg »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #293
shadowfacts wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Yes, choosing ones major based on dating prospects is definitely weird.

Until you realize your future family is about 100x more important and valuable than your future career.

When you approach finding a partner like if you were finding a car or a career, that is definitely weird in my books. Humans have a remarkable ability to be attracted to one and other, it really takes no effort, as if we naturally evolved to do exactly that or something. Now getting attracted to a field of industry, art, or science, that is a lot harder and takes way more effort. Most people I know focus on the latter, and find partners anyway (if they so choose).

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#365

Post by fzeroracer »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #353
fzeroracer wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Like they join the company, do nothing except look for women to date. Not only that, but if management found out they would not be allowed to fire them.

>So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Getting a job and then not doing your work makes you a shitty employee, and being a shitty employee is bad. You're violating the spirit of your employment contract, that your employer gives you money and you do work for them in return.

Correct, now apply that to being a student. When you go to college, there is a contract that you sign to not cheat, to not be disruptive. To be a 'good' student (which doesn't necessarily entail passing classes, but not affecting others or being dishonest). Guess what these people are doing in this situation.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#366

Post by wilsonnb3 »

type-r wrote: post #337
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

considering what we know about Richard Feynman's personal life, I'm not sure this is the great example you think it is.

what do we know? genuinely asking

I recall reading somewhere that he enjoyed attempting to sleep with the wives of his graduate students

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#367

Post by imbnwa »

lelanthran wrote: post #317
jhanschoo wrote: post #198

I'm appalled that so many other commenters don't see an issue with such behavior in class: > number of female students have approached me, noting they are disgusted and uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place > It's also demoralizing several of them, since we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "…

> I'm appalled that so many other commenters don't see an issue with such behavior in class: >> No unwanted advances It seems very appalling when you focus on the bits you don't like and ignore the bits like "no unwanted advances".

>It seems very appalling when you focus on the bits you don't like and ignore the bits like "no unwanted advances".

Yes, lets cultivate young hetero men to expressly look for sexual opportunities where they have an explicit and conscious asymetrical power-relation to women. Quality dudes these will be.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#368

Post by spiritplumber »

reeckoh wrote: post #41
jeffbarr wrote: post #4

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were doing something similar decades ago. According to https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35442969 (but well known before that): > Paul Allen, who would later become a co-founder of Microsoft, was a couple of years above Gates at school. Together they fixed the school scheduling software to ensure Gates was the only boy in classes of girls.

Sergey Brin too, with company massage rooms at early Google. As others have pointed out, it's also how Facebook was started. Sometimes I look back at my youth, and think about how I used to view technology: as a democratizing force which could tear down artificial barriers. Then I look around today and wonder what happened. It makes sense, though, if you look closely at the founding fathers of big tech.

https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:I_Dated_a_Robot Futurama did it

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#369

Post by lelanthran »

Tozen wrote: post #276
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #13

I still have clear recollection of the 50:1 men-to-women ratio in my CS2xx classes and higher. Your odds weren't good if you were hoping to meet Mrs. Right. I imagine things have gotten better since. Still, seems like a fairly high effort low outcome place to meet someone who is likely not even receptive to advances in that context. Do colleges not offer many other opportunities for people to meet outside of class in…

Part of the problem appears to be the anti-male agendas or stealth contempt of males and heterosexual coupling. If this was in reverse or non heterosexual, it would likely be close to a "protected" privilege or right nor not even mentioned. Almost any context to where males are perceived to be at an advantage or even having better options for hooking up, has become fashionable to demonize. Even mentioning the situati…

> Almost any context to where males are perceived to be at an advantage or even having better options for hooking up, has become fashionable to demonize.

If so, it's a weird thing to demonize - 80% of women chase after the same 20% of males in the 18-39 demographic. That means 80% of males of poor dating options.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#370

Post by abigail95 »

greggarious wrote: post #342
nhchris wrote: post #43

> This might be hard, as no unwanted advances are taking place. We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd. I should've been more clear with my "leching" comment. Still, it seems harassing in nature. It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues, and outside those strictly delimited places, men are to be…

I think one people miss is that lack of interaction can be a form of harassment. >we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "private free tutoring sessions", etc). Some of the young students in my class take up these offers, and this further demoralizes other female students seeing this happen (i.e. only attracti…

I'm sorry for your situation but this is just ridiculous.

You cannot ever harass someone through non-interaction, which is by definition aggresive and unwanted interaction.

People complaining the women aren't being offered enough "private tutoring" in a post about how men offering women "private tutoring" being harassment.

Being mildly autistic you can see why I don't date either gender with ridiculous sentiments like these being blown around.

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