This is a problem with private universities - student is a paying customer, thus student needs to pass the course. If student can't pass, then we have customer satisfaction problem and it needs to be resolved by firing the troublemaker who is making it hard for our customers. Who cares, that quality of our absolvents is poor?
NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
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Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#12This is how the united states fails - our education institutions fail to hold the bar and let the pillars of real education turn to sand. Admittedly, initially in college I was a horrible student. But I got better, admittedly after re-taking a few classes. It cost me, but I learned from it. Not just maths but the lesson of having to grind and struggle to get better at something when it felt like I sucked and had zero…
Exactly. I see a lot of people on HN are often bashing European public universities, but advantage of those universities is that you are essentially judged by a third party which does not have any monetary reason to let you pass. You either know, or you are kicked from exams.
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#13This is how the united states fails - our education institutions fail to hold the bar and let the pillars of real education turn to sand. Admittedly, initially in college I was a horrible student. But I got better, admittedly after re-taking a few classes. It cost me, but I learned from it. Not just maths but the lesson of having to grind and struggle to get better at something when it felt like I sucked and had zero…
>This is how the united states fails - our education institutions fail to hold the bar and let the pillars of real education turn to sand.
That’s why we should be providing college for free (to the student, it will cost us all money in the form of taxes). If you fail Ochem, it won’t be thousands of dollars lost (yes maybe thousands from society, but the burden is not on the individual). It might set you back, but not monetarily. If there’s a lottery, it should be in the form of selecting who goes where and not a lottery ticket that oddly resembles a tuition bill.
Of course someone is going to say some version of “we can’t afford that, it’s absurd, people won’t respect their education if they don’t lose something, it decreases competition…” but then I guess we’ll have to let the US fall. Guided instruction needs to be as close to free as possible for people and failure to learn something shouldn’t cause monetary anguish, just more time spent trying to learn.
This is why I’m a big proponent of increased funding for my local community college. I will gladly (and do) pay more in taxes to increase funding and decrease tuition. The day they ask if it should be free on the ballot, I will excitedly fill in “yes”.
We really need to shift away from charging people money to be successful. It has made our society very sick.
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#14They make him sound like a mediocre professor, but it sounds like grading a class of students objectively which were setup to fail by a pandemic is what ultimately did him in.
It’s clear to me what the implications are. A generation of students won’t understand what they’re doing and they will be shoved through the system anyways because of some high minded sentiments about failing students not being the best way to ensure rigor.
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#15OChem tends to be the weed-out class for several majors, primarily Chemistry. You often take it as a college sophomore, and represents a fundamental shift in topics. Most high school and introductory chemistry is acid/base aqueous chemistry, which is relatively straightforward HAcid + BaseOH H20 + Salt. You may do an organic reaction here or there, but only the the most basic like esterification. Making the fake bana…
Calling them whiners is too harsh even if it’s technically correct. This was a class setup to fail by COVID. If they took no action, they were going to be crushed when in normal circumstances they would have succeeded.
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#16A point made in the article's comments — an experienced doctor working in prenatal diagnosis says he struggled with organic chemistry, has not found it relevant to his career, and found biochemistry in med school more approachable. He concludes with: > It makes no sense that a course so peripheral to successful, high quality medical careers is a gatekeeper > to medical school applications at undergraduate programs th…
What would be a correct handling of the situation? If organic chemistry is as unimportant to medicine as claimed, and you had a bunch of students whose education was spoilt by a pandemic, and a professor who wants to flunk a bunch of them out, what to do?
Sounds like the administration was in a tough spot to me.
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#17> The officials also had tried to placate the students by offering to review their grades and allowing them to withdraw from the class retroactively. The chemistry department’s chairman, Mark E. Tuckerman, said the unusual offer to withdraw was a “one-time exception granted to students by the dean of the college.”
I find that one interesting. You'd normally not be allowed to retry a class you scored badly in? Or what's the purpose of retroactively withdrawing?
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#18I feel really conflicted on this one.
This guy appears to be damaging peoples lives for a questionable at best cause.
On the other hand, if these are the same tests students had been passing for the rest of their career, maybe the answer is suck it up and try harder.
It seems like the real failure was firing over this when other actions seem more apropriate
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#19An observation from 2015: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-profess...
Re: NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading
#20> The officials also had tried to placate the students by offering to review their grades and allowing them to withdraw from the class retroactively. The chemistry department’s chairman, Mark E. Tuckerman, said the unusual offer to withdraw was a “one-time exception granted to students by the dean of the college.” I find that one interesting. You'd normally not be allowed to retry a class you scored badly in? Or what…
> what's the purpose of retroactively withdrawing?
GPA inflation. Failed O-chem and ruined your chances of a top med school? Not to worry, how about a do-over!