How to deal with student who told me that he pays for my salary?

[Wahoo Redux]

Good point, Marshy, particularly considering that no students ever mature during their time at college.

The problem is that these tend to be students who are not very strong academically to begin with, so they often fail out before they get a chance to mature. It's pretty rare (although it happens once in a long while) to have a bright student make poor lifestyle choices their first term but then adjust.

Instead of academic probation after they've basically torched their first year, why not have "lifestyle probation" after a couple of weeks so that they can potentially get their act together during their first semester?

Orwell much?

[kiana]

Good point, Marshy, particularly considering that no students ever mature during their time at college.

The problem is that these tend to be students who are not very strong academically to begin with, so they often fail out before they get a chance to mature. It's pretty rare (although it happens once in a long while) to have a bright student make poor lifestyle choices their first term but then adjust.

Instead of academic probation after they've basically torched their first year, why not have "lifestyle probation" after a couple of weeks so that they can potentially get their act together during their first semester?

I'd prefer something more in the middle -- if you haven't attended a class in the first week, you're automatically withdrawn (barring some sort of urgent short-term issue which should be reported to dean of students anyway); if you're predicted to fail more than one class based on midterm grades, it should trigger immediate academic probation (lifted if you pull off a 2.0); if your GPA is under 1.0 after your first semester, it should trigger a one-semester suspension.

I don't have access to transcripts at my current job, but I did at my old one, and the only people I ever saw come back from that the NEXT semester were people where they really should have had a medical withdrawal but didn't realize that that was an option. I really feel that most of the time, the second semester (for people with a 0.x, not people with a 1.9) is just taking their money for no gain, and fucking over their transcripts/financial aid so they can't afford to return even if they do get it together.

However ... while we're at it, fucking over someone's financial aid because they made stupid choices ten years ago (including both stupid academic choices and stupid drug choices) is WRONG.

[apl68]

Good point, Marshy, particularly considering that no students ever mature during their time at college.

The problem is that these tend to be students who are not very strong academically to begin with, so they often fail out before they get a chance to mature. It's pretty rare (although it happens once in a long while) to have a bright student make poor lifestyle choices their first term but then adjust.

Instead of academic probation after they've basically torched their first year, why not have "lifestyle probation" after a couple of weeks so that they can potentially get their act together during their first semester?

Good in theory, impossible in practice. Perhaps you and me would have been comfortable working at a Catholic school circa 1940.

The problem isn't just stereotypical college student debauchery.  I've known of students--my brother was one--who didn't carouse and such, but still blew their shot at college by simply goofing off too much.  It's just extraordinary how utterly incapable some youths, even youths who had had a good school record, are of exercising any sort of self-discipline when they pass from high school to a college environment.

Maybe what's really needed is a "gap year" straight out of high school, spent working some low-wage job and engaging in some forced "adulting" practice before going to college.

[Wahoo Redux]

I worry that we as a culture look far too often to institutions, regulations, and laws to solve our behavioral problems. 

We should teach, because that is what we are paid to do, and our institutions should let students sink, swim, or ride the wave to the top as they will.

[mahagonny]

I worry that we as a culture look far too often to institutions, regulations, and laws to solve our behavioral problems. 

We should teach, because that is what we are paid to do, and our institutions should let students sink, swim, or ride the wave to the top as they will.

There's a place for that argument, but I would add, if we have students in college who shouldn't be there, at significant cost to them, the behavioral problem might be ours. Something mahagonny can say, but I probably won't.

[marshwiggle]

Good point, Marshy, particularly considering that no students ever mature during their time at college.

The problem is that these tend to be students who are not very strong academically to begin with, so they often fail out before they get a chance to mature. It's pretty rare (although it happens once in a long while) to have a bright student make poor lifestyle choices their first term but then adjust.

Instead of academic probation after they've basically torched their first year, why not have "lifestyle probation" after a couple of weeks so that they can potentially get their act together during their first semester?

Good in theory, impossible in practice. Perhaps you and me would have been comfortable working at a Catholic school circa 1940.

The problem isn't just stereotypical college student debauchery.  I've known of students--my brother was one--who didn't carouse and such, but still blew their shot at college by simply goofing off too much.  It's just extraordinary how utterly incapable some youths, even youths who had had a good school record, are of exercising any sort of self-discipline when they pass from high school to a college environment.

I don't think the debauchery needs to be directly observed. For "lifestyle probabtion" I'd just require that for the next month a student must

• be no more than 2 minutes late to any class, lab, or tutorial
• hand in every assignment and wirtten report on time, including those inline

Any student who succeeded at that would probaly be able to get it together from then on. The reason(s) they're missing class, etc. don't matter, unless they have some major non-lifestyle issue such as family emergency or whatever.

Maybe what's really needed is a "gap year" straight out of high school, spent working some low-wage job and engaging in some forced "adulting" practice before going to college.

Let them do that until they know what they want to study and why. If recruiters were removed from the equation we'd all be better off.

[writingprof]

If recruiters were removed from the equation we'd all be better off.

Well, except for those of us at tuition-dependent schools whose year-to-year survival is pretty much exclusively a function of how good the recruiters are at their jobs.  We wouldn't be better off at all.

[Caracal]

I worry that we as a culture look far too often to institutions, regulations, and laws to solve our behavioral problems. 

We should teach, because that is what we are paid to do, and our institutions should let students sink, swim, or ride the wave to the top as they will.

There's a place for that argument, but I would add, if we have students in college who shouldn't be there, at significant cost to them, the behavioral problem might be ours. Something mahagonny can say, but I probably won't.

This is where class and inequality come in. I also have a brother who went AWOL at one point during college (weirdly enough he did perfectly fine till junior year) I think he just lost interest in school, had too many other things going on and wasn't mature enough to take a voluntary leave, so just failed all his classes for two semesters. However, he didn't have any debt, so the whole thing wasn't some financial disaster. A year and a half later, he decided to apply for readmission, went back, did perfectly fine and graduated a year later. It wasn't some life defining experience, but if he was a first generation college student with limited resources it certainly could have been.

[apl68]

I worry that we as a culture look far too often to institutions, regulations, and laws to solve our behavioral problems. 

We should teach, because that is what we are paid to do, and our institutions should let students sink, swim, or ride the wave to the top as they will.

There's a place for that argument, but I would add, if we have students in college who shouldn't be there, at significant cost to them, the behavioral problem might be ours. Something mahagonny can say, but I probably won't.

This is where class and inequality come in. I also have a brother who went AWOL at one point during college (weirdly enough he did perfectly fine till junior year) I think he just lost interest in school, had too many other things going on and wasn't mature enough to take a voluntary leave, so just failed all his classes for two semesters. However, he didn't have any debt, so the whole thing wasn't some financial disaster. A year and a half later, he decided to apply for readmission, went back, did perfectly fine and graduated a year later. It wasn't some life defining experience, but if he was a first generation college student with limited resources it certainly could have been.

My brother wasn't a first-generation student, and was on scholarship and so blew the school's money instead of getting into debt.  But his goofing off still changed his whole life.  After a few years in low-wage jobs he joined the military.  He thrived as a career NCO, but it cost him and his family a great deal over the years in the form of multiple deployments to war zones.

[hamburger]

This je*k continues to bother me. I saw him copying at the beginning of a test even I told them many times both verbally and in writing that it was a closed book test and no internet access was allowed. He played dumb. For the past few days, he keeps pushing me to update his assignment score. Nobody else does that. I told him that professors have a week to do that. He continues to send me emails to bother me. In the lab assignment, he demanded me to sit next to him to help him overtime. I spent some time with him and obviously he had no idea what he was doing. It just showed that he copied from somebody else all these time. In the class, when I asked other students questions, he kept shouting his answers even I told him many times each class to give other students a chance.

This is his 3rd or 4th time to take this course. If I give him a zero in both the assignment and the test (for cheating), he will continue to complain. Shall I just pass this je*k and let the world to punish him when his employer finds that he knows nothing? One administrator mentioned this approach last semester. I have heard from both administrators and students that some local companies don't trust the transcripts of my CC because there have been cases that graduates did not know things that they were supposed to know.

[clean]

We document cheating and it goes to the some judicial affairs (for students) office.  The first offence, if the student does not object, is just to keep the document.  But if a student cheats in any other classes, then higher penalties occur, including failing the class (even for a first offense) and up to suspension and expulsion. 
IF the student objects,then there is a 'trial' with a committee of students and faculty. 

Do you have a formal process there to deal with cheaters?  IF so, USE IT! 

[Caracal]

We document cheating and it goes to the some judicial affairs (for students) office.  The first offence, if the student does not object, is just to keep the document.  But if a student cheats in any other classes, then higher penalties occur, including failing the class (even for a first offense) and up to suspension and expulsion. 
IF the student objects,then there is a 'trial' with a committee of students and faculty. 

Do you have a formal process there to deal with cheaters?  IF so, USE IT!

Yes, except if I read this right, Hamburger has no actual proof of it, so no he can't do that.

[Ruralguy]

No, but he can probably obtain proof overtime.

I've never been big on using such systems.teach people who care and move on, I'm not saying to definitely pass him or definitely not report him. Just don't make this into a constant "hair on fire" sort of thing.

[polly_mer]

This je*k continues to bother me. I saw him copying at the beginning of a test even I told them many times both verbally and in writing that it was a closed book test and no internet access was allowed.

One non-confrontational act is to write the observations on a sticky ("At 1917, Student X copied answer Y.  At 1925, Student X accessed the internet and I reminded him that wasn't allowed.  At 1940, Student X pulled out a book and I reminded him that wasn't allowed.") to avoid disrupting the rest of the class.  After the testing period, you go to wherever you have computer access and write up the observations in that same neutral tone with just the facts.  Submit those facts along with a copy of the exam to the local process for academic honesty.  You record the exam as a zero with a note about academic dishonesty.

Your observations can be proof if you document them at the time.  One way to ensure that situation is to go stand next to the person as you make the observation and to do something observable to the other students like reminding someone of the rules.

A more confrontational approach is to stop the student the first time you observe copying, dismiss him from the exam room, and mark the exam right there as a zero.

Either way, as Ruralguy wrote, this is a minor blip for the professional, not a situation on which one's hair is on fire.

[hamburger]

Thanks. I just loudly told him (and indirectly reminded the rest of the class) to stop what he was doing as it was considered to be cheating. Anyway, the test only worth 10 marks and the assignment only 1 mark. The remaining 70% of the total are from 2 more assignments and various tests. Since there is no way to prevent cheating and I am sure they will do it, everybody will pass this time even they got zero in the previous part of the course. Giving this guy a zero in the assignment and in the test would not hurt him. Just created more work for me and the administrator. I don't think the administrator would like that especially in the current world situation.