The midsemester removal from class of a tenured biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge for grading too harshly has triggered a complaint from the college’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, The Advocate, a local newspaper, reported. The chapter, which wrote a letter to the president of the LSU system, said the action against Dominique Homberger set a bad precedent. Administrators at the university said more than 90 percent of the students in Ms. Homberger’s introductory-biology class were failing or had dropped the course. Officials at the AAUP’s national office, who are already investigating the termination of a former deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, said it may look into Ms. Homberger’s removal as well.
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8 Responses to Louisiana State U. Professor’s Removal From Class Prompts AAUP Complaint
snwiedmann - April 15, 2010 at 7:19 am
A 90% failure and/or drop rate is alarmingly high and does call for action. But surely the professor could have been counselled by the department head or chair. Was her removal from the classroom the university’s first response? Or is there more to this than presented in one short paragraph?
tappat - April 15, 2010 at 7:40 am
So, 10% of the students were sticking it out and passing. Who wouldn’t want access to this 10%, for any real work for the good of humanity, including biological contemplation. For creating a circumstance that clearly recognizes the top intellectuals of a group, the professor is harshly and harmfully treated. I thought better of LSU than this. This is surprising. Hmmm.
megginson - April 15, 2010 at 8:03 am
Before we laud anyone for filtering students in a class so that only the top survive, we might want to remember that Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, did not make it into Cambridge because of a weeding process (apparently in Latin, though that may not be certain), and Einstein was weeded out on his first try at admission to ETH Zurich by a poor performance on an entrance exam. One has to question whether the problem with those outcomes lay with Crick and Einstein, or with the filtering process. More relevant to this case, the LSU professor was given the job of educating the students of the state of Louisiana in a public institution that is supposed to do that, and with 90% of them she failed miserably.
ccfacultyatlarge - April 15, 2010 at 8:56 am
I would ask a few questions. Did the students bring with them the pre-requisite knowledge needed to succeed in the course, both in the biology/chemistry basics and communication skills? Did student services provide the tutoring needed to help students to succeed? Did the department support the professor in the expectations she had of her students in the intro course? Were the expectations alignned with higher level courses in the department? Were the course learning outcomes shared with the students and departmental faculty? Was there evidence that the students were putting in the time needed to be successful. Is there evidence that the institution has created a culture to promote behaviors that lead to student success? From the way this story is presented, it appears the institution has significant problems in supporting student success. Before the tenured professor was fired, the institution needed to take a look at how it failed the students on many fronts.
hoffpeter - April 15, 2010 at 9:33 am
If 90% of the students in the class are failing, then the professor is failing 90% of the time. Why is she so incapable of helping them gain the knowledge and skills to succeed? It’s a poor sculptor who blames his clay.
biop_grad - April 15, 2010 at 10:46 am
My personal feeling is that we know so little about the case that it is absolutely impossible to determine what is going on. It would depend on the course size, the appropriateness of the assessment materials not only vis-a-vis the course materials but also with respect to similar courses. Also, there are some tests that people typically do badly in. For example, in one of the courses I teach, the first test is routinely more difficult (i.e. has a significantly lower average) than the second test, simply because of the material. As long as the final maths balances out, it shouldn’t be a major issue …
archman - April 15, 2010 at 4:44 pm
If I pass 100% of my students, does that make me “succesful” as an educator 100% of the time? Time to go inflate some more grades…
vhunt - April 15, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I am a former graduate student and former adjunct instructor in this department and five years ago was acquainted with Dr. Homberger. This particular professor is a top scholar and graduate faculty member of long standing, who was apparently relegated to teaching a super-large freshman class. The experience was obviously – and not unexpectedly- an unhappy one for all concerned. The fault lies not with the professor or the student body, but with the department that made this ill-considered teaching assignment.