next »

[atalanta]

He's baaaaack! I got this message a few days ago:

Hi, I'm currently in you *** class and I just had a quick question. I work a full time job as well as a part time job and therefore have little or no time to do the assignments in your class and i was just wondering if it would be possible to add the weighting from the assignments to the weight of the final exam. This would be extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. Please let me know if this would be at all possible.

I checked his record. He only completed 1 of 6 homework assignments so his homework average is 7.3 %.

This is the same guy who previously e-mailed me:

... to say he hadn't been to class for two weeks following the midterm and wonders how he can find out his grade (remember this one?):

"hi, i haven't been to class since the midterm, and i was just wondering where we would be able to find the results."

... and to tell me that he missed the first two weeks of the term playing golf!  (See the first post on this thread!)

I was tempted to write back, "Gee, it must be hard to fit in your two jobs around all that golfing!"

Sorry, pal, but even if I did count your exam grade (23%) in place of your homework grade, it wouldn't save you.

[atalanta]

OK, I have a little backlog of favorites. I'll start posting them now as agrading-procrastination tactic (ugh!).

I have a very clear policy: no late homework is accepted for any reason, but the lowest assignment grade will be dropped.

"I am writing this email because i was unable to find your office number on the Syllabus."

[Strange... it's only centered in bold-face at the top of the syllabus. And on WebCT, the campus online directory, the building directory, ...]

"Basically yesterday i had 2 lab finals in phys aswell as chem. I initially was at school at 8 in the morning for lab final number one. After writing physics i went home to go eat a proper breakfast and all and then came back to school. Coming to school i got clipped from behind, not a real big deal but the whole insurance exchanging and information in minus 40 wasn't to pleasant. After that i returned to school and went straight to the library to catch up on the lost time of studying due to the accident. This is where my problem comes in. I handed in the my assignment at around 4:30. Due to the fact that i had no idea of time while i was studying in the library."

[And no idea that you were supposed to be in my class from 3:00 to 4:00?? Oh. And by the way, I was in my office (so hard to find, right around the corner from the homework collection box) at 4:30, so if you had just popped in and given it to me, I might have accepted it (one hour late). But you didn't write to me until over 24 hours later. So do you really expect me to believe that you actually turned in the paper yesterday, instead of just now?]

"I know this is completely my fault, but if you look at my marks and such i really can't afford a zero. Aswell as the fact that even with 2 exams on wednesday my assignment was completed for [your class]. I did place my assigment in the box. Hopefully you can find some mercy to mark it. If you wanted proof of my accident i have it, i have proof of my two lab exams, and dark circles underneath my eyes for the lack of sleep:) "

So I wrote to him that I drop the lowest homework grade anyway, so he needn't worry. Then he accosted me on the stairs in the cafeteria to argue about it, and complained, "But I only got 35% on another assignment!"

I smiled and wished him good luck, but I felt like saying, ".. and whose fault would THAT be?"

[rattusdomesticus]

I received an email last semester from one of my internet students that was unexceptional--except for the email address, which was hotty69er@somemailservice.com. The icky thing is that this student was a middle aged married guy with children. I think he accidentally emailed me from the account he uses to troll the internet for underaged sex partners or something.  I answered him as if nothing were amiss, except that I began my message "Dear Hotty69er."

Great one. Did I ever mention that one of my students was lucky enough to grab the e-mail address ballsychick032@someserver.com?? I inititally wondered if my *other* students had the first ballsychick addresses and if 32 was the next one available... then I started to wonder about this particular young female (thank goodness) student. When I replied, I was not ballsy (sorry) enough to address her as "Dear ballsychick032," but I did mention at the end of my note that she may want to review her use of this e-mail address for academic purposes or business use... that it may be considered offensive.

By the way, at what point can professors say that they feel their workplace has become intimidating because of this? I mean, when can I sue for sexual harassment?

[csguy]

By the way, at what point can professors say that they feel their workplace has become intimidating because of this? I mean, when can I sue for sexual harassment?

When they start the chest self massages.

[j194808]

I am an adjunct instructor and will share an interesting experience that happened in one of my classes. One of the students turned in a paper in my Public Speaking class with the word Speach at the top of their paper. When it was brought to the attention of the student they were not aware of the problem. I have also taught secondary school for 30 years. It is my consensus that we are reaping the benefits of a poor education system in our country. Joseph

[mrhistory]

In reply to an incoherent rambling email that constantly stated that the writer "wasn';t making excuses,"  "was sorry" he didn't turn in work, and that he was "willing to take the consequences" for his failure to attend class most of the semester---and, of course, the email was basically a request for me to ignore the course requirements and just pass him "with a B or better because I need it to get in "B" school when I graduate."  I replied with this

Dear Barry,
I'm afraid that I can't help you at this point because the grades are turned into the registrar's office already.  But, since you clearly did not meet any of the requirements for the course with a passing grade, there really isn't much to appeal here. You simply haven't earned a passing grade in the course.

His reply to this?  "Well, I had to try and ask but your email has the stuff that is bothering me. You use big words that normal people can't follow. I don't know what a registrar is anyway and I don't remember that on the syllabus AT ALL. I hope that you will understand that and think again."

[dagny]

Oh, mrhistory, that makes me weep!

[athena1]

What were the "big" words??
registrar
because
requirements
passing???

Dear Barry,
I'm afraid that I can't help you at this point because the grades are turned into the registrar's office already.  But, since you clearly did not meet any of the requirements for the course with a passing grade, there really isn't much to appeal here. You simply haven't earned a passing grade in the course.

His reply to this?  "Well, I had to try and ask but your email has the stuff that is bothering me. You use big words that normal people can't follow. I don't know what a registrar is anyway and I don't remember that on the syllabus AT ALL. I hope that you will understand that and think again."

[mrhistory]

What were the "big" words??
registrar
because
requirements
passing???


Yeah, that was *my* question. The "registrar" thing was weird but it seems to be aimed at this entire rather pedestrian reply.

I'm just too damned *deep!*

[yemaya]

His reply to this?  "Well, I had to try and ask but your email has the stuff that is bothering me. You use big words that normal people can't follow. I don't know what a registrar is anyway and I don't remember that on the syllabus AT ALL. I hope that you will understand that and think again."

I'm sorry, but how does someone who is that DUMB get into college anyway?

[mrhistory]

His reply to this?  "Well, I had to try and ask but your email has the stuff that is bothering me. You use big words that normal people can't follow. I don't know what a registrar is anyway and I don't remember that on the syllabus AT ALL. I hope that you will understand that and think again."

I'm sorry, but how does someone who is that DUMB get into college anyway?

Wish he was the worst I've ever encountered but he isn't!

[case_insensitive]

A graduate student emailed and asked for his final exam rade and course grade, which I promptly sent to him (His course grade was a B+).  This student had previously asked me to let him redo his major research paper on which he earned a poor grade (due to plagiarism issues) and I declined.  His response to his grade:

Dr Insensitive,
Thanks for the grade.
You didn't let me re-do the project or curved the grade. May be you don't
know how badly I need it. In [our university] it really doen't matter if the grade is B+,
B or B-, its all counted as B.
Vijay

[scientiffikk]

A graduate student emailed and asked for his final exam rade and course grade, which I promptly sent to him (His course grade was a B+).  This student had previously asked me to let him redo his major research paper on which he earned a poor grade (due to plagiarism issues) and I declined.  His response to his grade:

Dr Insensitive,
Thanks for the grade.
You didn't let me re-do the project or curved the grade. May be you don't
know how badly I need it. In [our university] it really doen't matter if the grade is B+,
B or B-, its all counted as B.
Vijay

You could offer to change it to B-, in that case. 

[case_insensitive]

You could offer to change it to B-, in that case. 

It was all I could do not to...

[yemaya]

His reply to this?  "Well, I had to try and ask but your email has the stuff that is bothering me. You use big words that normal people can't follow. I don't know what a registrar is anyway and I don't remember that on the syllabus AT ALL. I hope that you will understand that and think again."

I'm sorry, but how does someone who is that DUMB get into college anyway?

Wish he was the worst I've ever encountered but he isn't!

Good grief.  Your average 8 year old knows the words most of us use in our syllabus.  And as I tell my students, college is meant to be a learning experience.  There's no shame in not understanding what a word means, but it's easily solved by picking up a dictionary.  Then I suggest that building up vocabulary can be really valuable when they're in the real world and don't want to have to ask clients, bosses or co-workers what words mean.  Many of my students do. They realize that the real world isn't always going to dumb things down for them and that the onus is one them to learn to function.

case insensitive - my response to that grad student (especially if you're tenured) would be "you should have thought of that before you decided to plagiarize."