NYU Professor fired after students complained his class was too hard

NYU undergrad is an overpriced academic mediocrity so business as usual.

Snowflakes: 1

Academia: 0

OP linked to a rightwing propaganda website owned by Sinclair.

OP linked to something true, R3. So what you're saying is that rightwing websites are true?

Weird

Fuck off with the idea that it doesn't matter where "news" comes from, r4. Stop using DL to funnel hits to a propaganda website.

Here is a link to NBC News

Clearly he has not understood the zeitgeist.

"It is NOT about creating an intellectual space!!!!"

From 6.11.

The NYT article actually has the details, although I'm sure the rightwing nitwits on here will say the NYT -- home of "but her emails" and "WMD are real" -- is a leftist propaganda outfit and everything in the article is a lie.

Long story short: the class has long been regarded as too difficult and has prevented a lot of people from going into med school because of their low grade in that one class. Test scores got worse recently, even worse after COVID, and he started doing things like reducing tests (meaning it would be harder to improve your grade if you received a bad score) and not putting his lectures on Zoom even though he was supposed to.

The average for the whole class after the second test was 30%. I know the trolls on here who are terrified of university educations will disagree with me, but if your entire class is failing, the problem isn't every single student.

Facts are facts, R5. I'm not fussy about that, well, fact. And I don't have a religious belief that something is only true if it magically appears in your great book.

If R3 read the same story, word-for-word in The New York Times, they'd demand the reporter get a Noble prize.

The NYT article actually has the details, although I'm sure the rightwing nitwits on here will say the NYT -- home of "but her emails" and "WMD are real" -- is a leftist propaganda outfit and everything in the article is a lie.

Long story short: the class has long been regarded as too difficult and has prevented a lot of people from going into med school because of their low grade in that one class. Test scores got worse recently, even worse after COVID, and he started doing things like reducing tests (meaning it would be harder to improve your grade if you received a bad score) and not putting his lectures on Zoom even though he was supposed to.

The average for the whole class after the second test was 30%. I know the trolls on here who are terrified of university educations will disagree with me, but if your entire class is failing, the problem isn't every single student.

[bold] The students never asked for the professor to get fired. [/bold]

[quote]But students also described being surprised that Dr. Jones was fired, a measure the petition did not request and students did not think was possible.

It’s possible the class WAS too hard. This is about students wanting to get into medical school and being fearful that med schools won’t look deeply enough into their transcripts to realize that particular professor graded harder than others.

So I can sort of see the logic in complaining. You are paying a fortune to the academic social engineering complex and playing by all their rules - you did the fake charity bankrolled by your parents, you attended all your $300/hour ACT tutoring sessions and took the test six times (because these schools allow students to superscore, which is ridiculous - the kid that takes the test once and gets a 34 is clearly brighter than the kid who takes it six times and gets a 35 or 36 taking one section from each of the four best sittings) , you have all the old organic chem tests, sourced both honestly and not so honestly, and now that you have written the check and committed to it, they are effectively changing the rules.

These aren’t kids who aren’t studying. They will do whatever you tell them to do, but they expect you to tell them exactly what to do. The whole system is very fucked up.

[quote]Mr. Beckman defended the decision, saying that Dr. Jones had been the target of multiple student complaints about his “dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and opacity about grading.”

[quote]Dr. Jones’s course evaluations, he added, “were by far the worst, not only among members of the chemistry department, but among all the university’s undergraduate science courses.”

Heaven forbid that the problem may actually be that the professor wasn't doing his job and finally, when he was well into his 80s, lost his job after tons of complaints over the years.

This is just another rightwing nutjob culture wars attack, like the other 100,000 similar attacks over the years, where they want you to think that a professor who got fired is actually a sign that the SJWs, liberals, Gen Z and Millennials are out of control, and you should vote Republican about it.

Give it a couple of hours and OP will start a whole new thread about it, since this one didn't go his way.

If the teacher was having such an impact over the snowflakes how come is he teaching for such a long time? And 80 out of 350 does not sound like the majority. Looks more like a bunch of Gen Zs who could not have things their way and decided to whine like little babies.

I have to work with these snowflakes on a daily basis, and I wish I could make a petition for them to disappear.

Organic Chemistry is a notoriously difficult class. Most pre-med students take the class their very last semester, after they have been accepted to a medical school. It is not unusual for the majority of the class to get a barely passing grade. I have no doubt that the professor was teaching the class exactly the same way he did 40 years ago.

[quote] If the teacher was having such an impact over the snowflakes how come is he teaching for such a long time?

[quote]I have to work with these snowflakes on a daily basis,

If you're trying to imply that you're also a teacher, you're failing miserably, not just because your first sentence is barely English, but because even the worst teacher knows that they have "such an impact" over their students. Your post almost makes it sound as if you don't even know what a teacher is.

A college friend was an adjunct for a big university. She recently quit because of pressure to give everyone As.

This shit is real.

R11 did you even read the article? The classes were all recorded, students did not watch them.

Did YOU read it, r19?

[quote]The students criticized Dr. Jones’s decision to reduce the number of midterm exams from three to two, flattening their chances to compensate for low grades. They said that he had tried to conceal course averages, did not offer extra credit and removed Zoom access to his lectures, even though some students had Covid.

[quote]As for Zoom access, he said the technology in the lecture hall made it impossible to record his white board problems.

The students said he refused to put his lectures on Zoom. He confirmed that he didn't put his lectures on Zoom.

Only some of the lectures were previously recorded on video, they weren't from the current semester and not all the videos were even for his class.

[quote]To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.

r16 u r insane, how can they do biochem series, which is required 4 med school, if they take o chem in the last semester?

Live Zoom does not work at NYU with its crappy white boards, R20. He paid for having the lectures recorded, they put enormous effort into this. When the student are too lazy to watch the lectures they should not complain.

R16. Agreed up to your last point. This professor literally changed the way the course was taught from 40 years ago. He literally wrote the book on it. See the article.

[QUOTE] This is just another rightwing nutjob culture wars attack

R14 nails it.

The original is a NYT article, which generated over 5000 reader comments. Quite the topic for discussion—I did learn more about Chemistry than I had in high school ;)

I would want to see a doctor who fails organic chemistry. It means they won’t understand biochemistry and physiology, and they are unable to memorize or see patterns.

You might want to read what actually students say about him and his class (skip the ratings added this week to pad his score).

^would’nt

R27. Scroll through the NYT comments for a couple of minutes…many of his former students (a lot from Princeton, where he was tenured for most of his career). Sheds more light than that website.

Tuition is so high students are more powerful than the professors.

I made a snarky comment about NYU being mediocre for undergrad and stand by that however this prof sounds like a real jerk who needs to stop teaching.

He's 84 years old. Maybe it's time for him to go, anyway.

R31. Yeah, seems like the Professor mishandled the situation. I doubt it was malicious - just seems he misunderstood the needs of the students and couldn't adapt.

The students seem to have handled it well. It's not their fault he was fired. The uni probably asked him to make some changes to align his grading with standards and he couldn't. He is 84.

Frankly, with the cuts some universities have been making to staffing he might have been previously offered a retirement package and refused. This was probably inevitable.

Why does NYU continue to hire an adjunct to teach this important course? Why don't they open a tenure-track position in organic chemistry and hire someone as a full-time, regular faculty member.

R31. Probably, you are wrong. Likely, you didn’t bother to read the actual story from the NYT…you sound like you wandered in off the street for a two cent opinion, but missed by a long shot.

R34. Lots of universities hire “retired” tenured professors from other schools for shorter non-tenured terms. This guy wrote the leading treatise and changed the way Org Chem is taught at every major school in the U.S. NYU was glad to hire him…since otherwise their Chem dept. Is not very highly rated. It’s a weed out course fir Mrs school—everyone knows it and every pre-med undergrad has to live or die by that sword.

*for med school

r26 u dont need o chem 2 get biochem

R 35 here. My comment was for R33

[quote]This guy wrote the leading treatise and changed the way Org Chem is taught at every major school in the U.S.

He wrote it 25 years ago. It was first published in 1997. Things have changed since then.

If this was truly a weed-out course then you wouldn't be able to take it off-track with other professors, as you apparently can. And it doesn't sound like this was created as a weed-out course but simply became one because of the professor teaching it, which is a terrible way to decide who gets to go to med school and who doesn't.

Organic Chemistry is Fcking Hard. I was a Chem. wiz. The year I took the Chem Regents in H.S. they had to add 10 points so people could pass. I would up with a mark over 100..I was a whiz.

Then I went to college as a Chem major. Took my first semester of Organic, Failed!! It was like a whole other animal. Put a total stop to my Chem. career.

Its Fcking hard.

College has turned into a huge rip off. Pay thousands of dollars and get an adjunct, who is paid very little, or a lecturer. Meanwhile, the professors are busy writing papers and doing research to bring money into the school.

Did his past students complain about his classes being too hard? I know that a lot of current students complain about Calculus classes being too hard, when their peers from thirty years ago didn’t, even though the course material hasn’t changed. And current students have the internet at their disposal, so if a teacher or textbook doesn’t adequately explain something, they have plenty of alternatives.

Calculus, don't get me started. Much as I love Issac Newton, The Great Brain, I could choke him for inventing Calculus..Calculus,,the Ban of my existence. And it was an 8Am class besides!!

I can’t say anything about university students but I know a number of elementary and high school teachers around my age, most of them near are retirement. They do notice a dramatic change in students behaviors mostly since the advent of mobile devices and internet.

The time they used to spend writing and doing research for their assignments is now spent on texting and social media. Their home assignments are readily available online and there’s barely any effort to improve at a certain subject one may struggle with. Teachers are told not to give low grades for fear of retaliation - yes, certain schools will tell teachers that. Students get used to get what they want with very little effort.

It’s a vicious cycle.

[quote]Did his past students complain about his classes being too hard?

Yes.

[quote] He wrote it 25 years ago. It was first published in 1997. Things have changed since then.

Yes. Apparently students are much dumber, their parents more insufferable and demanding, and the schools have become giant pussies, thirsty for more and more money, willing to appease.

Have any of you actually *been to college? At college have you ever run into a professor who was mean, remote, highhanded, bad at teaching?

He probably was a difficult guy. But NYU is a grade A factory. If you give anything lower than a B prepare for a fight with no admin support. Even Bs will lead to major issues. Lots of threats to sue the school. Any student who fucks up gets an incomplete not a grade.

I wish I had the opportunity to get teachers of classes that were difficult for me fired. Or, at least the ones that I either didn't show up for or didn't want to bother preparing for and doing the work.

Yes, R48. I graduated both HS and college Magna Cum Laude, I don’t consider myself a genius, nor was I blindly driven to succeed in an amazingly competitive professional field. However I clearly had to succeed to do well in my career.

I have had difficult teachers and professors in both HS and college. I can’t say that at the time I appreciated the challenges they presented, but looking back now I can say that succeeding in those teachers’ courses meant more than any higher grade I may have gotten in others’.

Those teachers taught me more than the course material but also how to navigate and succeed against the odds. In the end I came to respect, and earn the respect of, a few of those “highhanded” ones (the flat-out mean ones I learned to ignore).

These 80 signers (and to the poster who said above not all of his students signed the petition, I would counter that the others probably don’t know how to sign their name) are a clear example of the modern student: focused on success and achievement without willing to appreciate what true achievement means… actually achieving, accomplishing something meaningful.

If they were to run a marathon, these students would petition to shorten the course. They can’t wait to cross the finish line and get their shiny new diplomas but will have no clue, or tools, to deal with the real-life challenges waiting in their professional lives.

[quote]The students criticized Jones's reduction of the number of opportunities to make up for bad grades, complained about his lack of extra credit,

[quote]Long story short: the class has long been regarded as too difficult and has prevented a lot of people from going into med school because of their low grade in that one class. Test scores got worse recently, even worse after COVID, and he started doing things like reducing tests (meaning it would be harder to improve your grade if you received a bad score) and not putting his lectures on Zoom even though he was supposed to.

Organic chemistry is notoriously difficult at most top tier universities. I have never heard of anyone who claimed O Chem was easy. Not only is the actual content difficult to master, but it also serves as a filter for all the fools who think they can be doctors. Guess what - I don't want a doctor who couldn't pass organic chemistry, lacked the discipline to do so, couldn't prioritize their limited and finite study time to pass (let alone do well), and didn't require "extra credit" to pass.

[quote]Have any of you actually *been to college? At college have you ever run into a professor who was mean, remote, highhanded, bad at teaching?

Yes, and like in the real world, I figued out how to make it work to pass a required course with a reasonable grade. The question is not whether any of us have been to college. The question is whether you've ever gone to a college worth attending. I can't remember one college course I've ever had that offered "extra credit" or opportunities to make up for bad grades. If you blew a mid-term, you had to nail the next one and/or the final, so you adjusted your study time and effort appropriately.

The only questionable part is that he reduced mid-terms from three to two. Depending on how long the term is, that may simply be too much material to cover for each exam. However, having the additional mid-term may impinge on teaching time and how much material can be covered. It's a catch-22 in that slower classes may make getting through material more difficult while reducing the number of mid-terms may make each mid-term more difficult.

[quote]The average for the whole class after the second test was 30%. I know the trolls on here who are terrified of university educations will disagree with me, but if your entire class is failing, the problem isn't every single student.

Meh - The "average" may or may not be instructive with regard to either difficulty of exam or quality of teaching without looking at the distribution of scores. I once took a calculus mid-term where I got a "B" and only got 42 out of 100 points. The top score on the exam was something like 74 points with a steep drop to the next clusters of scores, so they opted to curve the grades. They actually took time to discuss the exam results and the types of errors students made in order to identify patterns and determine what the root cause of the poor performance was. Was the exam structured poorly or was the teaching inadequate - hard to say.

R40. You are entitled to your opinion, of course. You’re not entitled to your own facts, and your understanding of his status in the field and the current state of teaching ochem, especially for pre-med, is incorrect. Thx

R51 says it all.

Actually, I don't want a family doctor who gets top grades in calculus. Prefer and easy going affable doctor. People who do well in hard subjects are compensating for being ugly or unpopular.

[quote]Organic Chemistry is a notoriously difficult class. Most pre-med students take the class their very last semester, after they have been accepted to a medical school.

Can they do that? When I applied a million years ago, you had to RE-TYPE your entire transcript and you had to have your bios. chems, and physics prerequisites included and complete.

O chem is hard. My first semester the prof was a dick who when I asked about grading got angry and started deducting points on an already graded test and basically told me to shut the fuck up or he'd lower my grade. Only professor I ever lodged a formal complaint about. The second semester was even harder, but the professor was much nicer and generously curved the grade.

But I thought biochem was harder. Had to memorize and be able to draw all 20 amino acids. I learned it for the test and then completely forgot everything I learned. What I did learn was that you could always looks them up if you had to. 😉

[quote] Long story short: the class has long been regarded as too difficult and has prevented a lot of people from going into med school because of their low grade in that one class.

Good. We have enough idiot doctors.

[quote]You are entitled to your opinion, of course. You’re not entitled to your own facts

The only fact I mentioned was that his book was originally published in 1997, which was 25 years ago. If you have evidence to the contrary, post it.

^ you stated it wasn’t a weed out. It was. It is. You are wrong.

I said at r40 that I didn't know how you could call it a weed-out course when you didn't have to take it, because there are off-track courses available with other teachers, r59.

Seen on Twitter:

Maybe we can start a new medical-ish position that doesn't require passing organic chemistry.

We could call it "chiropractor."

I don’t want to go to any fucking doctor who couldn’t pass organic chem, that’s why it’s a weeder corse to weed out the ones not intelligent enough.

[quote]it’s a weeder corse to weed out the ones not intelligent enough

Totally random thought here but I dislike the people who misspell things as lame troll bait MORE than I hate the Oh Dear queens they're hoping to attract.

Organic chemistry is arguably one of the most difficult undergraduate classes. When I was enrolled in the prepharmacy program at another university, it was not unusual for test scores to be in a similar range. As the dean of undergraduate programs, we did look at statistics on the number of D/F/W grades by course and by professor. If the rate was too high, we added additional student resources and referred the professor to the Center for Teaching Excellence to determine how to better help students learn. Not sure why NYU let the situation get this bad for so long. They don't seem to be on top of things.

[quote] Noble prize.

Oh, dear.

While there is absolutely grade inflation and a large percentage of students who are whiny bitches at NYU (I went there for undergrad), if a giant lecture course has exam averages under 50, there's either a problem with the exam or the professor. It means that the key ideas he's attempting to impart have not been effectively taught or his grading is unnecessarily harsh/punitive.

I'm very curious as to whether there were any students in that semester who actually got a legitimate 90 or above on the exams, and how many there were. That didn't seem to be in the article and feels like an important detail on either side, to prove that the exam was impossible or unfair or that it could be successfully completed.

[quote]To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.

[quote]That was not enough. In 2020, some 30 students out of 475 filed a petition asking for more help, said Dr. Arora, who taught that class with Dr. Jones. “They were really struggling,” he explained. “They didn’t have good internet coverage at home. All sorts of things.”

[quote]Many students were having other problems. Kent Kirshenbaum, another chemistry professor at N.Y.U., said he discovered cheating during online tests. When he pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”

[quote]By spring 2022, the university was returning with fewer Covid restrictions, but the anxiety continued and students seemed disengaged. “They weren’t coming to class, that’s for sure, because I can count the house,” Dr. Jones said in an interview. “They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.”

Read the article. The students who did not do well weren’t coming to class, they were misreading the exam questions, and were not taking advantage of the zoom lectures. (I mean, come on, o-chem doesn’t change from one year to the next.)

Suggest that med schools refrain from accepting NYU med applicants. Personally, won’t be accepting a Gen-Z NYU doc, out of an abundance of caution.

And to the freak that keeps making EVERYTHING into a right-wing conspiracy? Get professional help. This issue has zilch to do with politics.

I'm a medical school professor. And I've taken (and gotten an "A" in organic chemistry).

Not everyone can go to medical school. We wouldn't want everyone who wants to go to med school. Somewhere along the way, colleges have to weed out those not [fill in the blank] enough to be great doctors.

Two problems collide here:

1. There's no particular reason most doctors need to understand organic chemistry. So it's become a rite of passage for pre-med students...Because it's always been a rite of passage. Time to get rid of it as a prerequisite has long since past. There are so many better indicators of who will make a good physician -- some of those are course and knowledge-based and some of them are not (e.g. would you ever have the social intelligence to interact compassionately with a patient?) 2. Unfortunately, organic chemistry is still a rite of passage prerequisite. And that means students who want to go to medical school need to do what it takes to do well in the class. And the entitled undergrads of NYU don't understand that, and simply believe that because they may have put in the effort, they deserve an "A." They mistake effort (I worked really hard) for outcome (I learned the material and did well).

I'm old enough to have been reading a version of this story (young people today are stupid and entitled and don't work as hard as we did when we were kids!) since like the mid-70s.

It was a dumb, self-flattering lie then and it's no different now.

Jesus, some people just can't handle getting old.

y'all are about ten years too late for this conversation

and since you hated the people that were talking about it

you perpetuated it

[quote]Read the article. The students who did not do well weren’t coming to class, they were misreading the exam questions, and were not taking advantage of the zoom lectures.

You're taking the professor's word as being factually proven, when it isn't.

First of all, there were no Zoom lectures to take advantage of. That was clear in the article and it's been stated repeatedly here, and I'm getting real fuckin' tired of all these DLers pretending to be smarter and better than these students, when they obviously cannot even read one single news article and understand it properly, let alone look up other information about the situation and build an informed opinion about it.

Yes, there were pre-recorded lectures but not for every class, and of the 52 videos, only some of which were for this professor's courses.

Also, you didn't read earlier in the article where the professor said students were misunderstanding the questions, so he changed the wording to make them easier. Even HE knew he needed to make changes.

Finally, we know that 350 students received an average grade of about 30% for one test. All of you smart, Magna Cum Laude professors on this thread can't seem to understand that this means almost no one got a good grade. The few who do understand that think it's just an example of "all Gen Z are lazy and stupid, not like my generation was," which is (a) culture wars bullshit that you're supposed to be too smart to fall for, and (b) so illogical that you should have someone show up on your doorstep to point and laugh at you.

title ix is how students game the system for more than just sexism, tho.

[quote] I would want to see a doctor who fails organic chemistry. It means they won’t understand biochemistry and physiology, and they are unable to memorize or see patterns.

It doesn’t, actually. I couldn’t tell you one thing that o-chem helped me with in med school. Even my undergrad biochem course was nothing like the med school one.

Cool! Federalist Society videos! They're not content with owning 5/9ths of the Supreme Court and 1/3 of the Federal Judiciary. They want Datalounge too!

r80 Yep, they're coming to steal your bottles of gender fluid,

r80 comics had been protesting it for decades but the public maintained it's ostrich syndrome because despite that they want kids to attend uni, they've never taken it's politics seriously. from the "politically black" student unions to batshit crazy that unfolded and help trump secure the election after hillary boosted him in her campaign.... people just didn't connect it to the real world.

If only they were content with that, i'd sleep better. They already took the right to abortion and gay marriage is next.

r80, check out r82's other posts...

Obviously not an unbiased source here, but some interesting comments from other faculty members about the firing.

[quote]Karl also took issue with the New York Times article for omitting the fact that contracted faculty at NYU have been attempting to unionize, saying that the article neglected the nuance of the situation.

So the firing could have been the university flexing its muscles, so to speak, in the face of professors and teachers trying to unionize? Interesting.

[quote] Actually, I don't want a family doctor who gets top grades in calculus. Prefer and easy going affable doctor. People who do well in hard subjects are compensating for being ugly or unpopular.

R55 types like someone who is going to die from unnecessary mole removal surgery because they’re easy going surgeon likes to shake hands and forgot to sterilize before going in the OR.

*their

Oh dear!

[quote]"At this moment, it’s really beneficial for the NYU administration to have all of these stories focusing on entitled Gen-Z students making it impossible for faculty to do their jobs,” Fay said. “That’s not a picture of students that I recognize, but it’s one that serves the NYU administration very well right now. They would much rather be talking about undergraduate study habits than the job security of faculty.”

Once I learned that the petition didn't even imply that they wanted the professor fired, I wondered if something fishy was going on. It's so easy to get middle aged and older people riled up with "kids these days" articles, and as we've seen time and again on DL, critical thinking skills are lacking, especially in people who are actively looking for something to gripe about. I can't know for sure, of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if the administration was happy to let the students take the blame for something they had no control over.

R41,you sound like my twin. I was always a very good math and science student and sonehow managed to get a degree in Chemistry but Organic Chemistry is just such a diferent animal. It is the kiler for many a sciesne major. I passed it but just barely for the second semester course. It sounds like things have not changed. The professors were terible themn too.

He is 85 years old, and has been retired for years from his tenured job at Princeton. He was teaching this course as an adjunct (i.e. part-time, untenured) teacher at NYU, and he is at 85 too old to still be teaching.

Also, this is a required gateway course for the chemistry department at NYU--students cannot take it with any other professor, and the NYU chemistry department is arrogant in farming a required, exceptionally difficult course out to an 85 year old retired adjunct.

This headline was made to make conservatives blood boil, and the author knew it when he/she wrote it. but in actuality the university is right to fire the adjunct if his teaching is preventing a huge number of students from continuing on with this major, and they need to have this course taught by actual tenured or TT professors in the department. And they need more than one teaching it at such a large university so studentd can have some choice as to whom to take it from.

I'm a tenured college professor, and normally I side with faculty when students whine about professors: but the facts in this case lead me otehrwise. this guy is just too old to still be teaching such a huge and crucial class, and he does not have tenure with NYU (and yes, no matter how eminent he was at Princeton, his tenure there does not equal tenure at another institution unless they granted it to him--and they did not.) They are exploiting this guy to save money and so the egos of the currently tenured NYU professors to be assuaged so they don't have to teach introductory courses.

Who's the Cancel Culture troll? Gawd has BILL MAHER joined DL? Gross.

Attack of the Trolling MAGA

☠️🤢😴

r105 No, I'm the pluralist troll, the music troll, the 420 porn troll, the both sides troll, the irshad manji troll, the mad tv troll, the libertarian troll, the hook up if you're gonna hook up but abstain when you're actually dating troll, the touring sucks but kiddies don't want to do it troll, the vers libre troll, the both tra & terfs suck troll.

r106 thank you for being predictable, never change and keep making everybody out to be the right... it does wonders for your cause.

I too had a terrible calculus professor in college who also used his horrible calculus book as the official text. I'm glad these kids joined to get rid of a bad teacher. I wish we had done that years ago as well.

The ONLY reason most of those kids are even taking that class id that they are pre-med. They don't need to know every detail of Organic Chem as if they will have careers in it. If fact, they will likely have little contact with it even in med school.

usa today archived: Is math education racist? Debate rages over changes to how US teaches the subject

r102, that situation at Evergreen was from five years ago and happened on the other side of the country from NYU, and at a state university (not a private university like NYU).

What does it possibly have to do with the NYU case? You might as well post links to the Black Panthers' takeover of a hall at Cornell fifty years ago too.

I came here to say exactly what r100 posted.

The fact that he insisted on teaching at 85 tells you everything you need to know about him. I've taught college level courses first as an AI and later as an adjunct. It's taxing work that most octogenarians don't have the cognitive or physical capacity to undertake. The guy either forgot to or couldn't be bothered to put up his Zoom lectures?! Never mind dealing with a gaggle of 19 and 20 year olds!

I don't understand why he didn't grade on a curve. I'm in the social sciences, but had friends as an undergrad who were chemistry and physics majors. Scores in the 30s in O chem, intro physics, calculus, differential equations, etc were usual (and dismaying because a lot of these students were top of their high school classes).

[QUOTE]I too had a terrible calculus professor in college who also used his horrible calculus book as the official text.

Don't tell me, his book had been rejected by publishing houses including his own university press, so students had to buy his "book" at the local copy shop? It was bound with card stock covers with a taped spine or was held together with three brass brads?

My introductory statistics experience.

How can we best address the inequities in math?

Tutoring? Math Boot Camps? Mixed Subject Class (business, music, crossfit, school jobs, home economics)? Bringing back the gap year and college prep schools?

I know, we need a hero, a social justice savior armed with particpation trophers to declare: yay, everybody is a winner! You didn't fail, you've just experienced deferred success!

I love it when, instead of joining the conversation, someone posts a whole bunch of videos or memes as exhibits to make their point for them.

It’s the modern-day equivalent of an unwelcome slide show of someone’s vacation.

A friend who is an adjunct has said, "No one ever gets fired for making a class too easy." With the advent of adjuncts living and dying by the strength of their student evaluations and the perception of students as clients, the number of demands teachers can make of students at non-prestige schools is severely limited. Getting students to read textbooks can be next to impossible. The responsibility of professors to engage and/or entertain students has escalated; if students flunk a course, the professor has failed. Perhaps there's some truth to this but whenever I hear college students complain about zoom, they seem unaware of why they find the medium ineffective or what they can do to improve concentration and retention.

I don't know how much of this applies to a science course at NYU and an 85-year-old instructor, but this is the landscape at many institutions fighting for tuition dollars and willing to accept almost everyone. The demise of factory jobs and the assumption that everyone should go to college means that many students who are enrolled in college don't belong there. The problem isn't that they're unconventional learners--it's that they haven't figured out the best way for them to learn and aren't motivated to try.

Some learning can be fun, but a lot isn't and many students don't have the patience or skills to learn on their own and experience the frustration of not getting something until a light finally dawns.

Contemporary education emphasizes learning as a group activity but, in many professions, being self-directed to keep up with new material is a prerequisite of the job. Maybe we are failing young people by trying to make education painless and not giving them the skills to understand the mechanics of learning.

I'm so glad I'm a Hudson University student.

It just feels so much safer here than at other New York schools...OMG, someone HELP ME!

Call me crazy but I loved organic chemistry! It's a beautiful discipline. But the premed students who view it as an unnecessary requisite outnumber the actual chemistry majors.

The perfect story to get conservative boomers panties in a twist! Meanwhile the planed is dying and the supreme court is gutting Democracy.

Trust me—No one, and I mean no one, needs to know the intricate details of organic chemistry except for chemistry majors

Do we think that was the only reason? There had to be something else tied up in the whole situation, no? I'm not saying he deserved to be fired, but only because some students complained the class was too hard?

I get all my news from a right wing link farm!

Given that he was a retired professor on a yearly contract, it's not surprising that they didn't ask him back. But it sounds like they fired him in the middle of the semester, and that is surprising. Actually it does sound like NYU catered to the students rather than upholding standards, at least based on my lazy read of the NYT article about it. I'm a former professor and high school teacher now, and from my vantage point, the covid gap has repaired itself among high achieving students.

[quote]1. There's no particular reason most doctors need to understand organic chemistry. So it's become a rite of passage for pre-med students...Because it's always been a rite of passage. Time to get rid of it as a prerequisite has long since past. There are so many better indicators of who will make a good physician -- some of those are course and knowledge-based and some of them are not (e.g. would you ever have the social intelligence to interact compassionately with a patient?) 2. Unfortunately, organic chemistry is still a rite of passage prerequisite. And that means students who want to go to medical school need to do what it takes to do well in the class. And the entitled undergrads of NYU don't understand that, and simply believe that because they may have put in the effort, they deserve an "A." They mistake effort (I worked really hard) for outcome (I learned the material and did well).

Utterly flawed logic. Not everyone who goes to medical school becomes a physician seeing patients. Your view is narrow.

Medical research and many other fields are open to people with medical degrees and would greatly benefit from organic chemistry.

The purpose of a degree in the liberal arts (and chemistry is among them) is not solely job training.

R134 they need to get into lab and invent something new. Reinventing the wheel is as dumb as memorizing poetry.

It used to take six months to become dentist. If we have a labour shortage, they will learn fast that experience and education waste of time. Throw them in deep end. Most education requirements r just a way to ensure the upper class does not compete against the poor who can't afford education. They let rich kids repeats courses over and over. Two years to be flight attendant.

Young millennial males are getting dumber and pretending to be females.

Organic chem at many places most certainly is a "weeding out" course. Tons of pre nursing, med, pharma and other such students find this out all too often and late. Sad thing is as noted in this thread many wait until their last semester or otherwise late to take this critical course. Thus if they fail or get very low grade are screwed.

That being said there are various ways of teaching organic chem, and content can vary.

Many nursing programs (largely four year BSN) stopped requiring full frontal organic chem for pre-nursing majors because of high failure rate. It wasn't that students weren't bright, but places like famous Hunter-Bellevue lumped pre-nursing in with pre-med and pharma; that is they all took same organic chem course which was taught to a high level (pre-med). Nursing programs like Hunter-Bellevue came up with "Organic Chemistry For Weenies", in essence organic chem lite; covering just what is believed is the amount of organic chemistry nurses need to know.

As for rest of this debate things largely boil down to common fate of adjunct professors nowadays. Colleges and universities have slowed if not stopped tenure track, but instead rely upon an army of contract (adjunct) professors. This sort of staff can be terminated quickly and otherwise have less rights than tenured faculty.

It follows however that adjunct professors are more vulnerable to complaints and poor ratings by students. Contract professors are more likely to find themselves caught up in policies and politics of teaching courses with high levels of students with low grades and or failure rates.

Someone (federal or local government, parents, students, etc... ) are paying for these college courses. And when Little Junior Snowflake flunks out of organic chem and sees their chances of getting into a nursing, medicine, pharmacist or whatever program dashed, by god someone has to pay!

None of this even touches the nasty business of grade inflation which is rampant, and also happens more with contract instructors. Adjuncts can be sat down and or otherwise got at when good number or major part of a class fails exams and or scores poorly.

Thing about NYU is besides costing a major fortune, many of their classes (especially lectures) are something out of my grandfather's day. Huge halls filled to capacity with students with almost a sink or swim sort of environment. For those who need hand holding or individual attention it often isn't exactly the best way to learn.

NYU threw Maitland Jones Jr., under a bus because they could. At $78,440 (and counting) tuition per year little snowflakes (and or their parents) want the same "gold stars for everyone" that likely is how they got through primary and secondary education.

What is the difference between chemistry and organic chemistry?

Organic chemistry is almost entirely about the behavior of carbon.

Organic chemistry focuses more on carbon-based molecules and their shapes/structures. These carbon-based molecules have unique biochemical properties.

Thanks.

[quote]Organic chemistry focuses more on carbon-based molecules and their shapes/structures. These carbon-based molecules have unique biochemical properties.

Is so-called click chemistry considered a subset of organic chemistry? Three scientists just won the Nobel prize in chemistry for their work in click chemistry which sounds fascinating.

[quote]In chemical synthesis, "click" chemistry is a class of biocompatible small molecule reactions commonly used in bioconjugation, allowing the joining of substrates of choice with specific biomolecules.

Doesn't organic chemistry basically require rote memorization and not a huge amount of critical thinking?

It's also very visually oriented, and I am decidedly not.

In the final for my second semester of O-chem, about two thirds of the way through, I essentially had a panic attack and basically everything I studied leaked out of my ears instantly. I think I ended up faking my way through the remainder and writing a note to the professor thanking her. I still ended up with B, but that class kept me from being Summa when I graduated.

R140

Depending upon major general (or introduction to ) chemistry would be a prerequisite to organic. One builds upon the other.

Thing is all sorts of students, even those seeking entry into pre-nursing, med, etc.... programs avoid or have issues with two other critical subjects; algebra and calculus. You don't have to be Einstein, but general familiarity if not competency is required.

There are reasons why Asians often dominate or make up good majority of STEM undergraduate or graduate students at post secondary, and or even at secondary education level. Many American students lack proficiency in science and math starting at primary and into secondary education. This feeds into whole debate for instance at why top selective high schools in New York City are largely dominated by either whites or Asians.

A student who sucked at math until say 10th grade isn't going to suddenly wake up by 11th and ace exams needed to get into say Stuyvesant or any of the other top tier high schools that focus on science and math.

On nursing side of things it seems places have largely long thrown in the towel. Much of what needs to be administered comes up from pharmacy with dosages all ready worked out and labeled on packet. Nursing math isn't difficult, but far too many errors resulting in adverse incidents (including death) were happening. Stupid things like decimal points being in wrong place, and nurse (or phsician) not understanding relationship of numbers to realize whatever answer they were getting when doing sums for med dose calc had to be wrong.

I only had one question related to (organic) chemistry to ask of a physician and he couldn't answer it. My mother had Alzheimer's and was non-compliant about meds (Aricept and Respiridol). I asked if they could be ground up and put into brownie mix. (She'd detect bitterness if sprinkled on food) Whether the baking process would alter chemical bonds or structure becoming ineffective or harmful. He had no idea.

Risperdal comes in a liquid form, and I'm sure you could get Aricept compounded.

This isn't like you're making weed brownies.

Poster: This issue isn't political!!

DL: Floods thread with right-wing Federalist bullshit videos.

This was about 15 years ago, VoTN. I don't know if they were available then. He certainly didn't mention those options or I would have jumped at them. I tried putting the pulverized stuff into soup, on ice cream,, etc., but she wouldn't eat it. The brownies were a sign of my desperation. She was more than a hand full and that's putting it kindly.

One thing to remember requirements for two or four year degrees in various majors are set down by state laws. This often dictates course distribution and credit requirements.

Pre-med per say is not a major, but one has to obtain a Bachelor degree in something. If it's a B of S degree that will require taking certain amounts of credits in science and math.

This being said there is a growing trend in med school admissions to look beyond straight A science majors. There are programs that don't require MCAT (few, but they do exist), and or aren't heavy with science pre-requisites (ditto).

[quote]This being said there is a growing trend in med school admissions to look beyond straight A science majors. There are programs that don't require MCAT (few, but they do exist), and or aren't heavy with science pre-requisites (ditto).

They also just transitioned USLME Step 1 and COMLEX Level 1 to pass/fail.

That does inspire a "get off my lawn!" rant.

Organic chemistry is hard. I failed my first organic chemistry test. Really badly, like 39% bad. But I managed to pull myself out of the hole by getting perfect scores on the next 2 tests (our prof gave bonus questions because many failed the first time— so some got more than 100%). But organic chemistry is incredibly objective, like any math class. It can be almost like a probkem solving game and students need to practice that. The memorizers and flash card kids will definitely have a hard time with it because it is far from that. Its a different method of studying that people have to learn, and most med school wannabes are only prepared to do memorization so if their prep doesnt involve the anki app, they start flailing.

This is absurd. If you're smart, and pre-med and you fail chem, you just become pre-law and go to law school like the rest of us. Or, if you're dumb, a social worker.

R154, you sound smart. What are you doing here? You lost?

R153

That change was a long time coming.

There are teachers that haze and torment students. They are too busy hazing students, instead of excelling at teaching the subject matter. This is an university level chem course, so the students would have to have the prerequisite corses to get in. This is something for the department to evaluate.

This is a good thing here. This uni is taking teaching and their course evaluations seriously, as they really should.

[quote]That change was a long time coming.

I don't disagree, but I also know that the run-up to Step 1 was the worst time of my life.

R158

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

First of all no end of students at all universities or colleges try to game system and register for classes without having taken required perquisites. Sometimes registration system catches them, others not. Have sat in classes where just before mid-terms season professors have started a class saying he/she had a list of students the Registrar's office or chair of department wanted to see because there is no record of them having taken required pre-requisites.

Next, just because students have completed pre-requisites that is no guarantee they will be able to keep up with class. Past, present and probably future students pass classes in all sorts of ways, some even with B's or A's. Yet you ask them basic questions about course content and they can't answer.

A required course is what it is; and thus when push comes to shove (final semester or close) and it must be taken in order to graduate there aren't many options.

If student has a strong enough GPA that a "C" won't cause great harm they'll wing it doing best they can. OTOH faced with an impossible situation such as what started this thread (very difficult or demanding professor), then some student's problems start.

Usually by midterms or last days able to withdraw without a penalty most students have a good idea where they stand. If you've fucked up first several or whatever exams, and see no prospect of redemption (again even to a "C" grade), best to drop out than risk an "F"

Or, you can pull a Snowflake and whinge that professor is unfair and treating you badly....

R144, yes, today's Nobel Prize winners's work was mostly organic chemistry, but their type of work is often called bio-organic chemistry, because they frequently want to see if their processes work in living systems.

R148, most drugs are not going to degrade under baking-level heat, but it is possible that the baking will cause some chemical reaction on them. (And that's what baking is, largely -- chemical reactions!) Plus, many drugs are not digestible on their own and are given with other chemicals that help them be digested. If you mix the drug into baking mix, then those other chemicals are too dilute to have any effect, so you're at the mercy of whether brownies help the drug be digested or not.

^Also, Nobel winner Carolyn Bertozzi is gay!

And the current laureate is ex-gay.

People do pretty well in correspondence courses which tells me teachers are babysitters. Sitting in a class is stimulating because of social anxiety. Just go around the class asking students questions. I don't think good teachers make any difference.

R163, who do you mean?

For all the posters who used the term 'snowflake': bitter much?

[quote] bitter much?

An ugly expression.

Orgo was definitely one of the hardest science course I took. So many reagents, catalyst, mechanisms, etc. The dots! The arrows! 😱 It really was the graveyard of dreams for pre-meds. The lab course was fun, though I wasn’t fond of the write-ups.

R167 calling people snowflakes is uglier.

Here you go, kids:

Carolyn teaches at Stanford, but her Nobel-winning work was all done when she was at Berkeley—so they both will claim bragging rights.

College teachers need training in UDL--universal learning design--which allows them to plan lessons for different types of learners. They also need instruction in incorporating multimedia into their courses. Knowledge of a field does not equate with the ability to teach it.

Students need learning labs while schools only provide tutoring services and often rely on other students. They need to learn what impedes their ability to learn and how to compensate. And they need to be motivated to use these resources rather than expecting things to come instantly and getting mad at the prof if it doesn't.

Schools need to stop fighting unionization and give adjuncts a measure of stability if they want to prevent rampant grade inflation. Unfortunately, many schools are just fighting to hang onto enrollment and state schools in Red states are dealing with hostile state legislatures.

Parents need greater resources to enhance learning in the first five years of their children's development.

Seniors need to be encouraged to retire at the stroke of 70 if not sooner. This professor was teaching students who grew up in an educational environment with very different methods and goals.

Improve the process. Don't point fingers.

R172

Wins award for how many times can use word "need" in a post.

[quote] Seniors need to be encouraged to retire at the stroke of 70 if not sooner. This professor was teaching students who grew up in an educational environment with very different methods and goals.

Seventy is too old to teach some spoiled yuppies, but war and peace, the economy, crime .....

R173 never learned that repetition and parallel structure are effective rhetorical devices. R173 needs more education.

R175

Needs to shut the fuck up.

r137 removing prequisites and requirements creates a bigger class divide that allows more of the rich to take up spaces where gifted and/or talented students of any class has a greater competitive chance.

why else do you think the hollywood SAT scandal was such a big deal?

r169 r167

Prerequisites are in place to ensure one has proper foundation to continue studying a subject.

French II builds upon French 101.

Algebra is needed for finite and other higher level math courses.

Study of sciences (chemistry, organic or inorganic; bacteriology or microbiology) are necessary not only to understanding human physiology, but pharmacology and so forth.

I retook the lecture part of Organic Chemistry because I didn't want the C to go with all the As. It's a ridiculously difficult course and I had a professor that barely spoke English. It took me forever to figure out he was saying "chiral carbons" with a very strong Indian accent.

Definitelyl a weed out class. They even tell you that on the first day. I fucking hated every moment of it.

[quote] I had a professor that barely spoke English.

I had the same problem. My teacher could speak HTML language but not English.

NYU is such a waste of money

OP here. Just wanted to clarify that I first read the article on the New York Times and since 9 out of 10 times their pieces are restricted to subscribers, I googled the story and included a link from an ABC News website (abcnews4.com). Turns out that link will automatically direct to that National whatever site that unbeknownst to me, happens to be some sort of right wing platform.

I felt the need to explain as I am not a right winger as some of the posts suggested. I actually don’t care about politics and thought the topic would render a good discussion.

By the way, here is the original article for those who are able to login.

Re: discussions of his age.

If you were to devise an experiment to find an individual who would be indifferent to the pressures placed on faculty to inflate grades, I think that the person would end up being: A distinguished tenured professor teaching at a top school BUT such a professor would not be asked to teach an introductory course. Therefore you would have to find a retired professor who wants to continue teaching and is therefore hired, as an adjunct, at another school. That person would be indifferent to students complaining about low grades and simply expect them to work harder, especially if he had written the key textbook in the field and had transformed the teaching of Organic Chem. Despite all the comments about the desperate situation of adjunct faculty (all true) this is primarily a story about a professor immune to the pressures of grade inflation. He really has to be in his seventies or eighties.

R68 is a med school professor who confuses past with passed.

R184: he’s 84

R185: that seems more like a proofreading problem than not knowing the difference between ‘past’ and ‘passed’

I can see both sides of this but will add I had an undergrad who announced 1/3 of the class wouldn’t pass on the first day.

I would go to class, do the homework, and then have an 18 hour study session right before the exams. I barely passed with a C. His tests were hard on purpose and I always had to argue for credit on the essay part of the test.

And of course, he was chair of the department. Other professors agreed his place was not teaching.

The photo at 183 tells you all you need to do to pass his class.

R188 a normal student passes no matter what the prof is like. You have to get old exams or tune into hints from prof. Focus on passing exam and not learning unnecessary material because it's all forgotten in a few months. ' A' students get A's in every single course unaffected by teacher. Grow up.

Liberal/Democrats days are numbered due to crazy shit like this.

And I couldn't be happier.

😂🤣

[quote] People do pretty well in correspondence courses which tells me teachers are babysitters. Sitting in a class is stimulating because of social anxiety. Just go around the class asking students questions. I don't think good teachers make any difference.

You pulled this entirely out of your ass.

FWIW, my husband attended UT Austin, studying zoology, then UTHSC in San Antonio for med school, graduating in 1996. Both good schools but not top ten. The only student in his class who failed out of school was the only student who hadn’t attended a state school, IIRC. He went to Yale and complained that he wasn’t taught how to study.

R193: I can tell you why. Many Yale professors have very high expectations - whether justified or not - of their students, that’s why they don’t cover the basics, assuming the students already learned and knew all that in high school

Somebody call a waaaaaaaambulance for these babies…

I’m a professor at NYU- full time contract, not an adjunct as this fellow was. Hard to know the truth here. My students have to take org chem as prerequisite to our program. They must get a C or better to receive credit and continue through our program of which I am the director. Almost all do and the others have the option of repeating.

Hard to reconcile a former tenured prof from a top school being a lousy instructor, even in semi retirement. I’d need a lot more information if this was going on among any of our faculty. I can say that students are much more like paying clients now than “students” in years past. They can be very difficult. But I find most can deal with the expectations that we have for them.

Interesting thread. As I said- I’d need a lot more information to be able to judge what was going on. We’ve had dud adjuncts in our program, but never anyone with the credentials that this fellow has.

His age is irrelevant.

It's like arguing Cher is irrelevant because of her age.

You stand on your accomplishments, not on your age.

R191, the definition of 'conservative' is that they are literally trying to conserve things the way they were in the past. Of course, I wouldn't expect a moron of a conservative to even know what being a conservative means because all you morons are any more is responders to dog whistles blown by other morons.

R194. You’re funny. Not very insightful or realistic about Yale, but funny-yes.

R196. If you’re at NYU and direct a related program, then should already know the scoop—and you should be sharing real info. No need to play coy.

Not so R196. I am not privy to other schools and departments and in particular the evaluations of faculty outside my program. I may learn more because I am on the faculty council and debate for our school. Our Dean will probably have a report.

Clearly you do not work at a university with 55,000 students and thousands of faculty.

I demand better gossip from the faculty! 🤓

[quote] I only had one question related to (organic) chemistry to ask of a physician and he couldn't answer it. My mother had Alzheimer's and was non-compliant about meds (Aricept and Respiridol). I asked if they could be ground up and put into brownie mix. (She'd detect bitterness if sprinkled on food) Whether the baking process would alter chemical bonds or structure becoming ineffective or harmful. He had no idea.

That question is completely outside of a doctor's wheelhouse. MAYBE the pharmacist would be able to answer it--but it's such a unusual situation that the only way one would know for sure is trying it. Of course, it also may poison your mother.

[quote] FWIW, my husband attended UT Austin, studying zoology, then UTHSC in San Antonio for med school, graduating in 1996. Both good schools but not top ten. The only student in his class who failed out of school was the only student who hadn’t attended a state school, IIRC. He went to Yale and complained that he wasn’t taught how to study.

Even Yale pre-med students have to get through chem, organic, chem, physical chem, physics, biology, calculus, etc. The fact that the kid failed out of med school is more about the student than Yale

^don’t encourage him! Matricide!

350 students in the class. But only 82 called the waahmbulance.

Go, you remaining 268 heroes and heroines.

I love the direction in which the nation is going.

Success at school comes down to how scared you are of failing. I would not want to be a straight 'A' student because they are inevitably compensating for being so cietal rejects.

R204 Perhaps but he fully admitted that he didn’t learn the study skills necessary for medical school. I also went to UT and our early science courses were sink or swim with 200+ students. Didn’t continue that track but I’m sure it’s difficult no matter what school.

R190, you're speaking to someone with a 4.0 in his other undergrad program as well as graduate program. If I was able to pull that off, do you really think it was me or that one professor?

I'm thinking of industry training courses (Cisco immediately comes to mind). These things cost a fuckload of money, and the average student age is probably hovering at upwards of 30. They know that they need to walk away from that with a certain knowledge set, 'faking it' is useless and they will be exposed in short order.

These are not easy things to learn.

I have done a number of other industrial courses, and considering the money spent and the career at stake, I want an instructor who gives me value for money. I want and need that knowledge. I'm not paying five fucking thousand dollars for a single week so some old dutz can pontificate about what a genius he is.

Bamn!

I went to Brown and wrote papers about the appalling hegemony and systematic oppression of the underclasses that I enjoyed on luxury excursions over school breaks with my new jet set friends.

For those who don't otherwise know, pre-nursing, pre-med, pre-pharma and rest are most certainly all to some extent weeding out majors. If someone cannot hack the fundamental basics then it's best they get shot of early on.

Medical school is neither easy nor inexpensive. Those who at least on paper (by grades or other measurement) are statistically unlikely to complete are best served being weeded out early on. This as opposed to being flunked out after being admitted to med school, but not graduating and thus being left with huge debts.

Comments from ARS Technica linked article above are spot on.

"When I majored in (and took a BS) in chemistry in the 1970s, the organic chemistry lectures were available as two different levels, one for technical students, which included chem majors, chem engineering majors, and pre med. The other classes were for agriculture and home economics majors. The lab programs were completely different as well. My senior year, I taught labs for both groups, and I have to say, the "lower level" group was a lot more fun to teach. We did simpler experiments, but most were explicitly related to real world uses of chemistry, like making soap, or simple chromatography of common things found in a store, etc. These folks were very grateful for what they learned, instead of seeing the course as a potential roadblock to their actual aspirations. Maybe the premeds should be in that lower level class..."

This is still true today. As someone posted above many nursing and other programs have stopped (if they ever started) forcing students to take full on frontal organic chem. Rather various sorts of OC "lite" have been devised which give the basics of what such majors need to know. That is as it should be...

Sadly for pre-med students it's usually only organic chem, period.

Industry training courses aka Cisco modules = pre med😵‍💫

“Senate”, not debate-

R216 - You have no idea.

^yea…my CLE is *so much* than Con Law @ HLS 🥹

So much harder 🤷🏻‍♂️

Students

Didn’t

Ask

For

Him

To

Be

Fired.

R210 maybe your course load was too heavy that semester. Frankly, I just don't buy your story.

Students deal with lots of shorty teachers. He had to be extra shitty for everyone to complain

R216 R219 - It's a matter of what a person is interested in. Trying to compare is silly. I'm friends with someone who is regarded as the best expert on the planet in his particular branch of international law and he literally refuses to touch an ATM and never has in his life (he has one of his minions do that). He will read his email- and have someone else print them out if needed, wow.

R213, huh?

That sounds like former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, r224 (though he's not an international law expert, just another troglodyte).

New York Magazine weighs in...

2224

What does your post have to do with my joke? Odd reply you wrote

R207 I could not agree with you more. I find it hard to keep up with the latest. I’m pushing 50 and simply cannot relate to the current education scenario.

R13 The Times article quoted the professor as saying that the students were not attending lectures and going to office hours. They probably also didn't seek tutoring. They were not doing everything they needed to do.

R16

I was never premed, but when I was in school, premeds usually took Organic Chemistry in their sophomore year. If they didn't do well in it many changed majors and gave up the idea of applying to med school.

R27

Professors who teach difficult courses and give out bad grades always get criticized harshly on RateMyProfessor by students who did poorly.

There are a lot of possible angles here, but I see this mostly as a story about how neurotic and insane pre-med students are.

R233

Not just pre-med, but pre-nursing, pharma, engineering, etc.. Virtually all most of health sciences, STEM or other majors.

Many four year/BSN students equally freak out when they fail (or flounder) in required science or math classes. Whether anyone wants to come right out and say so; those classes act as filters; if you don't get past them with proper grades then that's it,

[quote]Call me crazy but I loved organic chemistry!

Me too! It had toys!

So I keep trying to post the unlocked NYT article and DL won't let me. What am I doing wrong?

Here's the original NYT article that I've unlocked so everyone can read it.

NYU made a big mistake with this guy. He's an original thinker and a problem solver, even though students are blaming him for their issues. NYU administration should have had him move out of the classroom and and chair a group to focus on tools to solve the issues that he and colleagues were identifying as problems. Then move him back into the classroom next year. They are losing a lot of talent.

R237, I'm sure, at this point, he's probably sick and tired of the whole bunch of them.

His generation of professors was a lot tougher than the current. If you couldn’t keep up with them, they would simply advise you to pursue some other field. They didn’t feel sorry for you in the slightest way.

Did any of you chem gays use those molecular models on your ass? 😳

The organic chem teachers hate that doctors make so much more money than they do--so they hate the students going into medicine.

Any of you Brits do the o-chemsex thing?

^ooh, I wonder if the conspiracy theorists do chemtrail-sex

Chemtrails turn you gay ... so, yes?

R204

The NYU professor, Maitland Jones, Jr., got his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Yale. In general, it has excellent students. I don't know why people who are unfamiliar with it love to shit on Yale.

R241

I'm not sure that's the case. Decades ago when I was a Yale Law School in the period when large law firm salaries for junior associates were starting to soar, a YLS professor told someone I knew that he loved it when grads earned high salaries because it made it easier for professors to argue for big salary increases. They could say "I could be earning millions in the private sector," even if that wasn't true for many of them because they lacked the right personality to work in a corporate law firm.

R223

Everyone did not complain. Only 80 out of about 350. And many or most of these students did not put in the work.

R194

There is some truth in what you say. I attended Harvard and Yale. Some of the professors were amazingly lazy. They had very bright students and some of them thought they weren't required to teach; it was as if they were doing you a favor. But if you really needed help and weren't too proud to seek it out (an issue for students at schools like that) assistance usually was available. I didn't use them, but there were centers at which you could learn study skills and have your writing critiqued.

I studied humanities and social science subjects. I had the impression the sciences were different. I never studied computer science in college, but there's a joint Harvard-Yale introductory class called CS 50 that's available online for free. They go out of their way to make it accessible: There are video and audio recordings of the lectures, there are transcripts, and if you're taking the class for credit there are small weekly sessions with TAs and office hours with the professor to discuss the problem sets. It's so much better taught than many of the courses I took, which seemed to be a test of how fast I could take notes. Maybe it's because with more technical subjects they have to make sure the students have the material easily available. Naturally, students still have to work to learn and apply the information.

R236: here, try this one

R172

As you're full of advice, here's some for you: Work on your ageism.

On a comparative basis, few Yale Law grads go into corporate law. Everyone knows that Yale is the “egghead” law school and spits out two types of lawyers: future federal and high state court justices AND politicians.

R251

Plenty of YLS grads go into corporate law. But the larger point was that university professors are not necessarily envious of students who go into high-paying fields because it gives the professors leverage to ask for higher salaries. A tenured professor at a top school has lots of perks and less stress than a professional like a doctor or a corporate lawyer. S/he also works far fewer hours.

Not compared to Harvard, they don’t.

R253

You keep missing the point. I won't explain it again.

I understood your point the first time. I made a separate point—I shouldn’t need to point that out, but here we are.

It clearly has been a “few” decades for you. ☮️

R255

Your "point" was completely irrelevant to my response to the other comment. Yet you keep repeating it.

the professor is million years old. That is also a big part of the problem. He should have retired long ago, but instead, he wanted a regular paycheck

I went to Brown then read law at Panthéon-Sorbonne. My firm sent me to Geneva so naturally I quickly grew bored in the city of Calvin and set my mind to a career change. The Circus Knie came through town, so I joined the traveling circus and stayed for several years as an acrobat. It was in Monte Carlo at the end of one triumphant season that I fell in love for the first and only time with a woman, a Saudi princess, and we married. Her father the king had no use for a historian - lawyer - circus acrobat - but offered me any position in the oil or foreign ministries, so I retrained in Zurich as a natural resources engineer. We were living on easy street, until the bombshell. Divorce and the Nazi's Annexation of the Sudetenland.

I am Prince Aimone Roberto Margherita Maria Giuseppe Torino of Savoy-Aosta. When my preceptors were too demanding and cruel, I had my father banish them to Elba.

Everyone seems to miss the point of this story. It was that this professor taught two different sections in two different modes (problem solving vs lecture). The complaint was that the one section got better grades than the other--and that more students should be allowed into the higher scoring section.

^ I May be mistaken, but i believe that each student got to choose which section under either of the two methods) to take for the semester.

He is a Teaching Professor. He has to be able to teach the subject matter, in this case, Chemistry to Graduate/Medical Students. Course evaluations and reviews found there was a serious problem and he was dismissed.

Universities should take their course evaluations and reviews seriously. This University is and it it is a good thing.

R261, I think the problem solving section filled early. I could be wrong.

But even if it did not, how were they to know that one section got higher grades than the other? Why not teach both sections in the way that got better grades?

This editorial quotes from Paul Tough's book The Years That Matter Most. It hits home for me. Because I score high on the math SATs, I was advised in to two high level STEM courses my freshman year. My school had no advanced math so all the material was new to me (it was not new to my classmates who treated me like an idiot). I just barely passed and became an arts major.

I have done well, so I have no regrets. But I loved science and probably would have gone that route had I not been "weeded out." My SATs showed I had a good mind for STEM. However, because I was not trained before college, I could barely get by in STEM classes.

The irony is, I now use my arts training to teach STEM students in a university.

[quote]But even if it did not, how were they to know that one section got higher grades than the other? Why not teach both sections in the way that got better grades?

Ironically, I'd wager that they teach it in two different "learning styles" at the behest of the very same little brats that are whining about not doing well.

We thought Idiocracy would emerge from the red south.

Turns out we fucked that up.

It'll suck to be old and in need of health care.

But we voted the right way in 2022!

R264, it was not at the behest of the students. Maitland himself was the one who pioneered the "problem solving" method of teaching this subject.

The other thing that gets lost is that the student's petition did not ask for Maitlands firing. Their grievances were about losing access to his recorded lecture and the reduction of exams from 3 to 2 (which meant that it was harder to raise a flagging average).

The disgusting thing is that NYU fired him rather than deal with these issues---which Maitland said occurred because of NYU scheduling and technology. Bascially the school fired him to cover their own ass--not because any students wanted him fired.

Universities have the right to dismiss Teaching Professors who cannot teach, documented by the course evaluations and review process.

Universities have the right to dismiss Research Professors who are not getting research grants (per their profession) and publishing in peer-reviewed scientific (or academic) journals.

Tenure Professors have a robust appeal process. Non- Tenured Professors are in limited time contracts.

This is not unusual at all. This university is taking the corse evaluations and review process seriously, as they should.

"This is not unusual at all."

An administrative dean, jerking off looking at her payslip and the fact that she doesn't have to teach^

[quote]Universities have the right to dismiss Teaching Professors who cannot teach, documented by the course evaluations and review process.

You're an idiot. I used to run reviews for professors because they couldn't be in the room when the evaluations were being done by the students. If you think those evaluations have anything to do with teaching instead of popularity and how easy a A the teacher would give, you're crazy. "Doesn't give enough extra credit!!" was a leading complaint.

The professor was not fired.

He is no longer able to teach. This is due to the course evaluations and review process. He has Tenure and he is 84 year old. He will be able to get his university pension and benefits. He was never fired. He was dismissed from being a Teaching Professor.

R270, you don't have the fact right. But, of course, that's not a surprise. That wasn't even the university he spent his career at. He was there as, bascially, an emeritus acting in the role of an adjunct by teaching a class here and there. He was already retired, from his actual university.

You know what is sending chills down my spine and is completely disgusting…

the American People do not have the pension and benefits as this person.

He was a Professor Emiratus @ Princeton. He was teaching at NYU on a renewable contract basis—they were more than happy to get him, based on his singular role in creating the modern method of teaching of ochem (he wrote the book on it). This is all upthread^^

*emeritus

He was never fired. This is a lie.

He is a Tenured professor and is still able to receive his university pension and benefits. The professor is 84 years old.

He is not teaching any courses due to the course evaluations and review process.

NYU is probably going to replace him with a STEM certified teaching professor.

This man still gets his university pension and benefits. He gets his ss pension too. He was not fired.

Can we allow this man to retire with dignity? He was removed from teaching, dismissed, due to course evaluations and review process. He is 84 years old.

They will most likely get a STEM-certified Professor at NYU.

He was never fired. He is tenured. He will get his university pension and benefits. He also will get ss pension.

R275-R277, do you realize you are fucking insane?

R263

[quote] My school had no advanced math so all the material was new to me (it was not new to my classmates who treated me like an idiot).

Did you get tutoring? Speak to your TA? Go to office hours? If you're behind, it's up to you to help yourself. The students in the NYU course who complained didn't attend classes, didn't watch the class videos, didn't go to office hours, or seek other help. I can't believe they had no idea how poorly they were doing. Most science classes have problem sets and there was a midterm.

R275

He was tenured at Princeton. He retired and receives a pension and benefits from there. He wanted to keep working and taught at NYU on a contract basis. His contract was not renewed because NYU was unhappy with his performance (actually, was chicken in the face of certain students' complaints). He was fired.

It is much more difficult to dismiss a tenured faculty member than a contract employee. Universities faced with complaints will sometimes compromise by not allowing the professor to teach required courses so no student has to take a course with him or her. That happened to Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor who was accused of making racist statements.

NYU students are bitches. And these bitches are getting my money to pay off their loans?

Fuck them,

R262

He was teaching Organic Chemistry to undergraduates. OG is a prerequisite for a medical school application so many of the students are premed.

R260

The story has not been fully disclosed, in part because it's a personnel matter, which must be kept confidential. The two or three stories I read did not indicate that sections were taught differently and the petition was not published, probably in part because it lists the students' names, although they could be redacted.

Who do they complain to when they find out life is hard?

R279 This was back in the 80s, so there was no tutoring and no TA. Like most first semester students, I did not understand what office hours were.

If I had known help was available, I would have sought it out. But as it was, I did not want to draw the university's attention to my intellectual shortcoming.

Now that I teach, I see my attitudes are still common, even though now there are more resources. But it is pretty rare for students to come forward and say "I am trying very hard but I cannot understand this material." It almost never happens.

The students who come forward for help are always the ones who say they missed classes, did not work hard, etc. It is never the ones who try but fail.

R285

I was in college in the '70s. There was help. Maybe not at your school.

R286, Maybe there was help. But I did not know about it.

[quote] If I had known help was available, I would have sought it out

I asked my school for a tutor for chemistry. The tutor turned out to be a student from Russia who about 5 years younger than me. She was absolutely useless.

Luckily for me, a “mature returning student” in our class (read: she was 45 years old ) was smart enough to put an advert in the city university newsletter and hired a guy who was teaching chem at a community college. He was excellent. We all passed. But we had to pay by the hour.

[quote]He was never fired. This is a lie.He is a Tenured professor and is still able to receive his university pension and benefits.

He WAS fired from NYU. His tenured position at Princeton has nothing to do with his job at NYU--they are entirely separate institutions. He was hired as an adjunct at NYU on a year-to-year teaching contract, and then was fired.

He still draws benefits and also money from his 401K (there are no longer such things as "university pensions" and have not been for decades) from Princeton, but he cannot go back to teaching there since he formally retired.

You clearly know absolutely nothing about how university hiring and firing works.

R289, he clearly knows absolutely nothing about how employment works.

Every STEM field has its weed-out courses. You’re not entitled to any degree. Too many students are being forced into higher education, mostly by their parents, even when they don’t have any genuine interest or aptitude. The main motivation is that they want to earn a lot of money in the future.

Plus the younger generation is not very fond of hard work. That’s not to say all of that are lazy but from what I see at work Gen Z has a problem with putting an extra effort.

And the whining… oh my.

Since medical schools weigh grades very highly in determining admissions, pre-meds are, of course, going to be obsessed by grades.

Since they have to take Organic Chemistry, theyre taking it to do the pre-requisite, not to learn it thoroughly. The problem is teachers think that all these people are in the class because they actually want to learn Org Chem. So when a prof grades low, the pre-meds revolt.