Irony of Ridicule

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Today in The Chronicle, there is a short memo from a department dean that is intended to serve as a humorous update, but actually serves another purpose.

The article subtly laments a student’s faux pas where a student includes a reminder/request for a study guide for the final exam within a condolence email following his or her professor’s unexpected surgery.

The dean included the student’s email in the memo and then informs the faculty of the department that fruit was sent to the recovering professor and adds in comedic fashion that there was no mention of a study guide.

While this does assuredly have some value as a lighthearted memo in the midst of what might not be a lighthearted time, the dean was either shortsighted or successfully illustrated the condescension many students feel in their academic relationships.

The student’s response was certainly not well written either, but of course, the dean is the authority and role model here, and thus has the greater responsibility to communicate thoughtfully between the two of them.

While there are numerous outstanding faculty, students often complain about not-so-outstanding faculty going through the motions of teaching, or skipping classes, lecturing rather than teaching, and so on and so on. They have high expectations for faculty, and many of those expectations are valid.

Students pay for a particular course, and the syllabus and verbal intentions made by the professor in the course may constitute a legal contract. At the very least, the syllabus and verbal intentions made by the professor are understood by students as promises and they plan their lives accordingly and expect a degree of professional follow-through.

When a professor is absent from a class for whatever reason and aspects of the syllabus go unfulfilled, the students are often upset and surprisingly judgmental. This is particularly so when students are expected to fulfill the expectations of the syllabus (project due dates, content, final exams, etc.) without the professor doing so. The inequity here is clear I think.

There is another aspect as well, that I believe faculty – particularly this dean – are often ignorant of. That is the fact that some students are not necessarily upset at the faculty being absent or less than engaged but rather the fact that they are not getting the quality of instruction and opportunity to learn that they are paying for.

Now there may have been more appropriate communication sent to students informing them of the situation and what impact it has on the course. There may even have been measures in place where someone was promptly able to take over the course and continue to provide at least somewhat equitable instruction and materials to the students. The dean, though, made no comment of such, and instead of acknowledging the student’s investment in performing well in the course, or the department’s responsibility to provide for the students, he or she instead attempts to ridicule the student. The dean has rather now ridiculed his or her self and the department she or he leads for showing such a degree of arrogance and condescension when it comes to the students they are there to teach.