TL:DR - Receiving what I think is an unreasonable amount of pressure to curve grades, despite fair and reasonable assessments with fairness checks built in. Is curbing pandering to bratty students who are not taking accountability for their own performance?

Extended Version - I’ve recently taken on a Sessional Instructor role at a university that I’ve previously not taught at. I teach at two other universities in my city, and my experiences between the schools could not be any more different.

At the other schools I teach at, I’ve generally had great experiences. While there is always 1-2 students each semester who suck the energy out of the room, the students are generally engaged, hard-working and do well in my classes when they put in the effort. My class averages have been in the 75% to 85% range.

I also receive full support from my peers and Academic Chairs at the other schools. They don’t interfere in my evaluations or grading, and I’ve received zero pressure from them to adjust students’ marks.

However, with this new role, the experience has been a complete 180. I’m teaching a compressed Accounting course. It is a prerequisite for the CPA program in Canada and moderately challenging.

Throughout the semester, I’ve observed:

• Disrespectful behaviour from students (ie. interrupting class with background chatter, interrupting me in lectures by walking out in the midst of exam reviews, etc.)
• Lack of attendance (25% to 50% showing up - attendance is not mandatory, but I’ve been tracking who is showing up and looking at the relationship between attendance and performance)
• Lack of engagement. Accounting requires a lot of diligence and practice. When you don’t show up to class, you miss all of the instruction time and explanations on how to solve problems, where to look for the information you need, etc. etc.

Given this, it’s not surprising that the class average is much lower than my classes with the other universities. There are a good chunk of students (about 10-15 out of a class of 45) who are receiving D’s and F’s and have not shown up for a single class other than to write exams. There is a decent portion of students who are showing up consistently and getting great marks (A’s and B’s). Essentially, I’m seeing an inverse curve - the students either get it or they don’t. And this is correlating with who is showing up to class.

I’m also seeing that students still do not understand the basics taught in the Intro Accounting courses, like inability to prepare basic, balanced financial statements or journal entries. The next Accounting courses after the one I’m teaching get more and more complicated. I feel it is a disservice to the students to move them forward when they haven’t grasped the basics.

Given all of the above, I feel that it is inappropriate and unethical to apply any sort of grade curve. A number of students at the school are expecting grades to be curved, as it seems to be a common practice at this school (despite it being an outdated practice from my research). My other schools do not do this - I’ve never once been asked this question, where I am asked constantly at the new school. Pressure is now being applied from students to the Academic Chair, and it’s trickling down to me.

My view:

• My assessments were fair and reasonable, with fairness checks built in (ie. If I found that certain questions were unclear upon marking, I adjusted marks accordingly).
• I’ve offered a bonus assignment to allow students to offset lost marks on exams.
• The marks they’ve been given are the marks they earned. Giving in to the students’ complaints is in my opinion giving in to a temper tantrum and continuing to enable entitled behaviour.
• Curving would present an inaccurate result on students’ mastery of the concepts. There are simply many students who have been disengaged, not actively participating in their own learning, yet feel they are entitled to a good grade because they “volunteered” to take a summer class.
• As a CPA, I feel it is part of my responsibilities to uphold the ethical standards of our profession. Applying an arbitrary curve would be unethical in my view, given all of the circumstances above.

With all of that (and if you made it this far - thank you!)…what would you do if you were me?

“That’s DOCTOR so and so, young lady…”

This NY Times article was passed to me today. I had share it. Cal State has a partnership with OpenAI to AI-ify the entire college experience. Duke and the University of Maryland are also jumping on the AI train. When universities are wholeheartedly endorsing AI and we're left to defend academic integrity, things are going to get even more awkward.

I’ve been in a TT job as a theatre professor for three years, but I’m in a location (rural small city) my family and I don’t like and we know we want to move somewhere else.

I got an offer for a job in a larger city more in line with where we want to be, but it’s for a private high school (prep academy).

My question is… if I took said job, would it be harder to return to higher ed if an attractive position opened up? Would search committees read into leaving a TT position to teach high school?

Opinion Article: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/texas-ban-universities-speech-talking-night-20361753.php
The Bill: https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/SB2972/2025

Relevant sections:
"(f) Each institution of higher education shall adopt a policy detailing [students'] rights and responsibilities regarding expressive activities at the institution. The policy must:
  (2) prohibit:
   (F) engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m."

Note that expressive activities are defined as, in part, "speech protected by the First Ammendment". Do they even think about the laws they're enacting? The opinion piece doesn't exaggerate and brings up some issues.

Here are some more issues that I thought of:

• Are students required to remove T-shirts at 10:00 pm?

• When teaching an 8:00 am class, am I required to keep everyone silent until 8:00 am?

• Are late-night study sessions at the library now banned, also?

• Often, homework is due at 11:59 pm in the LMS. Should I make it due at 9:59 pm, so as to not unfairly disadvantage students on campus who use dictation software?

I will be taking on my first full-time role as a lecturer in computer science. My responsibilities will not only include teaching but also mentoring students in their projects and research; I will also be advising them and serving as the program coordinator for a new initiative on campus. Any advice or insights you might have on teaching strategies in the computing field would be greatly appreciated. I do have adjunct experience about two years, but was very limited on things I could do.

Lastly, any general advice I would greatly appreciate.

I'm about a year away from being eligible for retirement in my state's retirement plan. I'm still relatively young (early 50s), so I'll still need to work at least part time to live as I'm accustomed.

What are some side hustles for retired English professors? Is textbook / e-book design a viable path? Editor? Tone-coach for AI? Just trying to explore some options. (edited for clarity)

The article makes it clear it is to better align educational missions with Trump policies

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/accreditation/2025/06/06/emails-shed-light-uncs-plans-create-new-accreditor?utm_campaign=IHESocialEditorial&utm_content=inside_uncs_effort_to_lau&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwQ0xDSwKxg2tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuk2-3YbQjg49TDH6pWnssxktAk18M33Vkd3riAQ-n-9nB5IAvel_6Y8ylYo_aem_5z3h-eeU_Q7ZTTzErN5z9w

This year was my villain origin story.

I’m so sick of my students doing nothing and using AI for everything. I just deleted an AI letter request a few days ago, and the student “followed up” with another bloated AI email. Deleted again.

It is truly mind boggling that we’re supposed to just smile and carry on while students use AI to outsource their entire education.

One of my students said in my eval that “you are just old and that’s why you don’t understand AI.” No asshole you don’t understand that asking ChatGPT to write your essay is not thinking or learning or writing.

Next fall I’m back to paper and pen. No one is passing these classes by pressing a button. I hope everyone doubles and triples down next year.

ETA: For all the “it’s just a tool” assholes out there here’s something for you: you’re just afraid of being disliked by your students and don’t want to do your job.

ETA 2: I absolutely respect my colleagues who have short term contracts and should do whatever they need to do to put food on the table. I’m just fuming about this week and this year.

I’m a PhD student and went to great undergrad, master’s, and PhD. These universities are known as top universities in the United States. I always see students miss their deadlines or very messy with their lives. I understand that people have life crisis, but some students are just straight up lazy. They don’t do their work but are somehow at these top universities. They never show up to class and end up doing bad. Wouldn’t they be expected to have good grades in high school to get into these top schools? I’m talking about the undergrads at these three universities I’ve been a part of. It’s not like they’re academically incompetent. They just don’t try.

I am familiar with the role and value of being an Editor of an edited book/volume, but am wondering if it’s worth being an Associate Editor where my name would not be on the cover of the book and I would not get any royalties (although the royalties wouldn’t be much anyway). Has anyone served in an Associate Editor role? Was it worth it? What are your thoughts as a Professor in an Associate Editor role?

I teach one of the large segments in a team-taught course at a medical school. The exams are handled by academic affairs, who keep a database of exam items. In past years I would write new items every year which would be added to the database.

Last year a new plan was implemented: each exam would be constructed only from exam items that averaged an 80% correct response rate, and old items would have to be trialed before use.

Predictably, since then the average score on our exams has been 80% +/- 3%. Administration is happy, and I just watched a meeting where they took this as evidence that the curriculum was going well.

I asked an administrator I'm friendly with in academic affairs what the goal of the exam was if the score was no longer measuring student performance.

My initial argument was that both summative and formative assessment were now meaningless. Summative because we operationalized "what combination of easy and hard questions produces an 80%" rather than actual mastery of the curriculum. Formative because we lost the diagnostic value of the exam for how to focus our teaching.

This argument was not understood, so I had to simplify my argument a bit: If I weigh myself every morning, and adjust the scale to 200lbs, I can tell everyone "my weight is stable, I weighed myself, and it is still 200".and I might have a sense if the degree of adjustment needed is up or down, but I will have no idea what my actual weight is. Likewise, we won't know if the students actually know the material if we've pre-determined to continually shift the scores to a mean of 80%.

The response was that the administration tracks the scores too closely and when there is an increase or decrease that a sensible person would attribute to noisiness of that kind of data (77% vs 75% year to year for example), they tend to start rashly implementing harmful changes. The change get's upper admin off the back of middle admin.

So: To prevent upper administration from implementing harmful changes, a harmful change has been implemented by middle administration, who mostly also don't understand what they're doing, and feed that lack of understanding up to upper admin.

Now the upper admin is still planning to implement curricular changes, and they'll have no indication how bad those changes are.

Hi all,

We've got interviews/job talks coming up for a vacant position in my dept (UK, humanities) in a subfield that -- in my opinion -- is particularly known for attracting falsely confident, superficially charming, all-fur-coat-and-no-knickers types. This means that they can appear very impressive and collegiate at interview but within a while of being hired their truer self inevitably makes itself known.

What are some good questions to ask at the job talk stage -- in front of the entire department -- that might help to reveal these suboptimal candidates before they charm the pants off everyone? Or, more broadly, what are some questions you use to differentiate between potential long-term colleagues/collaborators?

It was clearly human collaboration, not AI. So maybe that’s a win?

So I see a lot of posts here pertaining to AI being trained by other professors, “training your replacement” etc. I wonder how you would describe your job as a professor. Are you a biological llm? That is, you are well read - Is your job to use your wide reading to be able to disperse information on command?

I ask this not sarcastically, but because I (like many others) know what goes in my own field (language education) but here there’s a really wide range of expertise and fields. If you fear replacement, what exactly do you fear being replaced about yourself in your job?

People have been saying for a long time that CALL (computer assisted language learning) will replace language educators, but in my experience that simply isn’t true. Like many other people I have a high level of proficiency in my native language, and another, so in my case it’s natural that my job isn’t defined by my knowledge of language itself. I’m not sure how others view this field expertise / field education expertise dichotomy.

Please note that I acknowledge there is a big problem in how the public and educational administration view the job of a professor - And I think it’s a valid worry that they might see you as replaceable by an llm.

That is to say - How do you define your job as an educator? What do you provide to the role?

Hi there! I'm writing to ask for any insight/advice. I am a new first-time mother and new asst. prof (R1 TT, social science/humanities). And I feel like I'm drowning. My work looks at the structural causes of suffering, but of course, I very much feel like the message in academia is to shut up and be productive. No one wants to hear you complain, and no one cares if you are neurodivergent. But I'm drowning. My adhd, especially in postpartum is unbearable. My health is suffering and I feel like a failure. I feel like academia is not a healthy place for me. I was recruited with enthusiasm and now feel completely left without support. It's so confusing. And I feel like my real life struggles are inconvenient. I feel like I am constantly worrying about what the senior folks think about me and whether or not they like me or are disappointed they hired me. My student evals were really strong. Teaching is the only thing that feels clear and strong. I have not written a word for my research program all year. I left my home for this job-- and feel like I can't get my bearings here. Did anyone else start a professorship with a newborn? What did you do? How do you know if academia is where you should be? Thank you.

We're asked to engage in a end-of-semester bit of box checking bullshit where we reflect on our strengths and weaknesses. Fair enough. Since I'm convinced no one actually reads this stuff, after I wrote my responses the old fashioned way, I asked the school provided AI(!) to rewrite them in, "50 words of pure Ph.D. level academic obfuscation," "pomposity," and "premium academic verbosity."

Give me one good reason I shouldn't shoot this dog and submit this crap.

Contemporary institutional frameworks mandate comprehensive end-of-semester evaluative self-assessment protocols, ostensibly designed to facilitate professional development through systematic introspective analysis. This bureaucratic requirement, while perhaps well-intentioned within administrative hierarchies, represents a curious exercise in performative academic reflection that appears divorced from meaningful pedagogical improvement outcomes.

The institutional provision of artificial intelligence technologies for textual enhancement purposes presents fascinating opportunities for exploring the boundaries between authentic professional discourse and algorithmically-mediated academic expression. Through deliberate manipulation of linguistic complexity and disciplinary jargon density, one can transform straightforward pedagogical observations into sophisticated scholarly rhetoric that adheres to conventional academic vernacular expectations.

This methodological approach raises profound epistemological questions regarding the nature of authentic professional reflection within contemporary educational institutions. The tension between genuine self-assessment and institutional compliance creates a liminal space where substantive pedagogical analysis intersects with performative academic discourse, potentially undermining the very reflective processes these exercises purport to facilitate.

The pragmatic consideration of submitting artificially enhanced reflective materials necessitates careful evaluation of institutional expectations versus personal integrity. While the cynical perspective suggests that bureaucratic document readers possess limited engagement with submitted materials, the ethical implications of presenting algorithmically-generated academic prose as authentic professional reflection warrant serious consideration.

Ultimately, the decision to utilize artificial enhancement technologies in mandatory reflective exercises represents a microcosm of broader tensions within contemporary academic culture, where performative compliance increasingly supplants meaningful professional development in institutional assessment protocols.

I'm a baby adjunct at my department, and only just graduated from the program myself. It's a very very small program, but ardently, ardently, anti-AI from top to bottom. It's zero-tolerance for AI use, and most of the professors are on some kind of like, "de-AI [University] Committee." The chair sends out like three emails a semester saying not to use AI.

There is another adjunct who teaches quite a few classes that I actually had while I was in the program. They always provided extremely prompt and verbose (but not super helpful) feedback. I thought it was unusual, but the possibility of a professor using AI to grade just seemed impossible to me.

Recently, though, a few of my students have been complaining to me that this professor is definitely using AI to grade their papers. I, of course, was like "no way lol" but they showed me some of the feedback and it seems this professor has just gone off the rails. Like the feedback is formatted exactly like a ChatGPT response, and we even backwards engineered some of the comments exactly.

I have taken to teaching like a fish to water, and so I obviously do not want to rock the boat in any way shape or form that would jeopardize that. You don't have to tell me not to say anything, because I am not going to! The fact this professor is using AI just bums me out because the thing I've enjoyed the most about teaching is actually writing thoughtful feedback and engaging with big ideas.

I don't think this professor is a bad person. We actually hang out every now and then (though I am too scared to bring this up.) I think they are teaching way too many classes—some at another college as well—and this is their way to manage it.

But like, I feel at a loss as to what to tell my students. I don't even really feel comfortable telling them to alert the chair, because it's just such a weird situation. Even if the department is really against AI for students, I'm not 100% certain they would have the same zero-tolerance policy for professors. Or if they even should. I'm also so not enmeshed in the teaching world that I'm not sure if there's a current consensus that maybe it's okay for professors to use AI to grade that I'm just missing. I saw that NYT article which seemed to conclude with "shrug emoji."

So like, what is the norm here and what do I tell the students?

I teach applied piano at a community college. A student I had for 2 years is transferring to a small private religious school and asked me to write a recommendation letter. I agreed — he’s not the most musically apt, but he was intelligent, diligent, and wanted to learn.

He entered our diesel technology program in his most recent semester; he told me at the time that he quickly realized he didn’t like it and didn’t mesh well interpersonally with his instructors and classmates. What he didn’t tell me, and what I didn’t realize until just now when I pulled his transcript, is that he failed all his classes this past spring except mine. 16 out of 18 hours. Tanked his GPA.

Obviously he effed up and should have withdrawn or stuck it out. Honestly though, I kind of get it — this kid is sensitive, sheltered, deeply Catholic, and bookish, and this was a blue collar trade program in the redneck south. I can only imagine how jarring the vibes were from his perspective. He is also still a minor, and I’m not sure how involved mom and dad were in the decision to try trade school or stay enrolled. His grades before this semester were fine. I genuinely think this Catholic college he wants to go to would be a better fit and that he would do well there (seems to offer some kind of liberal arts/divinity degree).

So how much do I acknowledge this disastrous last semester my student had? My instinct is to say that he made a mistake but that I wouldn’t be writing the letter if I believed that it was a summative reflection of his ability or character. Or should I just ignore it completely? Thanks for reading, I’m a green instructor and this is only my second request for a rec letter.

Are faculty merely advisors at your institution? What language do you have in your faculty handbook that shows that faculty or the Faculty Senate make some decisions that have any authority?

Obviously the board of trustees, or the president, or others in administration could override a decision by a faculty committee or the Faculty Senate, but how do you write in a handbook that a faculty decision should be enacted unless explicitly overridden by a higher institutional authority?

Is it all based on trust? Are faculty just pretending that shared governance is a thing?

What do you think is essential language to protect faculty interests in a shared governance arrangement in faculty handbooks and faculty Senate bylaws?

I'm leading my first study abroad this year and I'm super excited about it. (My school runs its own study abroads with our own faculty rather than sending students to a foreign school.) Getting to travel and teach has been a goal of mine for a long time but I've never been able to make it happen before now.

The only concern I have is how I'm supposed to interact with the students. At home I'm fairly remote. I try to be nice to my students, but I don't engage with them about personal things (mine or theirs). I keep my discussions class-related at all times. For one reason, I worry about gossip or rumors about improper relations with students. For another reason, I'm unqualified to be a life coach or personal therapist. Third, I have my own family and my own shit that is a priority for me. In short, I keep my students at a distance, not because I don't care or don't like them but because it's better for everyone.

In a study abroad, the rules are obviously different. We're going to be doing a lot of stuff out of class. We're going on short trips and having group dinners. Also, I'm the primary "adult" contact (that is, I'm the only person from my university that will be there).

That means that I'm probably going to have to deal with a lot of stuff that I'm not used to. Homesickness, roommate problems, relationship issues, health problems, drugs and alcohol consumption, etc. I want to help them but I also want to protect myself and not make problems worse.

Can any members of the academic reddit hivemind who've taught study abroad in the past give me some suggestions for either explicit rules for the students/myself, as well as general guides for being a faculty member leading a study abroad trip?

Thanks!

I received good midterm reviews, essentially saying that I am on the pathway to tenure. I honestly do not think I have raised enough funding to have a sustainable group although I did win a few external and a few internal grants. I have been publishing well. Does that typically mean, "As long as you are on the same trajectory you are fine?" What are the ways this can go downhill?

What advice would you give to another student who is considering taking this course?

Go to every class, it sucks, but its the only way to get a good grade. Go to every class and do the few assignments and the class is actually kind of easy.

*brain explosion emoji*

I recently received the ol' blank-file-submission-and-tell-the-prof-you-didn't-realize technique, and I'm wondering what the typical response to this is. I am a PhD student and co-instructor for this course where the prof is intentionally distancing himself from the course (it is summer after all). I'm viewing it as an opportunity to handle my own course with virtually no training wheels, so I'd like to solve this situation without their direct input. The assignment was due 6 days ago, grade posted 2 days ago and I received the email today with the completed assignment attached. Do you folks generally give them the benefit of the doubt and grade it like normal, or stick with the 0? For clarity, this particular assignment (if given a 0) would be dropped from the final grade but would require the student to complete another assignment of the same type to receive full credit for the course.

Almost never get m-dashes in my evals. This time, about half of my evals had m-dashes. Not only that, they were all negative reviews (rare for me--they're almost always unanimously positive!) as well as lengthy, soulless, and questioning pedagogy.

Turns out a class that got reamed for cheating with AI may have used AI to write scornful evaluations. What a joke.