Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/1xcxyzg/comment/19rohztc7anxc/

I have been informed that the cheating student will not be allowed to drop, because it is past the drop date. They will have to live with the F on their record.

I don't know what on earth to do. I'm like shaking. I made a new account. My students say nothing in class, not even a good morning. When I ask them to respond to discussion questions, they do not. The room is silent. Because of this, I struggle to learn their names. It's been draining. Today I received this email from a chosen leader.

We all agree that you treat this class like it is our only class, and we have other things to study for. It is not possible to do all of your work and other professors. We talked about it and we talked to 4th year to see how it was with Dr. (Redacted) and she doesn't do her class this way at all so it really isn't fair that we aren't getting the same education as them. These are the things that will help.

1. Split the class (which is 2 hours) into 16 parts. That's 7.5 mins per person. See each of us for that amount of time so we can get help with the problems/parts of the assignment we don't understand. Most of us are neurodivergent and do not do well with so much of the group stuff that you do and it's honestly way too much group. If we need to we can listen in but that time belongs to that student.

2. Assignment 6 Needs to move to the EARLIEST November 16. Making it November 1 is not fair and you obviously did not speak or cordinate with other teachers. When you said it's not your job to manage our load with other classes...it literally is.

I'm speechless

What does everyone think about taking mental health days?

Not too get too deep into it, but this semester is really running me into the ground. Outside of work, I'm deep into research I absolutely love working on, with more opportunities than I can say yes too. When I'm this stressed and spreading myself too thin I'm also picking fights with my partner and he pointed out, "I'm never like this in summer." (sigh, there's a reason)

I'm dreading going in tomorrow, but in past when I've taken a day I feel guilty instead... so that actually worsens my mental health. And then there's the course calendar that takes even more work to adjust. My students aren't getting my best. I don't want to be there. Thanks for listening to me vent.

I'm only 46, in my 18th year of full time teaching, and just so over it.

Having students submit responses along the lines of... well I wasnt able to do the actual assignment you asked me to do... and instead submit a two-page stream of consciousness on whatever. Failing these fools. I literally gave them class time off to do the assignment.

National science team wants a location to meet. My campus is not widely known outside the general region (we're barely R1). They have two facilities they are desperately trying to get use of. I manage to convince the science team to give us a shot and to use both facilities. The day people are scheduled to meet some low level admin tells the entire organizing group of this meeting they won't be allowed in the building of facility #1 if some form she sent 24 hours before isn't signed, a form that it turns out has to be looked at by lawyers. The manager of facility #2 wants me to design the entire "tour" of the facility, even tho I have little knowledge of the facility, and this manager does these tours regularly. This could bring national attention to our campus and instead everyone affiliated with the process has done their best to do as little work as possible. I've opted to not involve our campus upper admin or our press office, so I'll enjoy the meeting with my colleagues quietly and never try to do anything like this again.

/rant

I genuinely do not know how to handle this situation.

This semester I have been dealing with a plague of hushed whispers the second I turn around. It comes with the territory whatever whatever.

But I have one student in particular who does this every fucking time.

I see him on his phone while he’s supposed to be working.

Me: “Hey man, do you mind puttin that away? Cool, thanks.”

I turn around and he whispers some shit under his breath about me. This time he got a bit bold and just straight up whispered “….fuck you….” He made sure the girl who sits in front of him heard. She laughs.

This past time I snapped, turned back around, and said, “dude, you gotta not talk shit about me the second I start to walk away.”

“I WASNNNTTUHHHHHH” in that iconic Gen-Z way of showing exasperation by trailing off your words into a grunt.

I stared at him for a moment, truly not sure what to do about this. In what fucking universe do behavioral problems need to be on the radar of a university professor? Sir, you’re a grown man.

So, I ask you all, please, what in the hell do you do about these underdeveloped little shits?

Granted they still need your permission to add the class, but my goodness I didn't even know this was a thing and I keep getting request to add my class even though we are already half way in. Maybe I am being too harsh, but also I don't have the bandwidth to help a student catch up multiple weeks worth of work. The answer is no.

TT. Phd. Medical field. I want to leave academia. I don't want to work as a physician.

What is the best website to look for a job in industry or an adm job in an university?

I have been only using LinkedIn so far.

Thank you

Asking for a friend Et al.

You teach a class in which knowing how to do a particular computation is essential.

In a class that is a prerequisite for your class, they teach students how to do this computation.

You remind the students every day in class that the NEED to know how to do this kind of computation.

You assign homework sets (with solutions) in which students practice carrying out this computation.

You do endless examples in class and provide examples in your course notes of how to perform these computations.

And, on the midterm, 90% of your students can't do this kind of computation.

Like, WTF?! What else can I do or say to help these students learn?!

Seriously, the current generation of undergrads is cooked. They have no hope.

Not that I would dream of conspiring with artificial intelligence...

Genuinely curious about the ever-evolving state of play, though. Truly, if it were me, I'd be turned off by obvious slop but I suppose not offended by AI-edited work so long as the proposal was clear and specific.

I was proofreading my journal manuscript which is scheduled to go to print next year a few moments ago. While I was doing it on Google Docs, I kept receiving automated messages from Grammarly: "This sentence feels a bit clunky. Change 'I examine X and Y and argue Z' to 'I examine X and Y, arguing Z."

I shrugged and clicked "Yes" because that's just a simple syntactic change to improve clarity.

But just before I was ready to submit the manuscript to my publisher, I was bombarded again by Grammarly: "This sentence - 'I examine X and Y, arguing Z' - feels 20% AI-generated! Wanna know why? Subscribe to Grammarly Pro NOW and avoid plagiarism!"

I was like WTF, that's bullshit and I know what I'm writing.

Now I seem to understand why students always feel manipulated by tech and tech firms.

Anyone else feeling the same? I feel like there's a difference between using AI editors to help people catch typos and correct obvious grammar mistakes and using AI to manipulate people into paid subscriptions.

I had a student sit in my office this afternoon for forty minutes to contest a grade on a mid-term paper. He earned a C minus. The prose was an absolute trainwreck, contradictory arguments on every page, and the conclusion flatly disagreed with his introduction.

so he pulls up the Canvas rubric on his tablet, taps the screen with his pen, and looks at me like I am the one failing basic math.

"Professor, I don't understand. The rubric says the paper needs to be between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred words. My paper is fourteen hundred and twenty words. The rubric says three peer-reviewed sources. I have three. The rubric says double-spaced APA format. I used APA format."

I took a breath. I tried to explain that hitting mechanical formatting requirements is the bare minimum ticket to enter the arena. I told him his actual ideas were completely disjointed and that his central argument was not COHERENT.

He stared at me blankly and replied: "Okay, but nowhere on the rubric does it say my argument has to be convincing. It just says present a thesis."

He genuinely believed that writing a paper is like assembling an IKEA bookshelf. You screw in bolt A, slide in shelf B, hit the word count, and that automatically entitles you to a ninety-five percent. Its like critical thinking has been entirely replaced by compliance checklists.

How do you teach someone who views thinking as a bureaucratic technicality?

I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor at a regional state university with a heavy focus on teaching and advising. I love my job! Working with undergrad students, and pursuing my own scholarly agenda was the dream coming out of my PhD (and I am incredibly fortunate!)… but today was just one of those days where I am left staring at the wall wondering what is going on.

I have been in higher ed for a while now, but this semester in particular, the level of student apathy feels unprecedentedly high and honestly depressing. Case in point: we had a major exam today across 2 course sections (about 80 students total), and 15% of the class simply did not show up. There was no advance email, no medical excuse, and no follow-up note afterwards. It was just a straight up no-show for a zero on a major assessment.

The same pattern is playing out in academic advising. Our institution requires students to meet with their advisor at least once per term to discuss registration and remove their hold. I send out a self-booking link so students can pick any time that fits their personal schedule. Multiple students go out of their way to pick a slot and then completely blow it off. There is no heads-up, no rebooking, and no apology, just total MIA after choosing the time slot themselves.

Our leadership frequently celebrates recent enrollment growth. However, I worry that pushing for higher headcounts means admitting students who are fundamentally unprepared for the independence and responsibility of higher education. It feels like the system is setting them up for failure, not to mention the financial burden they are taking on just to ghost their own classes.

I know the classic professor-ism is, “You can’t care more than them”, but I am struggling with how to balance empathy with accountability without burning myself out or becoming overly cynical.

Appreciate any advice, solidarity, or sanity checks!

Great student now withdrawn because I think they were offended they got assigned an important but nonspeaking part in a big week long class activity (trial reenactment). He then proceeded to talk anyway and be disruptive, so I had to intervene because he was derailing the activity. (Humanities)

I think i offended him further by saying in office hours (right after that class) that i had assumed he wouldn’t choose one of the paper topics when i sent an email to everyone who chose that topic the day before (this student met with me a day after everyone else). I wanted to get the email out asap to give people more time and didnt want to wait to see what he chose and the likelihood he would choose the prompt that barely anyone was choosing because it was harder seemed low.

This eager front row talker is now a back row computer scroller turning stuff in late and not putting effort in.

Other context: this is a freshman boy who seemed a little too eager to impress me a young female professor. Now he avoids eye contact and doesnt smile and seems annoyed by class.

What do I do? It feels like I did something wrong? Suggestions?

It is my first semester at a new school, and I was hired fairly close to the start of the semester. I basically keep the same weekly schedule that my colleague keeps, that is, in terms of the due dates of assignments/assessments and also what we are discussing in class each period.

This week I have two class meetings to cover material that realistically I can easily complete in one. What should I do?

One option is to try to stretch out the material, but I really feel there would be loads of filler in there.

Another option is to complete the material in the first meeting, and then plan something else for the second meeting. But again, I wonder how to best use that time in a way that doesn't waste the students' time. There may not be anything covered in that second meeting that would be tested on the Final. I could have us do application of the material from the first class, but it would feel wasteful (to me) to have one class that doesn't cover new material.

Third, I've thought of having a "student work" day. We can maybe do 30 minutes of structured work, but then I could have students use that time wisely, like by catching up on missed notes, working on an assignment due this weekend, preparing for a project due in a couple weeks, etc. I just anticipate many students would leave, thinking this was a waste of their time. And it feels "bad" on my part to just have students sitting in there silence, especially since many do not bring a computer and would thus have no way to complete any work.

I am probably overthinking this, but I just want to do something useful during class that doesn't reek of busy work or wasted down time.

Accidentally of course

52 students in attendance by the way. Spirituality and Art for my Gen Ed students…..

“Jesus on the c*ck”

I mean that’s a tough one to live down…

The worst part is I giggled and immediately said “fuck” under my breath and not a single smirk, laugh or snort from my students.

Good thing I’m out of town for the rest of the week.

What if--and this is a big what if--we stopped with the grades and instead at the end of the term issued student evaluations. Kind of like uber reviews where both the driver *and* the passenger get reviews. We evaluate ethics, engagement, effort, as well as knowledge or skill mastery. I am just so over the grade grubbing and the AI outsourcing. Wouldn't employers and grad school much prefer this info to GPA that they know is just AI. Wouldn't work for big classes unless you had TAs, but this system we have just isn't sustainable.

I’m a relatively new college instructor teaching a class of mostly freshmen at 8:30 in the morning. I understand it’s early and students are probably tired, so I really try to be patient and understanding.
I’m pretty laid-back with my students. I don’t randomly call on them, and even when I notice students wearing headphones or not paying attention, I usually let it go. I try to be respectful and create a comfortable classroom environment.

However, lately I’ve been getting frustrated with the lack of participation and communication. Today, I was trying to organize an in-class activity and asked two students a simple question. They just stared at me without responding. I asked again, and when they still didn’t respond, I said something along the lines of, “Why are you not responding?” I wasn’t yelling, but I could tell I sounded irritated.

I feel like I give my students a lot of grace, but sometimes I don’t feel like I receive that same respect back. I don’t want to come across as mean or intimidating, but I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a response when I’m directly speaking to someone.

Now I’m overthinking the interaction and worrying about my student evaluations. I genuinely care about being a good instructor, and I don’t want moments of frustration to affect how students view me.
Does anyone else experience this, especially with freshmen or early morning classes? How do you handle situations where students just stare at you without responding? Am I overthinking how this might affect my evaluations?

I still enforce deadlines, but for the past year, 3/4s of my students have failed for not turning in most of their work on time or at all. It’s not even a performance issue. It’s a not doing anything on time or at all issue. This is not sustainable. Even failing is not enough to motivate them to turn in work on time or at all.

I teach in psychology, and so this situation might be specific to this and related disciplines. But, I was wondering how others might handle the sort of question in the title.

My answer is generally pretty much just nope see the syllabus, but I do always feel the compulsion to tell them this sort of approach is not likely to make for recommendations, among other things.

I suspect though, instead of hearing that as well-meaning advice, it’ll be integrated as chastising them for prioritizing the clearly more difficult subject in their mind. Do others try to socialize or provide advice on this topic, and if so, how’d it go?

Universities are missing an opportunity with data centers that does not come often. They should partner with data center construction firms to take advantage of the situation.

1. universities are among the few kinds of institutions that can house data centers without the popular nimby response. While not every school has a vast campus that can hide the loud fans of a data center, the institutes that do can tuck them away without bothering the public. Many large campuses also have access to substantial power, a second major concern. Closed loop data centers no longer need vast water access for cooling. There are few areas adequately supplied to support data centers and some universities are able to do so.
2. universities are the birthplace of computing and AI, and they still have huge needs for high performance computing. Even if those needs are not at the scale of foundation labs, this actually makes them a good fit for data centers. This makes universities ideal users of unused capacity within data centers, from the perspective of power, cooling, computing and space.
3. Moreover, we have been living with data centers on university campuses for decades. They have always been there, and not only did no one complain, they were celebrated when our colleagues brought in the grants to fund them. Having a bigger one on campus isn’t impossible.
4. They are also users of computing that the public is far more positive about, working on simulating cancer cures and analyzing telescope data and the like, it creates a public relations screen for commercial users sharing the facility, whose AI workloads are more controversial.
5. universities also struggle to fund data centers. They aren’t exactly the dorms and stadiums that wealthy donors want their names on, and while federal agencies will buy the computers that go into them, they won’t buy the building and the plumbing. A partnership with a hyperscaler interested in building exactly these things covers complementing needs.
6. nonprofit entities, university partnerships enable donation and partnership structures that allow potentially favorable tax cost management. If the building and construction are donated with a contract that the university sells capacity to the hyper scaler at cost, this creates tax write off situations where money can be saved as part of a larger hyper scaler construction portfolio. Likewise university staffing is not billing at full commercial rates, so costs are lower than the for-profit alternative.
7. universities, as motivated and consensus driven entities, are able to negotiate against pressure tactics from hyper scalers. They aren’t a fractured public showing up at town halls; they have the legal staff to push back against abuses and mistakes.

As faculty I know we are all members of the public, and I wouldn’t want a data center newr my house any more than any of you would. But universities are also industrial parks when set up the right way - you wouldn’t build the data center next to the dorms, for example - that can be thoughtfully planned with the public and the university community in mind. Also in this day and age many universities are under huge financial pressure. For the institutions with the space, the research profile, the business savvy and the PR talent, a partnership with a hyper scaler could be a mutually beneficial situation.

I realize this argument is likely to make rage with people who intrinsically hate all things data and AI, but I’m just putting this out there to point out that we have something to gain here, in an environment that is so often hard on our institutions.

I’m a part-time adjunct at a large state university, teaching 1–2 classes a semester in my field while holding a full-time senior role in industry. I’m two years in, and grading is wearing me down.

If I graded to the standard I use for entry-level employees, most of my students would fail. A handful each semester turn in great work, so I know the material lands with the students who show up. But the rest of the writing, on exams and even the group project, is rough: uncorrected spelling, obvious AI copy-paste, almost no citation. I'd say about 1/3-1/2 of the class doesn't even attend regularly.

The course isn’t technical, and the structure is simple: 10 open-book weekly quizzes, 5 participation exercises, 3 exams, and a group project. I can’t fail 80% of the class, so I curve, and I still expect pushback.

I’m frustrated and honestly getting discouraged, and I’m overthinking every grade. Is this what you’re seeing too? How do you calibrate your standards, handle AI-generated work, and keep grading from taking over your week?

TT here. Im on top of all my courses and grading, papers have been published, and I’m not behind on anything major. But my to do list is very long. Simultaneously I’m quite tired from non stop long hours since many weeks.

What do you do at your desk if you are just too tired to be productive on a particular day?

I normally just push through but I think if I never take a break I’ll burn out badly which has happened before.

I teach online async history courses. I had come up with methods/strategies to counter, discourage, and penalize AI abuse - primarily by requiring students to quote complete sentences and passages from their sources in support of their claims/arguments. This worked partly most existing AI models defer to copyright laws and can only quote abbreviated sentences even when source documents are uploaded.

However, it seems the latest AI models can now quote complete sentences from sources when PDFs or journal articles are uploaded.

What else can I do? At a lost right now.