Professors outraged by admin. decision

Proud Instructor and supporter of Proud Students

Wed Nov 24 2010 08:34

Students, you ought to be grateful that you were challenged by a scholar! How can you expect to become a scholar, or at least learn to think, if it is easy? This is college, not high school. It is way too easy for you to appeal grades. Realize that it takes 3 hours of studying for every semester hour you are taking. Understand, not per semester! Ask yourself, do I attend college to learn and get my monies worth or do I attend to tailgate and become a mediocre whatever...

Anonymous

Wed Nov 24 2010 06:32

Shame on the administration for not addressing the issues! Shame on the administration for the removal of Professor Homberger. Shame on students for complaining when a subject is challenging and requires intense studying. Go home and cry....

Anonymous

Fri May 7 2010 13:56

LSU should realize it is a university and not a football program.
Already, *outside* the state, LSU graduates are not taken very seriously
(i'm sorry this is true, if you don't believe me try looking for a job after graduation
outside La and see how it goes). I was a prof at LSU till recently and left it to move to
another institution convinced the administration doesn't really care to make things
better at LSU. This is another sign i made the right decision...
Best of luck to the tigers!, keep the pressure not on LesMiles but ont the admin to do
their job... removing a professor that is trying to get students to do their best isn't the
way to go about improving things

N. Fritz

Tue Apr 27 2010 13:16

If LSU really cuts instructors, this is the kind of quality education you can expect from tenured and tenure-track faculty. Their job is to do research and bring money into the University, not get their hands dirty teaching undergraduate students. They are often out of touch with the undergraduate student body and hold them to the graduate student standards with which they are more familiar. Not necessarily a bad thing for education in general, but not what the LSU customers are paying for.

Anonymous

Sat Apr 24 2010 17:27

My dearest Anonymous,

I think that the only people making fools of themselves "on here" are you and your whiny classmates. Perhaps you should follow Kay's example.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

Kay

Sat Apr 24 2010 00:13

I already passed two courses in FRESHMAN biology. You're whining because you can't hack college in general. And I'm the one who's making a fool of myself? Yeah, you may want to rethink that. Clearly some people in your class were passing. Ergo, it is not IMPOSSIBLE to pass. But thank you for making a fool of yourself. It entertains me.

Anonymous

Fri Apr 23 2010 08:52

My Dearest Kay,
Take her class then you can see what we are talking about. Walk in our shoes then you might change your mind.
One size doesn't fit all. So you may, if I may say so... You do not know what you are talking about. Until you take HER class you may not want to make a fool of yourself on here again.....

Anonymous

Fri Apr 23 2010 03:51

God, I love LSU stu(pid)dents and their comments. So it's not the fault of the students OR the professor ... it's administration. Faculty have tenure -- so they are covered in kevlar. Students (in Louisiana) are kings (just ask Uncle Huey) -- so they are covered in kevlar. I know, someone must be to blame, let's blame ADMINISTRATION! How about this ... students should study and not be viewed as "the consumer" to be satisfied; you are here to learn and that should require more effort than just breathing the air on campus. Professors should teach in the best way they can, neither being too soft nor unbearably strong (you're teaching intro biology, not fundamentals of brain surgery); introductory courses should not be where the weeding-out process occurs. And let's try not to be constantly playing a game of musical-blame-chairs. This is a university ... we're not settling armed conflicts here! Chill.

Kay

Fri Apr 23 2010 00:08

Okay, I am getting tired of all this complaining. The tests that she gave as described in these articles as well as by students are not that bad. When I took Chemistry IN HIGH SCHOOL, each question had about 5 or 6 answer choices. Any combination of those answer choices (even none at all) could constitute a correct answer. This was the same class in which we had to fill in a complete periodic table of the elements FROM SCRATCH. That test was graded A or F. No one who took that class with me died from having to work a little harder than they were used to. That was the point. We all just had to work harder. I don't see anything wrong with students being held to a higher standard when they are at a University. If the average student devoted time usually spent complaining to studying, they would be impressed by the results. This is coming completely from someone who was once in the same position that these students are in. When I was an undergraduate student, I had to take the freshman biology sequence WITH LABS, and I was not a biology, chemistry, etc. major. I had to buckle down and study A LOT for both classes and both labs. From the mouths of the biology students at my university, my first biology course was taught by the toughest professor in the whole department. I really had to buckle down and study HARD. And guess what happened, I GOT AN A in that class and an A in the sequel. See what happens when you just suck it up and work hard?!?!?

Anonymous

Thu Apr 22 2010 08:12

We tried to talk to her about the grades and then she hid the m from us on Moodle. She would not let us knoe the class average and then reorganized moodle to hide the class rank and the class average and our own personal average. She was just palin MEAN AND RUDE TO US AS A WHOLE. Why undo what MOODLE is there for??

Anonymous

Sun Apr 18 2010 00:54

When the students in her class tried to talk to her she was rude back to us. She did not want to hear what we had to say. It was her way or the highway. Look up how many dropped her class. Look up the class average... Look up the class test scores... Look at her test questions....Take her class.....Experience her on a power trip…Experience her being a “BULLY” toward her students… Walk in our shoes then you will see what really was going on.... After several attempts to make an appointment to meet with her she was not available. Even called her office to talk to her but she was always “busy” and I was told to call back in 30 min. Before enrolling into this course I did my homework and went to AROUNDU.COM to get past reviews on instructors. Her class history was not impressive. Because I am a freshman and I need this class as a pre requisite and her section was the only one left open which fit my schedule. (Now I know why!!) I really had no choice so I went for it any way. I was on the deans list, graduated from a private school and honor roll status while in high school. I know what it means to be challenged but she was way..... way out in left field.... Read her past reviews on ABOUTU.COM. What the university did was needed and I applauded them for that.....Some professors may look good on paper but can’t relate to the average student. They have all the credentials for the job but lack common sense. Why 10 multiple choice answers to select from. No standardized test goes that far so she was on an ego trip from day one. Why so may “F’s” on daily quizzes. Why try to trick the students every class period you see them. It was a horrible experience. It was just an ego trip and a professor who is out of control on a power trip. A bully in her own special way!!!!.

Anonymous

Fri Apr 16 2010 15:04

Shut up, Kevin, that's why you didn't get into med school.

Anonymous

Thu Apr 15 2010 18:08

Before everyone takes up for the Dom Hom, take her class first and understand why the students are complaining. Took her upper level class and she is crazy. She has such a gigantic ego because she is "world famous" that she will honestly put the smallest, most insignificant thing on a test and make it worth 40 points and this is coming from someone who got an A in her class. And the points really depend on what kind of mood she is in while grading it. Before yall start talking about how it is the students not putting their work in and all people from LSU are looking for an easy A, please please please just sit in one of her classes and take her test. Students from ivy league would be complaining just as much.

Anonymous

Thu Apr 15 2010 11:13

There appears to be a general assumption that the students were somehow at fault here.
Why don't you find out what really happened in the class by asking those students or perhaps asking some of the other faculty members in the Biological Sciences Department (some of the ones that are more rigorous in their marking)

Randy Newman

Thu Apr 15 2010 09:20

We got no-necked oilmen from Texas
And good ol' boys from Tennessee
And colleges men from LSU
Went in dumb - come out dumb too

Anonymous

Thu Apr 15 2010 00:02

I took Biology 1001 and 1002 with Dr. Joni Drost when I was a freshman at LSU. She consistently got horrible reviews, and most students hated her. Not sure if she still teaches the class, but I haven't heard her name in a while, nor did I see her listed as an instructor ever again.

That said, this is the same thing. In my class, Dr. Drost curved crazy amounts on every test because the averages were so low and Basic Sciences said that was not okay. The class had about 150-200 students in it, and I went to class every day. On an average day, there were maybe 25 people in class.

GROW UP, PEOPLE. I made A's on all my biology tests (pre-curve) because I went to class and studied. If you've never read the books, gone to class or made any effort to learn the material, OF COURSE you'll fail. Get over yourselves and realize that this is not a case of an unqualified or poor instructor, it's a case of students not liking the pressure of actually having to work for something.

Anonymous

Wed Apr 14 2010 23:07

Unsurprisingly, it seems we don't have the whole story here so it's hard to make a clear judgement on all of this. In any case, I have serious problems with the way the university handled the situation and that's not the fault of the professor or the students involved. It does appear that there was a problem in this class; perhaps too much was expected of the students to begin with but it also looks like some changes were being made. As someone who teaches classes at LSU, I can tell you it can be incredibly hard to gauge how well your students are going to do, especially on that first test. Afterwards, you make adjustments as you become more familiar with students' strengths and weaknesses. I can also tell you that if no one in the class is doing "A" work, then I'm perfectly happy for no one in the class to get an "A". This has never happened to me and it doesn't sound like it's happened here, but it should be said anyway. In any case, students should really be less concerned about the distribution of the hundred-odd grades in their class and more concerned with the single grade that has any relevance to them, their own. If you feel your grade doesn't reflect the work you've put in, bring it up with the professor, ask them to explain your grade and how you could be doing better, that's a completely reasonable request (and maybe the students in this case did this, I don't know). Honestly, though, grades are sort of a terrible thing - the same grade means different things to everyone, so having grades at all makes very little sense.

Anonymous

Wed Apr 14 2010 18:30

Really? They had to take a multiple choice exam based on Wikipedia articles? And watch movies? Oh the carnage that must've been witnessed in that classroom.

I think the more serious issue here is not whether the teacher's grading was too hard, or whether the students were too whiny, but the fact that the teacher gave grades that she thought the students earned (that's why she's the teacher...), students did not come up to the level expected by the teacher, the students then complained to the administration (probably because they "needed A's"--we've all heard that one), and then the administration promptly, and without due processes, yanked the teacher from the classroom based on the students' accusations--she was not consulted. All of that information is stated in this article, the article in the Advocate, and the two letters available for download from the AAUP. It's sleazy, regardless of who had what percentage before midterms--although I'm not sure why there's a problem--the average was a C after the second exam, which is quite high for such a large class. Clearly the administration doesn't have faith enough that its students can perform well in a class with high standards. The students in that particular biology class, actually all of LSU's students, should be insulted that the administrators think so little of them.

Anonymous

Wed Apr 14 2010 15:38

There are plenty of other classes in which the average on all tests are well below a 'C', why don't they take any action in those cases? For example, ECON 2030 and FIN 3715 consistently have test grade averages below 60%. The only reason nothing happens to those instructors is because they are almost all grad students and they end up curving 20 points at the end of the semester to keep from having an entire classroom fail their class. I am in no way saying that all teachers whose classes have low averages should be fired or restricted from teaching other courses, but the superiors of these instructors/grad students should step in to the situation and asses whether these people should be allowed to continue the rest of the semester without some kind of change.

Proud Student

Wed Apr 14 2010 13:57

I've read a lot of comments expressing distress at Dr. Homberger teaching a class that she was overqualified for. I think we need more comments supporting this mentality. Over qualified professors do make classes too hard. In fact, I propose that all the colleges trade their professors: chemists will teach biology, biologists will teach physics, physicists will teach biology, and historians will teach chemistry (we could keep on substituting for any hard classes with over qualified professors). That way we won't have to have those overqualified professors teaching those hard classes. Imagine how easy organic chemistry will be with historians teaching it; no more over qualified chemists teaching chemistry! Hooray! I mean from what I can tell Dr. Homberger had a PhD in biology and years of experience in research!! Who let her teach a biology class! If the whole world went on this trend then I just might be able to find a job with my bachelors degree in biology. Perhaps I'd be qualified to teach introbiology if med school doesn't work out!