Time was when the educational deal in America was this: Students signed up for courses they wanted and accepted the verdict of the professor as to their level of performance. Oh, but times they are a-changing.
In today’s Martin Center article, Walt Gardner of UCLA reflects on the recent flap at New York University, where veteran chemistry professor Maitland Jones was terminated because a number of his students complained that his organic-chemistry course was too hard.
Gardner writes, “When 82 of the professor’s 350 students signed a petition charging that his course was too hard, the deans terminated his contract and allowed students to withdraw from the class retroactively. This highly unusual step ignited an equal and opposite reaction from both the chemistry faculty, who protested the decision, and pro-Jones students.”
College administrators used to pay little attention to student complaints. After all, they are immature and prone to wanting things to be easy. If they won’t adjust to reality, let them go elsewhere. But these days, unhappy students must be succored.
Gardner sees this problem getting worse: “For non-tenured faculty, increasingly including adjuncts, the issue is less about maintaining standards than about retaining their jobs. With student evaluations now posted online, few faculty members want to be the target of rotten tomatoes. They know, with good reason, that their contract renewals depend on favorable comments. Who can blame them? High standards take a back seat to being able to pay the rent. The situation is only going to get worse as more and more adjuncts are hired and pressure to keep their students happy persists.”
Unless this trend can somehow be arrested, Gardner thinks that higher education will be unrecognizable.