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They also know that I will not dismiss them until I am done with the day's material.

I've had professors that pull that little trick. When there's ten minutes between classes and you have to get from one side of the university to the other, it's a lot of fun. And the students are blamed for being late!

It's even more fun waiting half an hour, regularly, for someone else to get out of class, like I did when my sister and I carpooled last semester... her math professor routinely kept them until 9:45 pm, when the class dismissed at 9.

"I've had professors that pull that little trick. When there's ten minutes between classes and you have to get from one side of the university to the other, it's a lot of fun. And the students are blamed for being late! "

I never hold my classes late. We have the 10 minute break between classes as well. I design my classes to run 5 to 10 minutes shorter than the full time. Class disruptions simply move us closer to the deadline. If we don't make it to the end of the topic, and it's not my fault, I tell them they will have to read the book for the rest. If it is my fault, I carefully finish the topic in the next class.

Giving a quiz at the beginning and the end of each class is a useful technique when students wander in and out. Late arrivals and wandering are to problems that I have not solved. Students who do it receive substantially lower grades, but most don't seem to care.

Our 1st semester grades hit home on January 2nd. I gave out 125 grades last semester. They were online by December 19th, but 6 students still contacted me by email wondering why they got a rotten grade. Every grade they earn is posted online in a special web page throughout the semester. The lazy ones don't even check.

I find that about 25% of the students don't care at all and will flunk out in the first year. Another 25% don't care enough and they won't ever graduate. Of the remaining 50%, about a fifth are good students who care. The others will graduate but I wouldn't hire them to work for me.

My department starts each year with about 90 freshmen. We graduate about 40. Twenty of them excel. The other 20 are nice people who will float around in limbo until they get some motivation for something. I figure it's my job to motivate them all. I'm happy when I graduate twice as many good students as I got when they were freshmen.