Posted on 10/03/2022 9:25:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today the NY Times published a surprisingly interesting story about the current state of academia. The focus is one professor at NYU, Maitland Jones, who has long been considered one of the top professors in the field of organic chemistry. Jones taught at Princeton until 2007 and then moved to NYU where he had a year-to-year contract. His textbook on the subject is now in its fifth edition. But this year Jones was fired after a group of about 80 students started a petition claiming his class was too hard.
…last spring, as the campus emerged from pandemic restrictions, 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him.
Students said the high-stakes course — notorious for ending many a dream of medical school — was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores…
“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said…
“We urge you to realize,” the petition said, “that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole.”
NYU was clearly bending over backwards to please the complainers. They even offered to let students retroactively withdraw from the class, meaning low grades would not be on their record. But from Professor Jones’ perspective his teaching hasn’t changed all that much, the students have.
“Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams.
The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”
After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.
Apparently this course has a reputation of being a “weed out” class for students who want to become doctors. A fellow chemistry professor at NYU argued that students who couldn’t pass Jones’ class probably shouldn’t be allowed to become doctors. “Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level, I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients,” he said.
I can’t find a copy of the student petition, just the few excerpts mentioned by the Times. The tone of those excerpts sounds a lot like the sort of woke hyperventilation about student well-being we’ve seen a lot in the past few years. So I wonder whether the rest of the petition had more of that.
In any case, Times’ commenters are once again sounding more rational than NYU and its Gen Z students. Here’s the top comment with over 1,600 upvotes.
One of the students complained that the grades did not reflect the time and effort they put in.
That perspective misses the point. In life you are graded for results rather than effort. The students better understand that pretty soon.
The #2 comment is from a fellow professor who sides with Dr. Jones.
I’m a college professor and echo Dr. Jones’s observations about students having increased difficulties with concentration the past decade or so, beginning with the advent of smartphones and the ubiquity of social media. And although, in my experience, students are doing better mentally this year, they are still struggling in the wake of covid.
From this article, Dr. Jones sounds like a brilliant, deeply dedicated (still teaching at age 84!), if demanding professor. I would, however, amend Marc Walters’ statement to say that the university would “extend a gentle but firm hand to the customers and those who pay the tuition bills.” That’s really what we’re talking about: pleasing customers, getting good reviews, maintaining high U.S. News rankings, etc.
I, for one, hope I don’t receive medical care from a doctor who couldn’t pass a tough undergraduate organic chemistry course.
One more from another professor in a different field.
I taught a language that is difficult for English speakers to learn.
One year, the first test of the second semester came back with scores in an upside-down bell curve. The students either wrote a nearly perfect exam or missed almost everything. Very few were in the middle.
I asked the “A” students each to write an anonymous paragraph about how they had studied for the test. I collected these paragraphs and compiled them into a single handout.
When the class saw the handout, some of the students who had done poorly said things like, “But that’s a lot of work!”
Exactly.
Teaching mostly at small colleges that prided themselves on giving students individual attention, I had generous office hours and offered review sessions before the finals. I put certain aspects of the course on a self-paced basis.
Guess who showed up for the office hours and review sessions. The students who were already doing well. Guess who zoomed through the self-paced part of the course. The students who were already doing well.
Doing poorly in a class should be a reason not to go into certain fields. A student who can’t hack organic chemistry does not belong in medical school. A student who can’t hack calculus shouldn’t go into engineering. These courses should not be simplified for their sake.
Alternatively, we could just make sure that everyone gets a good grade so no one has their feelings hurt. But good luck relying on one of those doctors or engineers.
ping
If it's real purpose was to winnow those who will not make it through med school, that makes sense. Doctor training apparently involves having to remember vast amounts of information.
You think college administrators would care about complaints from white Republicans?
The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”
After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.
I am blaming the vaxxxxxx, students getting multiple vaxxxes, Boosters, messing up their brains
Exactly. Organic chemistry is harder that Chinese algebra for a reason. Follow the science, if you can. If you can't, find a career in human resources or learn to code.
This sends a strong message to business leaders: Don’t hire NYU grads.
“ I am blaming the vaxxxxxx, students getting multiple vaxxxes, Boosters, messing up their brains”
———————————————————————————————————————-——
How far does that go, do you think?
“I killed those 5 people because of the vax.”
“I drove my car into the Burger King because I was vaxxed.”
Where, in your opinion does it begin and more importantly end?
WHOA - that's a man bites dog without even having to going further into the piece.
I taught college as a TA in the 70’s.
I was shocked how many students couldn’t perform long division. Calculators weren’t ubiquitous back then.
And I remember we were doing an “experiment” where you plant peas in kitty litter. A girl came up to me with peas in one hand and the litter in the other. She was asking which ones were the peas.
Orgo and Diff Eq for ChemE.
I once was paid to tutor a young woman in a relatively easy subject like history or sociology. After a number of sessions I realized that she was pedaling as hard as she could but did not have the baseline abstract thinking abilities to comprehend and process the information.
We discussed her interest in hairdressing. A fine concrete skill. And she pursued it.
There are many concrete thinkers who excel in their areas of expertise.
Exactly!!! Not everybody should be a physician, or an engineer, or a scientist, or an accountant, or whatever. Some people just don't have the cognitive ability, intellectual talent, or mental agility to do these things. Lack of ability may "dash some peoples' dreams" ... so be it. If you can't hack it, the sooner you find out the better.
Organic WAS hard. All engineering students had to take it, even we who moved on to EE.
I agree that screens and the internet has diminished the upcoming generation’s abstract processing abilities. Want to have the top kids on their fields these days?
Classically educate them until 18 years without screens using books paper and rote learning and phonics.
Yep, organic chemistry weeds out some dream career paths. That's how it goes - There's still plenty of time to implement Plan B. BTW, organic chemistry is a sophomore level class. No calculus required.
99% plus students are going to experience small or large failures along the way. It takes stubbornness to work through this.
Organic chemistry is not the only so called weed out challenge many STEM majors will face, just the first of a number of them. Most premeds will be biology majors - Massive amount of memorization, big words to spell, akin to learning a new language. One of my ChE classmates took the hard path to medical school. ChE degree sprinkled with a few targeted biology classes.
In my path through ChE and microbiology, I recall only three classes that were intentionally a weed out class to cull out students. The hardest for me was a sophomore level ChE class offered once per year that was a mandatory class before one was even admitted into the the ChE program. Prerequisites were freshman chemistry and algebra. About 60 students started and 20 survived. Many of the survivors of that class were in the group of 17 I graduated with. Not as brutal were sophomore level fluid mechanics (ME) and electrical (EE).
Most of this has been pretty negative and I think it is warranted. I do recognize a flip side to to this that most college students endured during the on line learning that colleges flipped to during the Covid era.
My first semester of college in 1971, I had a required math class that was the wave of the future. It was frustrating, worthless. 10-15 hours a week in the crowded computer lab lined with CRT terminals, keyboards and a textbook at your little patch of workspace. One hour a week in class where the prof went over “homework” you did on the CRT terminal, give a test or quiz then out the door. I passed the blasted thing but got zero out of it. I was so frustrated that I transferred to a different university. Totally wasted semester, only one class (history) was accepted for credit at the new university.
No this trend was in full swing way before the vaxx.
And the next lecture after the enantiomer in the mirror was simple hormonic motion, with degenerate modes.
In the adult world, nobody gives a damn how hard you tried. All they care about....what you get paid for or what you get fired for....is how well you actually do the job. Not how hard you tried to do the job.
You are what your record says you are.
He taught at Princeton 1964-2007.
Organic Chemistry is a tough class, yes. I washed out of it myself. It’s a lot of work for 3 or 4 credit hours - far harder than many other sophomore courses with the same credit hours, yes.
Some people just don’t have the cognitive ability, intellectual talent, or mental agility to do these things.
Or plain stick to it Ness.
Many a bright person cannot bother to carry the ball over the goal line.
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