College Professor Fails the Entire Class

Irwin Horwitz had had enough. His students, he thought, weren't performing well academically and they were being disruptive, rude and dishonest. So he sent the students in his strategic management class an email:

"Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to 'chill out,' 'get out of my space,' 'go back and teach,' [been] called a 'fucking moron' to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students…."

Horwitz said he would fail every single student. "None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level…. I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade."

Source.

I applaud this professor!

Was expecting some philosophy class thing.

they sound like the right calibre of students to be going into management...

ba-dum-tiss

.

Sounds like he lost control of his own classroom. Can't tell if it was because the students were particularly bad or because he's an inept professor. Probably a combo.

The WHOLE class were terrible?

Thank you, sir. That made my day. :-)

Honestly more teachers need to be like this "students" these days are disrespectful, I'm currently enrolled in college and some of the students here I think I'm in high school still

In every college and university I attended, the instructors have no qualms about failing every student if they don't meet the standards. However, I find it hard to believe not a single student managed a grade of C or 2.

I don't know about this situation.

I had a calculus professor who failed 50% of the class by the time we even got to our final exams - it seemed like a ghost town towards the end of the quarter. He was insanely anal about proper notation (not following his strict math notation perfectly resulted being fully docked on a problem) and spoke English in a broken accent (was extremely Asian).

Next quarter, I took the same class with a different teacher and got a B+. I learned a lot and it was actually pretty easy. The idea that a teacher be the mere difference between a pass and fail goes to show some teachers really are just Nazi's.

The spokesman said that one cheating allegation referenced by Horwitz has already been investigated and that a student committee cleared the student of cheating.

Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, this professor sounds like he could be a major douche if he's falsely accusing students of cheating.

According to one article, the professor even mentioned that there were some students who did not cause trouble within the classroom. Apparently though, they got included into the fail-everyone program.

Horwitz said that "a few" students had not engaged in misbehavior, and he said that those students were also the best academic performers. Horwitz said he offered to the university that he would continue to teach just those students, but was told that wasn't possible, so he felt he had no choice but to fail everyone and leave the course.

Horwitz said he believes his academic freedom has been violated in this case, because the university is changing the grades he has assigned.

Seems kind of shitty.

You can't just blanket fail everyone and expect the university to accept the grades

That's nothing! Here in Spain entire classes get failed without being disruptive or cheating!

Dark Souls University yo

I would be rooting for him if this didn't effect the people who weren't misbehaving and had good academic performance.

That's going a bit too far.

Oh, boo-hoo.

Guy needs to grow some balls, and not through an email. I'd fire him, because apparently he can't teach a class or let alone handle one. You have the authority to dismiss a misbehaved student.

@Gaming-Planet: yeah... only some people tend to be agressive especially if it is a group of 30+ adults vs 1

I had the same experience when I first started college and not doing a bit of research. My English teacher pretty much failed more than half the class and gave me a 0 on my midterm for not revising my essay enough when I apparently did. A lot of us dropped that class.

The crazy thing she was feminist that taught woman studies, and her biased towards men really lit up when she would harass the men in class and put them on a spot light. She was also a minority and was biased towards her background, considering herself to be superior than all of us. I am a minority too and wrote about my thoughts on minorities and she gave me an F for misunderstanding.

tl;dr everybody hated her except the very few women that passed.

I live in America so things are different. If you were to even put a hand on a professor that's asking to be sued.

Talks about immature behaviour, sends an e-mail to the whole class rage quitting. 10/10 would laugh again.

@Gaming-Planet: americans are (mostly) really agressive i don't think he can sue 50 people at once for violence

Don't let the rioters get to you. There aren't a ton of cases of professors getting beaten by tons of people.

To be fair, if you're going to be disruptive in class, then don't show up at all. He may have overreacted, they may have been a bunch of entitled little shits.

Edit: Just to be clear: Blanket-failing an entire class is almost guaranteed to be an overreaction.

@MlauTheDaft: Yeah, sometimes being a teacher sucks but I meant that rage quitting is itself immature behaviour as well. If the students are disrupting the class kick them out, don't mail them bitching about it. If they're cheating, fail them, don't mail them bitching about it. If they're having crappy grades fail them, don't...well, I think you see where I'm going with this XD

A case of cheating alone is enough to get the dean involved with expulsion and a failing grade for the students if they are found guilty.

Every instructor/professor have a copy of the syllabus and academic policies available. That instructor should have enforced them from Day 1. If he did, then things wouldn't have snowballed out of control. One instructor of mine have a policy of three unexcused absences resulting in an automatic failing grade and he has the dean to back him up. Sure enough, a couple of students played hooky. They weren't around by midterms. Showing disrespect to the instructor are also grounds for students to see the dean and have their stay on the line.

I don't know why that instructor didn't go to the dean from the beginning.

@jun_aka_pekto: I agree...maybe he's one of those teachers who tries to be cool and liked and ends up being a doormat until he can't turn it around anymore...I had a couple like that. Being strict and being liked are not mutually exclusive...you make it clear that if you give respect you get respect and if they don't cause trouble there might even be room for some fun and games.

When I started teaching I was actually younger than most of my student...we would joke, they would be completely informal towards me, some of them would even fist bump me on the way in, we would all have lunch together and we'd often be chatting about movies and video games after class...but when I was teaching they would shut up and pay attention or they'd be asked to leave. There are just some things you don't compromise on.

Touché :) I suppose quitting is for quitters or something, lol :)

The instructors I've seen here wouldn't go that far. An instructor hanging out with a few students can lead to a perception of favoritism which can mean a meeting with the dean and the university president.

Now, if it's the whole class, it probably would be okay. Most instructors simply keep things professional, meeting only with students in the office for remedial work.

@MlauTheDaft: I'm hanging that over of my front door =P

@jun_aka_pekto: Yeah, I meant with the whole class...I always avoided 1-on-1s with the students if it wasn't class related.

Although I haven't made a dime with my computer engineering degree, it keeps me separated from philosophy majors et.al-academic stigma never washes off it seems.

How is the IT-sector in Gaza?

On my tier list of honesty, I'd put military officials on top and businessmen on the bottom.

I'm not surprised by this at all, business is shady, and many if not the vast majority of people in it seem to be dishonest, selfish people.

That's fine. There was a doctorate instructor who took the class and I to Cracker Barrel for breakfast after she learned she got tenure. Her treat, of course.

Normally, I'd decline if it was just me and not the rest of the class. Not in this case. Excellent breakfast. ;-)

Really? C'mon. You know how prevalent adultery and two-timing is in all branches.

If this professor can't deal students talking bad about him on Facebook then he's probably not suited to be teaching. His response to some students being assholes to him is to fail the whole class? What about those who showed up every day, took notes, and passed the exam? Failing a whole class because you're having a hissy fit seems like a perfect way to get yourself in the unemployment line.

I'll give you two timing....

I'm absolutely A-OK with the concept of failing an entire class. I have big problems with grading on a bell curve (teachers who taught their honors classes on a bell curve were the pits - and there were a lot of them), and accepting the fact that an entire class can fail is just part of accepting that an entire class can pass.

However, he really worded his reasoning poorly, and due to the phrasing he used I'm skeptical that every student earned a failing grade.

It's kind of funny. I had two professors in college who statistically failed 2/3rds of their student of the course of their careers. Those are two of the professors I remember most vividly precisely because their classes were so rewarding (albeit painful).

he admits that not every student earned a failing grade

This post kinda left out the important detail that the university reversed this decision. From the original article:

"The university has said that Horwitz's failing grades will not stand...

However, the spokesman said that the across-the-board F grades, which were based on Horwitz's views of students' academic performance and behavior, will all be re-evaluated. "No student who passes the class academically will be failed. That is the only right thing to do," he said."

-Byshop

Then it's uncalled for.

but OP hates college

Some people make serious money through outsourcing, not my thing though.

Grades are meaningless. And I was a bit too late when I realized this. :(

@Gamerno6666: the stupid thing about school it is about grades and not about learning stuff anymore...

Truth.

@Gamerno6666: ATM i rather cheat as fail, and i want to learn something from the days i can casually learn!

I'm seriously considering not admitting my future children into formal education. I'm not necessarily considering home schooling, but I believe I can devise a balanced system of genuine learning and personal development.