Lecturer making jokes about student

skooterblue2

rock22 wrote: »

The issue you raise is the appalling behavior of the lecturer.

Your boyfriend should consider making a written complaint to the College . However he will need prove of the comments the lecturer made to the class.

The lecturer should not be in a position of authority is you have honestly reported his behavior.

The world is like this ..... both sides are wrong..... and the situation is fairly screwed up. Its not the end of the world your boyfriend can repeat next year.

If your boyfriend makes a FORMAL complaint, what do you think will happen, in the real word not the ideal world and his friend backs him up ... IN the REAL world?

there will be an enquiry and the lecturer will be told "bold boy" or the lecturers will gang together and say it never happened. Then when your boyfriend comes back to repeat they will hang him, very slowly. They will mark down his papers and things like that. I have seen it done. "come after one come after us all"

I did have some sympathy until I read that the reason for the non-attendance was moving house. MOVING HOUSE. What planet are you on that you think moving house warrants special treatment? I was thinking he must have been coping with a serious illness or bereavement. Good God, get a grip.

During my first year of college I had to move house in the middle of the college year and managed to only miss a single lecture as a result. Going into my final year the house I'd got fell through at the last minute. Frantically spent the first 3 weeks of the college year looking for a place and yet I didn't miss any lecturers. And I wasn't the only one in a similar position during my time in college, yet no one I know missed 3 weeks of lectures because of it.

It simply is not an excuse and in the real world no employer would excuse such an absence because you we're moving house. Seriously op, you and your boyfriend need to cop on and start acting like adults. The only person in the wrong is your boyfriend. While the lecturers comment may have been inappropriate there's no way to know if it was intended to be insulting or just a bit of fun. I had a lecturer who repeatedly made jokes about students but there was never any malice or nastiness to it. Simply it was him having fun and it endeared him to most of his students, so much so that many of us still keep in contact with him.

Matteroffact

I think that it was naive of our b/f OP to think that he didn't have to explain his absence but I also think that the Lecturer was out of order too. He should have asked your b/f on the morning if he had done any work on this subject and did he think he could do a presentation instead of trying to punish him for his non attendance. After all it would not have killed him to let your b/f do the presentation, what difference would it have made to him.

So next step would be to try and do something positive to rectify the situation. Let your b/f ask himself what would be the best outcome in all of this and if it is that he would pass at the end of the day then let him work towards this. If he has to go back to this Lecturer and ask to do the presentation at a later stage why not do this. Your b/f needs to forget about getting even with the Lecturer and concentrate on getting what he needs from this course. He should just do whatever it takes to pass and forget about past mistakes made by him and the Lecturer. I hope this works out for him.

sopretty

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

We had a lad in my course who just showed up to his exams and would pass them, never did course work either. He was a smart lad but so very very lazy. He angered the whole year, the rest of us worked very hard to progress through the course, he seemed to swan by. This went on until 3rd year where the class rep on the student union (me) got the class together to discuss him and put pressure on the college to introduce/enforce minimum attendance levels. That was the last we saw of him. If you are to lazy to attend then you dont deserve a degree, if he had personal problems he should have informed the college, they are in my experience always understanding and helpful as long as its a genuine problem.

Were you jealous that he could pass without attending?

sopretty

I can't remember whether we had to have a minimum attendance record. I certainly don't recall this, and given that I spent most of my time in the pool room, I probably would have been aware that I was at risk of being failed for non-attendance, was such a system in place.
If you're enrolled, and attend your exams, participate in required presentations etc., I see absolutely no reason why you should be eliminated based on poor attendance or not allowed to participate in certain exams or evaluations. If they have it written into a policy for the course, then well........ your boyfriend should have read the fine print!

What is absolutely unacceptable to me though is for a lecturer to discuss, contact a student had with a head of department. Talk about breaching all codes of conduct, all levels of student confidentiality, all levels of being a decent human being. Ridiculous behaviour and should not be tolerated. To me, it's akin to me ringing HR in a place of employment and HR announcing at a team meeting that I had tried ringing them. Completely and utterly inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour on the part of the lecturer.

@ClaireFontaine - most of the lectures I have attended (bar a few lectures with 30 people maybe, and tutorials with about 10 people) had a number in the 3 to 4 hundreds. While I would have liked to have been missed, I sincerely suspect I was not lol.

Butterface

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

We had a lad in my course who just showed up to his exams and would pass them, never did course work either. He was a smart lad but so very very lazy. He angered the whole year, the rest of us worked very hard to progress through the course, he seemed to swan by. This went on until 3rd year where the class rep on the student union (me) got the class together to discuss him and put pressure on the college to introduce/enforce minimum attendance levels. That was the last we saw of him. If you are to lazy to attend then you dont deserve a degree, if he had personal problems he should have informed the college, they are in my experience always understanding and helpful as long as its a genuine problem.

Did this person really anger the whole year, or just you? So what if he missed the entire year, how would that have any effect on you and your classmates? In my ongoing experience of University, there are lectures that are a complete waste of time. Obviously that doesn't go for all subjects/courses, but in the humanities self-directed learning is what helps you do your coursework and pass your exams.. not sitting in a lecture theatre watching the lecturer read off slides! (not saying all of my lecturers do this..)

Some lecturers can be pissy about attendance; I'm sure it reflects badly on them. However, to call out your bf in front of the rest of the course was bad form.

Tokyo

sopretty, Butterface - you've both been around long enough to know to read the forum charter before posting. Constructive and mature posts directed towards the OP's situation are more than welcome. Potshots at comments made by another poster are not, and will result in an infraction in the future.

Regards,
Mike

Butterface

Butterface wrote: »

Did this person really anger the whole year, or just you? So what if he missed the entire year, how would that have any effect on you and your classmates? In my ongoing experience of University, there are lectures that are a complete waste of time. Obviously that doesn't go for all subjects/courses, but in the humanities self-directed learning is what helps you do your coursework and pass your exams.. not sitting in a lecture theatre watching the lecturer read off slides! (not saying all of my lecturers do this..)

Some lecturers can be pissy about attendance; I'm sure it reflects badly on them. However, to call out your bf in front of the rest of the course was bad form.

Can never understand people who get angry that others don't show yet pass. If someone can pass their college course without attending the more power to them. I know that in my bourse one of the lecturers told myself and one other that we didn't have to attend his lecturers as we were both far more advanced than the rest of the class. We would head in the odd time but skipped more than we attended and still got the highest grades in the year.

A number of people complained about it and used the "we're working so hard and they're not even coming in" line. Lecturer told them that if they could turn in work as advanced as ours then they could miss lecturers too. One lad went to the head of the course to complain. Thankfully the head agreed with the lecturer and told those complaining that it was up to the lecturer how he ran his class.

Carlowgirl

Deleted User wrote: »

Can never understand people who get angry that others don't show yet pass. If someone can pass their college course without attending the more power to them. I know that in my bourse one of the lecturers told myself and one other that we didn't have to attend his lecturers as we were both far more advanced than the rest of the class. We would head in the odd time but skipped more than we attended and still got the highest grades in the year.

A number of people complained about it and used the "we're working so hard and they're not even coming in" line. Lecturer told them that if they could turn in work as advanced as ours then they could miss lecturers too. One lad went to the head of the course to complain. Thankfully the head agreed with the lecturer and told those complaining that it was up to the lecturer how he ran his class.

Exactly I couldn't put it better myself... ! it really isn't anyone elses business... if someone doesn't go to college they still have to study and put effort in it shouldn't matter to anyone else if they are in lectures or not..

sopretty

Thanks Mike for the warning. Apologies for the breach.

LegacyUser

RE. Hearsay

Definition "information received from other people which cannot be substantiated; rumour".

I already stated that the classmate who was in the room at the time put this on the record, in writing, with the Head of Department. If they wanted to further substantiate something another classmate has put on the record, all they need to do is call in the rest of the class.

So it's not hearsay, the lecturer said what I said they said.

Many people have compared the attendance issue to jobs/workplace. That's ridiculous. My boyf is well capable of holding down a job. What he wants out of his career is to get paid well for performance - not just for putting in the hours! That is the domain of lower paid work and he is not aiming for that. He even entered an international competition last term to gain industry experience- outside of the classroom stuff.

Anyway thanks to those who have not gone into herdthink and have been independent minded enough to see that the lecturer was way out of order here.

Anyway, the decision is that he won't make a formal complaint for a few reasons, namely, because there's no point in looking backwards- he is going to look for a better course in a different college for next year, and in any case, if he did make a formal complaint, this lecturer would not be assessed by his direct colleagues, and he would be in massive trouble, and my boyf is not as pathetic as this guy is and is not going to go there.
He has already done enough by raising this issue at Head of Dept level and hopefully has given the lecturer and course director enough of a scare that they will treat students better in future.

Taltos

Thanks for the update OP.
As your partner has decided on a course of action I am going to close this thread as it appears you have garnered what you needed.

All the best to you both
Taltos