Student Conduct Reports

[AbnormalPsych]

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Have any faculty here reported undergrad students for conduct issues (not academic integrity)? Impolite and disrespectful communication, excessive confrontation, arguing, complaining, just being plain mean and insulting.

I have a section in my syllabus about this, and my instituion has policy, but I have never had to enforce or reference it before.

 

[WisNeuro]

Been a while since I taught. While some of those things commonly came up, most of them subsided after talking with the student. Sounds like these things are persistent? Or happened at a pretty severe level? Do you have an example? Maybe not your exact situation,but something similar to help contextualize the issue.

 

[MCParent]

After verbal feedback it would still go to office of student conduct. Uni honor codes usually stipulate things about that kind of behavior, and they can frame feedback as job training since that kind of behavior is going to be bad in a workplace. Plus then it’s documented in case it escalates to harassment or classroom disruption.

 

[AbnormalPsych]

Been a while since I taught. While some of those things commonly came up, most of them subsided after talking with the student. Sounds like these things are persistent? Or happened at a pretty severe level? Do you have an example? Maybe not your exact situation,but something similar to help contextualize the issue.

Yes, verbal and individual feedback has worked quite well in the past. For whatever reason I have some persistent authority rejecting behavior going on right now with a particular individual, in addition to some very high entitlement, wanting very specific accommodations that are unreasonable, not approved, and wanting to be treated unfairly compared to others, claims about my teaching methods, straight up insults. This person is not receptive to feedback. The whole virtual learning thing and covid life stress has increased students acting out the past year or so at my institution, and this whole customer service model of higher education has really given some students the confidence to say things I would have never dreamed of saying to a prof.

I guess the situation is me deciding to be proactive and file paperwork of verbal statements that have been made towards me and my course that are pretty clear violations of student conduct policies and escalate things/CYA, vs. let this subside and hope the student drops the course and goes away. The later seems likely at this point, they are failing and have not been attending. I'm still pretty junior here in my first few years, and although my chair would have my back, it would be drama.

After verbal feedback it would still go to office of student conduct. Uni honor codes usually stipulate things about that kind of behavior, and they can frame feedback as job training since that kind of behavior is going to be bad in a workplace. Plus then it’s documented in case it escalates to harassment or classroom disruption.

Thanks, this is helpful.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Have any faculty here reported undergrad students for conduct issues (not academic integrity)? Impolite and disrespectful communication, excessive confrontation, arguing, complaining, just being plain mean and insulting.

I have a section in my syllabus about this, and my instituion has policy, but I have never had to enforce or reference it before.

I once had a grad student--who was already in the habit of sending me condescending emails about every single typo she found in course materials (which... annoying but has some legitimacy)--send me an extremely condescending email "explaining" that my slide where I mentioned different dialects of English was "wrong" and that I "must have meant 'accents', because English doesn't have a dialects!" (spoiler alert: English totally has dialects). I told her that she may want to consider tone when communicating with her instructors.

 

[borne_before]

You should ask them if they would speak that way to face to face. Tell them this... AND THEN STOP ARGUING OR ENGAGING THEM and do not let them bait you.

"Hi so and so, you have a lot of impolite and disrespectful communication, excessive confrontation, arguing, complaining, just being plain mean and insulting. I have some persistent authority rejecting behavior, in addition to some very high entitlement, wanting very specific accommodations that are unreasonable, not approved, and wanting to be treated unfairly compared to others, claims about my teaching methods, straight up insults. Worse, you're not receptive to feedback. I am done engaging you in this manner and if this problem continues, I will refer you to the dean of students for conduct issues."

 

[PsyDr]

Am I the only one whose professors would "reward" negative behaviors with extra work?

"Oh, thanks for finding the typo! Please review all the other lectures, and write a paragraph about each thing that needs correction!"

"What an interesting question! Let's find out. I've scheduled for you to meet with a linguistics professor who might know. Please review the literature, and summarize the pros and cons of the term dialect as it applies to the English language. Report back what you find, citing the linguistics literature."

 

[foreverbull]

Am I the only one whose professors would "reward" negative behaviors with extra work?

"Oh, thanks for finding the typo! Please review all the other lectures, and write a paragraph about each thing that needs correction!"

"What an interesting question! Let's find out. I've scheduled for you to meet with a linguistics professor who might know. Please review the literature, and summarize the pros and cons of the term dialect as it applies to the English language. Report back what you find, citing the linguistics literature."

Students balk at being told to do anything that isn’t outlined in the syllabus (and some, even things that are). I doubt any administrator at schools I’ve taught at would side with a teacher who gives extra work as a punishment to a student if that policy/assignment wasn’t clearly written in the syllabus prior.

 

[PsyDr]

Students balk at being told to do anything that isn’t outlined in the syllabus (and some, even things that are). I doubt any administrator at schools I’ve taught at would side with a teacher who gives extra work as a punishment to a student if that policy/assignment wasn’t clearly written in the syllabus prior.

Times are definitely changing.

 

[psych.meout]

Times are definitely changing.

Yeah, it's annoying when students are pedantic and inflexible about the syllabus to get out of work, but it's also helpful on the opposite side to reduce abuses from instructors. I've seen some instructors who did not use any rubric or grading instructions and explicitly said that they were grading students differently based on whether they were "good" or "bad." The irony was completely lost on them that grading easier on the "good" students and harder on the "bad" ones was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[foreverbull]

Times are definitely changing.

Yes, definitely. That said, as @psych.meout says, they are helpful for accountability and preventing issues—I’d say on both sides. If students argue something relating to an assignment being late, etc., I can refer them to the syllabus and remind them that we went over the syllabus on day 1. Some folks will still persist, but they usually won’t have any standing if it goes further unless the language is vague somewhere, which I try to avoid.

 

[AbnormalPsych]

The student ended up dropping the course.

Times have definitely changed. Or my perspective from when I was on the other side was quite skewed. There is a lot of bullying, manipulation, complaining, anything to get a higher grade, except do the work. There is also a surprising level of entitlement from a sub-group of students. They definitely seem to feel like they are customers buying grades rather than wanting to learn.

 

[clausewitz2]

The student ended up dropping the course.

Times have definitely changed. Or my perspective from when I was on the other side was quite skewed. There is a lot of bullying, manipulation, complaining, anything to get a higher grade, except do the work. There is also a surprising level of entitlement from a sub-group of students. They definitely seem to feel like they are customers buying grades rather than wanting to learn.

The most brutal (and, to be clear, absolutely warranted) feedback I got on a bit of work when I was an undergraduate was the summative comment on an essay I had turned in. "A series of truish statements linked by appropriate sentential connectives does not constitute an argument." Bonus points for reading this comment for the first time in supervision (i.e., 1-3 students with one faculty member) with the very professor who wrote this sitting about six feet away from me.

I think they actually have you torn apart by wild horses now if you were to write something like that on undergraduate work.

 

[borne_before]

I highly recommend "the coddling of the american mind" regarding insight into modern youth.