NYU Prof fired because his class was too hard

[Anonymous]

Orgo has ALWAYS been a weed out class--from medical school and from chemistry as a major. When I took it, the average was a C.
I don't know the specifics of this guy but it's hardly new for many people to fail organic chemistry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If smart kids are failing at a high rate you are not doing your job as a professor.

Sorry the free ride for average white makes is over. Welcome to the world the rest of us have to live in. Either do your job or get fired.

Why doesn’t this apply to the students? Their job is to study. It’s not the job of a college professor to pass students who won’t (or can’t) learn the material. “Meeting your students where they are” ends in high school. If you can’t do university level work, you shouldn’t be in a university. Unfortunately it seems “meeting the students where they are” in HS means we have an increasing number of kids who can’t do the work. The answer is not to dumb down the university. Maybe community college can fill the gap, but there are plenty of professions who need workers that don’t have college degrees.

Because if you have a problem with many you are the problem.

It’s organic chem not creative writing. Either your tests make sense or not. His test didn’t make sense and questions were written badly.

There are certain classes like calculus, chem, physics, … you either teach it or you don’t, tests are not subjective. It’s pedestrian to claim these classes are different at different institutions.

He wrote badly worded tests to prove he was hard sand he got caught not going his job, bye Felicia.

We’re you in his class? How do you know this? It was a minority of students who complained, and other students weighed in to defend him. As pp said, the professor taught at Princeton for decades and was “revered.” He literally wrote the textbook and created the modern method of teaching organic chemistry. Do you have evidence that he purposely made his tests confusing after years of teaching at NYU?

DP. He retired from a tenured position at Princeton about 10 years ago and then went to NYU on a year-to-year contract to teach a reduced schedule. And then right around the same time he felt students suddenly changed and just weren’t as bright and weren’t as willing to work hard. It is entirely possible that, in reality, he was slowing down cognitively as he got older, he wasn’t as sharp, and his teaching and test writing weren’t what they used to be. It makes sense since he perceived a shift in students right around the time he seemingly decided he couldn’t carry the load of a tenured professor anymore. I suspect it did not come out of the blue that his contract was non-renewed, and that NYU had been trying to counsel him through it for years because his name still carried prestige.

Students have changed though. All high school and college teachers/professors say that. Students don’t come to class as much and are not able to focus. They don’t have study skills and get overwhelmed easily

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If smart kids are failing at a high rate you are not doing your job as a professor.

Sorry the free ride for average white makes is over. Welcome to the world the rest of us have to live in. Either do your job or get fired.

Why doesn’t this apply to the students? Their job is to study. It’s not the job of a college professor to pass students who won’t (or can’t) learn the material. “Meeting your students where they are” ends in high school. If you can’t do university level work, you shouldn’t be in a university. Unfortunately it seems “meeting the students where they are” in HS means we have an increasing number of kids who can’t do the work. The answer is not to dumb down the university. Maybe community college can fill the gap, but there are plenty of professions who need workers that don’t have college degrees.

Because if you have a problem with many you are the problem.

It’s organic chem not creative writing. Either your tests make sense or not. His test didn’t make sense and questions were written badly.

There are certain classes like calculus, chem, physics, … you either teach it or you don’t, tests are not subjective. It’s pedestrian to claim these classes are different at different institutions.

He wrote badly worded tests to prove he was hard sand he got caught not going his job, bye Felicia.

We’re you in his class? How do you know this? It was a minority of students who complained, and other students weighed in to defend him. As pp said, the professor taught at Princeton for decades and was “revered.” He literally wrote the textbook and created the modern method of teaching organic chemistry. Do you have evidence that he purposely made his tests confusing after years of teaching at NYU?

DP. He retired from a tenured position at Princeton about 10 years ago and then went to NYU on a year-to-year contract to teach a reduced schedule. And then right around the same time he felt students suddenly changed and just weren’t as bright and weren’t as willing to work hard. It is entirely possible that, in reality, he was slowing down cognitively as he got older, he wasn’t as sharp, and his teaching and test writing weren’t what they used to be. It makes sense since he perceived a shift in students right around the time he seemingly decided he couldn’t carry the load of a tenured professor anymore. I suspect it did not come out of the blue that his contract was non-renewed, and that NYU had been trying to counsel him through it for years because his name still carried prestige.

More likely, he went from teaching the best of the best at Princeton to teaching middle of the road, wealthy students at NYU. So he felt the students were decreasing in quality over the years when it was simply a large step down from Princeton students to NYU students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Orgo always struck me as academic hazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not know this specific situation, but I have some experience with academics and IME universities like to have professors with "hard" reputations. Nobody gets fired just because their class is too hard. I suspect there is something else going on here -- either inappropriate behavior or comments on his part, cost cutting by the university, or he was a PITA for the administration to deal with so they took this excuse to be rid of him.

That was my thought too. There is no way this was the only reason.

+1. Tenure is golden. He p* off someone important in the administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not know this specific situation, but I have some experience with academics and IME universities like to have professors with "hard" reputations. Nobody gets fired just because their class is too hard. I suspect there is something else going on here -- either inappropriate behavior or comments on his part, cost cutting by the university, or he was a PITA for the administration to deal with so they took this excuse to be rid of him.

That was my thought too. There is no way this was the only reason.

+1. Tenure is golden. He p* off someone important in the administration.

He wasn’t tenured, he was on a year to year contract and he was 85! It would be shocking if he wasn’t abrasive and condescending by that point.

[Anonymous]

This isn't surprising at all to me as a STEM HS teacher. We always have students who lack the prereq skills, don't do what they're supposed to do, take classes that are simply too hard for them and then make demands along the lines of "what extra credit do you offer because I need to get my grade to at least a ____". The blank is usually an A or a B, and the student is usually scoring two grades below that.

Or they'll come to you and say "I don't understand what you're teaching/you're going too fast/if you taught it differently I would understand so can you change what you're doing/no one else understands what you're teaching" because they've talked to two similarly situated friends who are failing and have no idea that the class average is a C.

On top of which, our district has open enrollment and there's always a fraction of students who were told to take a lower-level class who disregard teacher recs and select classes they can't handle, and then gripe about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn't surprising at all to me as a STEM HS teacher. We always have students who lack the prereq skills, don't do what they're supposed to do, take classes that are simply too hard for them and then make demands along the lines of "what extra credit do you offer because I need to get my grade to at least a ____". The blank is usually an A or a B, and the student is usually scoring two grades below that.

Or they'll come to you and say "I don't understand what you're teaching/you're going too fast/if you taught it differently I would understand so can you change what you're doing/no one else understands what you're teaching" because they've talked to two similarly situated friends who are failing and have no idea that the class average is a C.

On top of which, our district has open enrollment and there's always a fraction of students who were told to take a lower-level class who disregard teacher recs and select classes they can't handle, and then gripe about them.

So true! Sad, but true.

[Anonymous]

As someone with a PhD who has taught at major universities, I thought this story had something in it for everyone's grievances - whiny entitled Gen Z kids, snowplow parents, learning loss during Covid, college admissions with TO, universities designed for 'customer service' instead of learning, contingent faculty (he was on contract, e.g., adjunct.)

But for my money the fact that he's 84yo says it all. Even geniuses need to retire. Btw the end of mandatory retirement for professors is destroying academia. No one with tenure ever leaves. 50 years ago, 80% of faculty were tenure or tenure track. Today only 25% are. That means 3/4 of professors in the US have zero job security and really lousy pay and minimal or no benefits at all. And meanwhile tuition is stratospheric. Broken system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Orgo has ALWAYS been a weed out class--from medical school and from chemistry as a major. When I took it, the average was a C.
I don't know the specifics of this guy but it's hardly new for many people to fail organic chemistry.

A “C” is, by definition, average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The inmates are running the asylum.

This. We’re in a race to the bottom. Shame on the administration.

+1 where is due process? Why not give the Professor a warning or probation period?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If smart kids are failing at a high rate you are not doing your job as a professor.

Sorry the free ride for average white makes is over. Welcome to the world the rest of us have to live in. Either do your job or get fired.

Why doesn’t this apply to the students? Their job is to study. It’s not the job of a college professor to pass students who won’t (or can’t) learn the material. “Meeting your students where they are” ends in high school. If you can’t do university level work, you shouldn’t be in a university. Unfortunately it seems “meeting the students where they are” in HS means we have an increasing number of kids who can’t do the work. The answer is not to dumb down the university. Maybe community college can fill the gap, but there are plenty of professions who need workers that don’t have college degrees.

Because if you have a problem with many you are the problem.

It’s organic chem not creative writing. Either your tests make sense or not. His test didn’t make sense and questions were written badly.

There are certain classes like calculus, chem, physics, … you either teach it or you don’t, tests are not subjective. It’s pedestrian to claim these classes are different at different institutions.

He wrote badly worded tests to prove he was hard sand he got caught not going his job, bye Felicia.

We’re you in his class? How do you know this? It was a minority of students who complained, and other students weighed in to defend him. As pp said, the professor taught at Princeton for decades and was “revered.” He literally wrote the textbook and created the modern method of teaching organic chemistry. Do you have evidence that he purposely made his tests confusing after years of teaching at NYU?

DP. He retired from a tenured position at Princeton about 10 years ago and then went to NYU on a year-to-year contract to teach a reduced schedule. And then right around the same time he felt students suddenly changed and just weren’t as bright and weren’t as willing to work hard. It is entirely possible that, in reality, he was slowing down cognitively as he got older, he wasn’t as sharp, and his teaching and test writing weren’t what they used to be. It makes sense since he perceived a shift in students right around the time he seemingly decided he couldn’t carry the load of a tenured professor anymore. I suspect it did not come out of the blue that his contract was non-renewed, and that NYU had been trying to counsel him through it for years because his name still carried prestige.

Students have changed though. All high school and college teachers/professors say that. Students don’t come to class as much and are not able to focus. They don’t have study skills and get overwhelmed easily

students have become snowflakes. The universities have created ‘coloring rooms’ for these 20 year olds to go sit and color in books. There is little resiliency. They have become entitled and feel like if they complain loud enough, they will get their way. The university should be ashamed. They handled this poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's a reason for "weed-out" classes in college for premeds. If these students cannot handle the rigor and stress of a difficult class, how will they handle medical school? Frankly, I wouldn't want them in the position of making life and death decisions.

Is there any actual proof of this regarding this specific class? Or is it just "it's always been done this way thinking"?

It's something that is impossible to prove. Whether its orgo, or some other class, there have always been classes where a premed student just doesn't do well on. One may argue that orgo is not directly useful in medical school, but the fact remains that many medical school classes are difficult and these premed classes show which students know how to learn a difficult topic and which don't.

Yet you can take org Chem at a community college and transfer the credit.

Right but med schools notice that! These kids want credit on their med school applications for an nyu orgo class (which certainly gives them a boost over an applicant with a cc orgo class) but they don’t want it to be too hard.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lines in the petition was that grades didn’t reflect effort and time put in. Welcome to the rest of your life, dummies!

Ha! Sorry snowflake, no standards based learning and multiple “retests” and “retakes” like our public high school.

I have no problem with retakes and retests in high school. The purpose is to have them learn the material, is it not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of it may be aging. Some of it maybe students not working hard enough. None of us has inside knowledge on why the administration ultimately made this decision, so we are largely projecting our own stuff onto it.

Recognizing all of that, I will put out there that I think some educators are too quick to wash their hands of learning loss. If part of what’s going on is that students did not fully learn the foundational material they needed for orgo before taking the class because of pandemic-related learning gaps, where should that be made up? The students are in the worst position of anyone to recognize the gaps and address them in advance because they don’t have the foundation to recognize what they are missing. If substantial portions of the class are coming in with those foundational gaps, is the right answer to just keep doing what you’ve always done and let them fail? Sure, if all you care about it having your class be a weed out event for prospective med school students. But if you care about students actually learning orgo, you have to meet them where they are and take responsibility for filling in gaps when you discover them so your students have an opportunity to succeed. My sense reading the article is that this professor may have been more the former than the latter.

If he had dumbed it down they would have been griping because they didn’t do well on the mcat. (Which, by the way, most of the petitioners won’t anyway.)

+1 they still won’t do well on the McAt and they will still be blaming the prof. They will refuse to take any blame. Yet, so many don’t know how to take notes, study and memorize, and really do the reading. Snowflakes, crumbling, melting away…