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Student Reports Professor for Urging Him to Turn in Class Assignment on Time

Student Reports Professor for Urging Him to Turn in Class Assignment on Time

“It felt very mean and caught me off guard.”

This is a good reminder that there are plenty of people enrolled in college who are not ready for the experience.

The College Fix reports:

U. of Illinois-Chicago professor reported to school for urging student to turn assignment in on time

In December of last year, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago set up a GroupMe chat room for students of his to ask questions about an upcoming assignment for which students had to write a five to seven page paper about some aspect of technology.

“Can it literally be any technology?” one student asked. “I’m scared I’m gonna pick something everyone’s doing.”

“Uh, I mean, im hoping you’re not starting your final paper right now as it’s due pretty soon,” the professor responded. “It doesn’t matter if you pick something other people pick.”

“Okay. And life gets in the way sometimes,” the student answered.

Eighteen minutes later, the concerned professor responded, citing the late date. “The paper is due tomorrow at midnight. I look forward to reading everyone’s papers!”

“Yes I know. I don’t think I said anything bad,” the student responded. “I was just trying to ask a question.”

The professor then took the conversation offline, messaging the student directly.

“I didn’t want to put this in the group chat, and I don’t really care either way (but others might, which is why I feel like I need to mention it), but the reason I asked is because ‘life gets in the way sometimes’ as a reply to your professor comes off as really defensive.”

“Hi,” the student responded. “I’m in a very hard place in my life as I’ve emailed you about and I felt immediately judged bc of your response to my question. It felt very mean and caught me off guard. I’ve never been mentally able to start my assignments very early due to my anxiety,” the student wrote.

“There was no intent of judgment,” the professor answered.

If the professor thought that was the end of the discussion, he was wrong. Soon, the student filed a complaint against him with the school’s Bias Reporting Tool, which allows campus community members to report one another anonymously for things said in private conversations or within classrooms.

“I asked a question in the forum and was met with a rude and inappropriate response,” the student said in their complaint against the professor. “After this, [the professor] messaged me privately on GroupMe and I felt it was not appropriate and it was intimidating,” the student wrote.

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Comments

I am beside myself at the ridiculousness , is this really what we have come to ? “It felt very mean ?” If this is really where we have arrived we are doomed my generation are the parents of these clueless college students and I can’t believe we have coddled them to become so unaware of what the real world is like we better wake up and stop this infiltration of wokeness or weakness before our whole society is like this

“I’ve never been mentally able to start my assignments very early due to my anxiety”

Anxiety is a real problem. This is not an example of it. This is merely an excuse for laziness. Reporting the professor brings the cry-bully effect to a new level that shows why the “bias reporting tool” was a stupid idea to begin with.

The Friendly Grizzly | August 1, 2021 at 10:35 am

Dear Student:

If you do not turn your assignment in on time, you will receive a failing grade. This is not negotiable. Your alleged anxiety tells me you are not prepared for the rigors of college, or adult life in general.

-signed- Prof T. F. Grizzly

Retired in Chicago | August 1, 2021 at 10:46 am

good luck in your future endeavors🙃

Dear Bias and Diversity Dept.,

I got a failing grade because my horribly biased professor graded me harshly, and not because I waited until the day before my term paper was due to choose a topic and begin researching and writing it.

Please punish my professor for expressing concern and reminding me of the due date. It made me anxious. Also, you must change my grade to an “A” to accommodate my emotional disability. Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Proud UIC Student

I bet one or more of his parental units was treated similarly and thus this attitude was passed on to another generation.

Life is tough. It is tougher if you are stupid has been completely lost on this current generation, my son at least being an exception to this rule. He fully understands the difference between and explanation and an excuse, and how the former doesn’t constitute the latter, ever.

What America needs most right now is people-sized Tupperware. If we had people-sized Tupperware that we could put people like this student in, their anxieties would evaporate. They could be safe and unintimidated for the rest of their lives. Life would no longer get in the way, professors would no longer get in the way, and more importantly, they would no longer get in the way of the rest of us.

    Albigensian in reply to henrybowman. | August 1, 2021 at 7:18 pm

    Tupperware? These students should have their own Wilhelm Reichian Orgone Boxes.

    To restore their energy. Just don’t expect them to build their own, for, they lack the energy to do that.

    alohahola in reply to henrybowman. | August 7, 2021 at 8:10 pm

    Can we do that special lid-lift maneuver on this special Tupperware–you know, to get every last possible bit of air out?

HImmanuelson | August 2, 2021 at 3:22 am

This kid is never going to make it in real life for a whole host of reasons including lack of focus, prioritization issues, and inability to function even when receiving the mildest of criticisms. If I were a hiring manager, I couldn’t even imagine hiring them.

Sounds like they’re not going to do very well on their assignment, either.

    alohahola in reply to HImmanuelson. | August 7, 2021 at 8:22 pm

    This kid is like some of the “kids” that I work with, the ones who WILL make it in real life and get better paying jobs than me because I’m the one who does the work and they’re the ones who do the drama and then get “fired” into a management position.

The very fact that the administration does not publicly call this out and state unequivocally that a student who pulls a stunt like this will not get an accommodation may cast aspersions on graduates of the school. This is not a school that can afford black eyes; do they want employers to ask their graduates about whether they filed complaints like this, or, worse, assume that it goes on enough that grades are meaningless?

This poor little Snowflake will be in for a rude awakening when they enter the work force, or will they? With so many “Woke” companies, they might have Departments set up for these Snowflakes to report bosses who actually expect employees to do good work and get it done on time. This world has lost its way. It’s being taken over by the Snowflakes.

“Rude and inappropriate”?

Here’s something truly rude and inappropriate: “I’ve heard a lot of bullshit excuses for late work in my day but this one takes the biscuit. This is not middle school.

I refer you to our syllabus and the course’s policy on late assignments.”

The U of I has turned hard left–there isn’t any crack pot leftist program they haven’t looked at or adopted. The fact that they would even entertain such a complaint is ridiculous and shows how far they’ve gone. Expect some investigation by the Office of Diversity (which is what they call it, I believe), even though the student clearly hasn’t even started the work, much less comes close to completing it.

As a church leader, I dealt with the son of a church member who was from a significant distance. The member, his mother, told me he has severe anxiety – cannot take public transportation in any form or deal with crowds. My first silent reaction was – how does he expect to attend freshman classes with 150+ students? Then COVID hit, and the college cafeterias shut down. Now he has no access to food, and can’t go shopping because he can’t “deal with crowds.” He wanted us to go shopping for him, and pay for it (because he is a college student). I offered to fly him home. Nope. Bus, train. Nope nope. The only thing he would accept was someone drive him 14 hours – oh, and it has to be someone he knows – not a stranger.

Discussing this with his mother, she sacrificed to get him there, and the college was making accommodations for him, but COVID screwed it all up. She couldn’t come get him (according to her).

I don’t know if we , in the 70’s and 80’s, had anywhere as near the number of people who cannot function in life like this – did the drugs we gave kids to calm them down screw up their ability to cope? Did parents just screw up that badly? Something in the water? But the bottom line is you don’t set up your kid that far from home without a support system, especially if he has that level of issues with basic life.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to bhwms. | August 2, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    .

    I don’t know if we , in the 70’s and 80’s, had anywhere as near the number of people who cannot function in life like this – did the drugs we gave kids to calm them down screw up their ability to cope?

    I wonder about those drugs myself. And, how many of those kids were acting up because they were bored out of their minds? How many were forced onto drugs (at threat of calling Child Kidnapping Services) because ditzy female teachers couldn’t cope with boys being boys.

    .

    Did parents just screw up that badly?

    We are seeing the second generation of kids who were raised on junk food; moms chasing after their kids with hand sanitizer and bottled water; “play dates” rather than “hey, Joe! Let’s go ride our bikes!”; and who were planted in front of flickery-flashy kiddie shows on TV because the parents didn’t want to actually, you know, talk with their kids.

    The latest is to hand the two-year-old a smart-phone with some sort of loud animated something-or-other when at restaurants. The bleeping and blurping amuses the child, annoys the daylights out of the rest of the people in the restaurant, but, thank the Lord, mom and dad don’t actually have to be… parents.

    /Yes. As a matter of fact, I AM in a grouchy mood today.

    PODKen in reply to bhwms. | August 2, 2021 at 6:26 pm

    In most cases … I’d chalk it up to …

    The reduction of legitimate expectations … not suffering the consequences of their own bad decisions … inability to learn from reality … behavior influences of their pier group … lack of self discipline … self absorbed and entitled attitude … etc, etc, etc …

    It’s a damn shame.

nordic_prince | August 2, 2021 at 11:39 am

In a normal world, this report would get put in File 13 after the reviewers had a good private chuckle. However, this is campus life and not the normal world, so TPTB are sure to treat it as an extinction-level event.

Dear McDonalds,

You got a real winner today. I’m pretty sure ze’s anxiety will not allow them to take drive thru orders at the risk of getting them wrong. You may also want to watch out for any other “high pressure” tasks like flipping burgers which could lead to burns or inadequately prepared food. In fact, I’m pretty sure you got another future unemployment scammer.

On another note…

After having dealt with some of these self-identified “anxiety sufferers”, the inability to start early is actually just anxiety over the horror of having done something that won’t be deemed worth their precious time (as judged by them). Basically, if something is done wrong (which is sometimes when people learn best through corrective actions), then they won’t have successfully put in the least amount of effort for the maximum grade reward. That is literally the goal of MANY college students these days….it’s all under the umbrella of “lifehacking” for them.

Life’s hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid.
.

“It felt very mean and caught me off guard.”

Yeah, I had professors like this–their behavior made me think twice about mine and about how I should change in order to be a less whiny student.

It seems to me the real-life answer is less communication. Then there’s less to complain about. Everything was OK except he should have skipped the PM, and just graded according to the syllabus.

Late paper? -20% per day, F, whatever the syllabus says.

Seems to me the student would have less to grab onto there, to complain about. These days, assume the students are looking for a gotcha, and present a smooth, consistent and professional front.

The days of caring about students as people and trying to mold teenagers into men and women are gone. They’ll just take all that the wrong way and punish you for it.