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[Morat20]

If anything, liberal arts portion of my education taught me to produce canned bullshit devoted of intelligent thought.  I wrote all of it myself, being ESL student and all, but noticed early on that least inspired, thoughtless papers produced best grades. I quickly discovered that papers where you regurgitate class notes without providing any meaningful input will produce best marks. Woe if you happen to disagree with professor and/or foolish enough to state it in the paper.

With this in mid, no wonder liberal education degrees are seen as a waste of time by the majority of employers.

Depends on the professor. The problem with college professors is that very few are trained as teachers. This isn't the problem it'd be in, say, K-12 -- because college students are, more or less, fully functioning adults with mostly working brains and are at least theoretically capable of adjusting to crap teaching.

It would help an AWFUL FUCKING LOT, however, if colleges required professors to undertake some serious professional development on things like learning styles, assesment, grading methods, classroom management, that sort of thing. The best college professors seem to work out these basics (or self-study them, or at least know teachers) but too many of them seem to teach via the Severus Snape method of showing up, writing some shit on the board, and expecting the class to fill in the details. Details they don't know, because they're there to learn them.

Fuck, the worst professor I ever had was, undoubtably, a really good programmer. He couldn't fucking teach to save his life, and his constaint refrain on assignments was "I wanted it done the standard way" or "I graded you down because that's not how it's done in the industry.". Well, fuck-wit, I'm wasn't IN the goddamn industry, you never TAUGHT the standard way, and you assigned the worst fucking book in existence. (That wasn't really his fault. Turns out every book on the subject was written by the same moron. I luckily found a previous edition, written by someone else). The man didn't teach the subject. He laid out assignments like a really bad project manager -- the one who expects you to read his mind, rather than telling you what he wants.

[Goumindong]

You realize how specious that reasoning is, right? I honestly hope you do. No evidence somehow means you are correct? Of course that's never going to go to court because the law doesn't want to waste it's time with deciding whether or not you deserved an A. The University will tell you to go fuck yourself and see if you can find a lawyer who would take such a stupid case. They won't because you can't claim a valid injury.

What I was saying is the only time you could talk about grades was in the case of discrimination, which has nothing to do with the syllabus. The injury is clear, and the damages are monetary, not just a grade fix.

1. The courts have granted standing for grade issues which have not been related to racism.

2. Racism would not matter. Standing is based on injury not on whether or not someone else got more than you. If you can have standing on an issue of grades due to racism you can have standing on an issue due to anything else, including a breach of the grading method as outlined in the course.

[Paelos]

1. The courts have granted standing for grade issues which have not been related to racism.

Yep, and they end with the in favor of protecting the professors right to teach how they see fit within the guidelines of University discretion. Most of the US cases involving grading are professors suing the Universities about their grading policies, not students suing over grades. Also, under no circumstances anywhere are syllabi referenced as legal documents.

Here's some cases involving the principles:

"Grades must be given by teachers in the classroom, just as cases are decided in the courtroom . . . teachers therefore must be given broad discretion to give grades. . . ." Settle v. Dickson County School Board, 53 F.3d 152 (6th Cir. 1995).

The freedom of the university professor to assign grades according to his own professional judgment is of substantial importance to that professor. To effectively teach her students, the professor must initially evaluate their relative skills, abilities, and knowledge. The professor must then determine whether students have absorbed the course material; whether a new, more advanced topic should be introduced; or whether a review of the previous material must be undertaken. Thus, the professor's evaluation of her students and assignment of their grades is central to the professor's teaching method.

And so, "[a]lthough the individual professor does not escape the reasonable review of university officials in the assignment of grades, she should remain free to decide, according to her own professional judgment, what grades to assign and what grades not to assign." Parate v. Isibor, 868 F.2d 821 (6th Cir 1986)

[Goumindong]

And if the syllabus contains the rubric for said grading then that is their scale.

What is so hard about this?

In fact, in the case you just cited, the issue is literally that the professor was saying "I am sticking to my already established grading scale which was given to the students" and the court says "yes, you get to do that".

At no time was there a question where the right of the professor to give a grade not on his scale was questioned.

[Chimpy]

It is literally impossible for goumindong not to have the last word on something.

 

[Paelos]

At no time was there a question where the right of the professor to give a grade not on his scale was questioned.

And by that standard, they are at liberty to change their grades at will within the confines of the Unversity Code of Conduct (not any syllabus). Get this through your skull, the syllabus is a GUIDELINE. No court has ever backed it as a legal contract in any grade dispute. They will always back the right of the professor to change grades, policies, and standards as long as they don't discriminate unfairly against students.

At this point I can only assume you are still arguing despite lack of evidence, cases, or any general logic because you literally refuse to back off a losing position. Just type "I love the last word!" in your next post, and I'll let it stand at that.

[Selby]

Good god.  I mean I was mildly annoyed when it happened and we discussed doing something, but we were over it pretty quickly.  I love how the discussion continues on longer than we were annoyed back when it happened all those years ago.

[Khaldun]

If anything, liberal arts portion of my education taught me to produce canned bullshit devoted of intelligent thought.  I wrote all of it myself, being ESL student and all, but noticed early on that least inspired, thoughtless papers produced best grades. I quickly discovered that papers where you regurgitate class notes without providing any meaningful input will produce best marks. Woe if you happen to disagree with professor and/or foolish enough to state it in the paper.

With this in mid, no wonder liberal education degrees are seen as a waste of time by the majority of employers.

Depends on the professor. The problem with college professors is that very few are trained as teachers. This isn't the problem it'd be in, say, K-12 -- because college students are, more or less, fully functioning adults with mostly working brains and are at least theoretically capable of adjusting to crap teaching.

It would help an AWFUL FUCKING LOT, however, if colleges required professors to undertake some serious professional development on things like learning styles, assesment, grading methods, classroom management, that sort of thing. The best college professors seem to work out these basics (or self-study them, or at least know teachers) but too many of them seem to teach via the Severus Snape method of showing up, writing some shit on the board, and expecting the class to fill in the details. Details they don't know, because they're there to learn them.

Fuck, the worst professor I ever had was, undoubtably, a really good programmer. He couldn't fucking teach to save his life, and his constaint refrain on assignments was "I wanted it done the standard way" or "I graded you down because that's not how it's done in the industry.". Well, fuck-wit, I'm wasn't IN the goddamn industry, you never TAUGHT the standard way, and you assigned the worst fucking book in existence. (That wasn't really his fault. Turns out every book on the subject was written by the same moron. I luckily found a previous edition, written by someone else). The man didn't teach the subject. He laid out assignments like a really bad project manager -- the one who expects you to read his mind, rather than telling you what he wants.

He was just training you for life in the industry!

But yes, there are a lot of professors in higher education who can't teach and don't bother to learn. Because in many universities there are zero incentives to do so at best, at worst you're actively discouraged from becoming a competent teacher. Smaller colleges (and community colleges, actually) this is not so much the case: teaching matters.

Nothing will really change at research universities until the paying customers become way more discriminating about teaching, and punish universities that refuse to raise their standard expectations. The problem is that undergraduates often don't realize how bad the teaching is until they're well into their time at a given university, at which point the opportunity costs to switching are too high and the risks from making a stink about particular teachers are also considerable. So you endure, get out and eventually the whole experience is memorable mostly for the few really good teachers you had plus the sex and drugs you indulged in. Graduate students, unless they're naive, don't expect to be taught at all, and so anyone who actually does teach is a pleasant surprise.