It’s a tough time to be involved in higher education. If you’re a student, there’s a good chance you’re weighed down under at least $25,000 in student loans and although there are a couple of options you can pursue if you don’t ever intend to pay the money back (IBR [9] payment plan is one and hoping The White House allows you to discharge [10] your debt in bankruptcy is another), it’s rather disheartening to know that one factor being cited [11] by ratings agencies in downgrading billions in student-loan backed paper is “high unemployment rates among recent graduates.” If you’re a teacher, you’d better hope you’re not part time, because if you’re an adjunct faculty member, statistics indicate there’s a 25% chance [12] you and your family are receiving public assistance just to get by. The outlook may be a bit brighter for tenured faculty, but even those supposedly unassailable positions are now under fire as large state schools like LSU are set to draw up [13] bankruptcy plans that could allow them to fire tenured faculty.
While we don’t know if any of the above factored into the following story, what we do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that Texas A&M Professor Irwin Horwitz was sick and tired of the students in his Strategic Management course and so he did what many a college professor across the country has at one time or another dreamed of doing: he failed the entire class. Here’s an excerpt from the e-mail he sent to his students:
"Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to 'chill out,' 'get out of my space,' 'go back and teach,' [been] called a 'fucking moron' to my face, [had] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students.
None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level…. I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade."
Here’s more from InsideHigherEd [14]:
The same day Horwitz sent a similar email to the senior administrators of the university telling them what he had done, and predicting (correctly) that students would protest and claim he was being unfair. The students are "your problem now," Horwitz wrote.
The university has said that Horwitz's failing grades will not stand.
A spokesman for the university said via email that "all accusations made by the professor about the students' behavior in class are also being investigated and disciplinary action will be taken" against students found to have behaved inappropriately. The spokesman said that one cheating allegation referenced by Horwitz has already been investigated and that a student committee cleared the student of cheating.
However, the spokesman said that the across-the-board F grades, which were based on Horwitz's views of students' academic performance and behavior, will all be re-evaluated. "No student who passes the class academically will be failed. That is the only right thing to do," he said.
In an interview, Horwitz said that the class was his worst in 20 years of college-level teaching. The professor, who is new to Galveston, relocated (to a non-tenure-track position) because his wife holds an academic job in Houston, and they have had to work hard to find jobs in the same area. He stressed that the students' failings were academic as well as behavioral. Most, he said, couldn't do a "break-even analysis" in which students were asked to consider a product and its production costs per unit, and determine the production levels needed to reach a profit.
In most of his career, he said, he has rarely awarded grades of F except for academic dishonesty. He said he has never failed an entire class before, but felt he had no choice after trying to control the class and complaining to administrators at the university.
And for your viewing pleasure:
Horwitz did propose one possible solution: he offered to teach only the good students...
Asked if the decision to fail every one of the 30-plus enrollees was fair to every student, Horwitz said that "a few" students had not engaged in misbehavior, and he said that those students were also the best academic performers. Horwitz said he offered to the university that he would continue to teach just those students, but was told that wasn't possible.
