EVERY STUDENT has on occasion been frustrated by an apparently unjust decision of an instructor. Last minute changes or sudden announcements don't occur often, but they can turn an easy week into a frantic intellectual thrashing. Decisions to cover less or different material than expected can make a legitimate prerequisite course feel like a waste of time. Strict graders change a stress-free course into a grueling cramfest. Students usually shrug these misfortunes away, conceding that a professor has control over everything that happens in his or her classroom. If this is true now, it reflects a regrettable failure by the students to assert the boundaries of faculty freedom.
I recently witnessed a series of event that doesn't often happen at the University. An introductory economics class struggled through a rocky midterm transition as the course instructor was switched just before the midterm exam. Through circumstances unforeseen by the previous instructor, several class periods had to be cancelled and the midterm examination had been rescheduled several times. The class was in danger of not finishing the material without several additional sessions, and students started to get restless. To correct the issue, the Economics Department decided last Friday to change the instructor for the course.
When asked what brought about the changes, Bruce Reynolds, director of undergraduate programs for the Economics Department, said communication was an important factor. Students took the time to voice their frustrations and concerns, and the department was able to respond swiftly. The Economics Department responded because students made it clear that, no matter the reason, the status quo risked not covering all of the material and that the multiple rescheduling was patently unfair.
The new instructor involved a slight change in the meeting time of the course and some small changes in the grading policy. When asked how these things would be dealt with, Reynolds again encouraged open communication and invited students to voice their concerns and even suggest solutions. Opportunities to change sections or to withdraw from the course have been provided based on student feedback.
If the department had not responded, students may have voiced their dissatisfaction elsewhere -- deans and student newspapers exist for more than signatures and comics. Though the relationship is slightly different, students attend the University as customers. It is not by the good will of the professors that courses are held. Students finance the University through tuition and later as alumni through donations. The University faces a demand it cannot even meet -- it turns away plenty of potential students -- but it is still reasonable for students to demand that the basic expectations of the decision to attend are met.
When a student signs up for a course and remains in that course after the first few meetings, there are a few basic rules to which the University should ensure professors are held. Students should be able to expect that, even if there is a change of instructor, natural disaster, or other such course-altering event, the syllabus is followed reasonably well after the first couple weeks of class. The time of the course should not change, the grading system should not be substantially altered, and other details of the particular section should be respected as much as possible.
Sometimes, though not often, this does not occur. The traditional role of the student is to adapt and essentially just deal with it. But a reasonable solution is for dissatisfied students to voice their opinions to whichever departments, deans, or other faculty members are relevant. Students must demand that their basic expectations are met and have a right to expect those things based on a customer-like relationship with the University. By checking our faculty as our faculty checks us, the University will be a better place for both current and future students.
Jason Shore's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jshore@cavalierdaily.com.
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