In the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard several freelance developers and designers talk about “firing clients.” At first I was confused; didn’t it go the opposite way? Nope, not in a high-demand industry. If a client is too high-maintenance, or unreasonable, or can’t deal with the professional guidelines you’ve established, you just let them go. In some fields, the process is even more selective; PR firms, for example, often make you apply for their services.
This is a mind-blowing contrast to the “student consumer” mentality. In a classroom, educators are generally expected to make sure every single “customer” is taken care of.
I am so over that idea. When an acquaintance was at wit’s end trying to deal with a hostile time-suck of a student (my words, not theirs) and I just kept thinking that what this student needed was a stern, Donald-Trump-style “You’re fired!” I mean, come on, this behavior won’t fly in a workplace; why should a classroom be any different?
There’s a great management book called The No Asshole Rule. Its argument is simple: there are some people who are so problematic, they destroy workplace productivity. They must be gotten rid of. And to return to my favorite teaching-as-management analogy, there are some students who are so ridiculously problematic that you need to…what? Fail them? Fire them? Banish them from the classroom? I’d go for the latter, but I suspect this choice wouldn’t go over well with admin.
It’s interesting to me that a plethora of former educators have started coaching or ed consulting companies, many of which operate on a model suspiciously similar to those in PR/marketing/development. Well, who can blame them? Selectivity is a mark of higher-paid, higher-respect firms, and it’s simply not available in a traditional teaching setting. Or so it seems to me.
What do people think? Have you ever had to fire a student? Is firing students too cruel a rule?
I have definitely had to chew out a few students for being generally disruptive in the classroom. One of my TA’s, though, went so far as to banish a student from discussion section. I wasn’t cool with that, nor was the department chair.
Firing students does seem problematic. Who gets to decide if a student is too difficult? My threshold for difficulty is higher than my TA’s was, perhaps because I have more experience in the classroom and more ways to deal with disruptive students, but it’s lower than my department chair’s, perhaps because he answers directly to the administration. Since college is now an expected part of schooling, it falls to university professors quite often to teach undergrads about professionalization. So I’m willing to give students second and third chances as they figure out how to navigate the real world.
Graduate students are another question entirely…
Okay, let’s say that as with real-world firing, there needs to be due process. You give the student a clear outline of what they need to stop doing and warn them that further problems will result in them being kicked out — but what I’m saying is that “being kicked out” needs to be on the table, and I don’t think it is anymore because of the “customer is always right” mentality.
As for the threshold, I think time-suckage is a fair metric — if you require substantially more time to manage than other students, you’re not respecting my time or theirs, and you’ve gotta go. This is also how many professionals decide whether to keep/fire a client; it’s simply a question of how much time dealing with said client is going to take up, and whether that’s feasible in terms of money earned. I suppose it won’t go over well to equate students with dollar signs, but hey, I think that’s what the universities are doing anyway, so they should accept the ALL the results of the monetization.
Let me step back a second – what would be the point of firing a student? Within the semester, you could just stop answering their emails, set limits to your office hours/outside help, etc. You may get a very bad eval, but would anything else happen? I suppose firing a student could save future profs the trouble, but academia’s not exactly altruistic like that. Granted, I’ve never had to talk to a student more than once about inappropriate behavior in the classroom, so I’ve never had a truly time-suck student to deal with.
My worry is that if and when the student fails they can file a bias complaint. There is always some reason why you didn’t like the student other than the fact that they were a disruptive and destructive force. Make sure you document the path of destruction, or it will become s/he said, you said.
I agree, my concern is that even if you have every justification in the world, current academic culture requires a pretty onerous burden of proof; and even with documentation, the same university that forgives plagiarizing students seems to have a lot of trouble ignoring “bad” evaluations.
As for the point, it simply needs to be stated that certain types of behavior, or even a complete failure to do any work, means you don’t get to participate in the endeavor. A general failure to emphasize this fact is probably why today’s students are so good at understanding rights only rights, and so poor at understanding responsibilities.
Due process is the key. (not to mention paperwork galore) Having a system in place is the only way to avoid asshole bosses firing people for any old reason. A series of warnings must take place so that the person who is fired can’t say she didn’t know what was coming and then file a lawsuit.
The firing of students is uncharted territory and probably makes people quake in their boots at the thought of a lawsuit. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t establish a system. Students are over 18, which means that by that age they should be fully aware of what actions will get them fired and what actions won’t. Even if you can’t technically “fire” a student, you should be able to inform her to her face that she is not ready for college and that, if she really wants a degree, she should come back in a few years.
PS–Thrilled to see the plug for the “No Asshole Rule.” That book is a precious jewel.
PPS–Check out http://notalwaysright.com/ for stories about dumb customers.
Love the link! And I don’t disagree with due process, but I wonder about the paperwork aspect — especially since this isn’t a job, it’s a three-month class. I think the requirements can be less stringent, because making something a hassle is basically going to discourage people from doing it. So I’d favor a pretty basic one recorded warning and you’re out sort of thing. Hell, a prof could just save a copy of the email as far as I’m concerned.
You’ve seen my twitter timeline…This post could have been written for me! Actually, I tried to fire the student (recommend he take a lower-division course that was more suited to his skill level), he went ahead and registered for my class anyway. Then didn’t even bother showing up. We’ll see if he’s there next week.
The student was unprepared, full of excuses, and wouldn’t stop talking in class. Tried to talk to him, then had to try and fire him, which didn’t work. The chair knows about all this, so if it comes back to bite me in the ass, it’ll be covered, so to speak.
Ugh. But good for you, thinking ahead. And that holding the conversation hostage thing…that’s one of my most unfavorite forms of hostility.
I get the concept, and I came very close with one undergraduate (disruptive, etc). I’ve only “fired” students for plagiarism, but that’s in the syllabus: you plagiarize anything, you fail the course. Thanks for playing, try again next semester.
Grad students may be a better fit for this. In fact, I used this very terminology when meeting with my incoming students two days ago. I told them that this was a voluntary relationship on both sides, and that if it wasn’t working out for either of us, we all needed to know that we could walk away with no consequences. I told them that I’d been fired by a student once (and that I was still a third reader on his committee), and that I’d never fired a student, but that we needed to realize that this student-advisor relationship was neither a prison nor a marriage.
Oh, yeah, plagiarism is totally a firable offense. I see what you’re saying about grad students, but in certain arenas (thinking mostly undergraduate here) “fit” becomes the students’ very excuse for their inability to behave.
I once once had a plagiarist insist we “evaluate each other’s perspective”. Um, no, WE don’t do anything, I get to fire you uniliaterally — I guess that’s the main thing for me, if you’re a boss/manager/educator, I think you have the right to make non-mutual decisions. But that’s a pretty old-fashioned view, I gather.
“Examine each others’ perspective” on lying, cheating, and stealing all rolled into one? Sure, go right ahead, junior. But while you’re formulating your thoughts, let me explain a fundamental rule of negotiation to you: each party has to have something the other party wants.
(“Junior” referring to the student, not you — just in case there was an antecedent problem.)
I figured, but thanks for the clarification!
Once (but only after receiving tenure), I asked my Dean about this very concept. Her response was chilly.
One concern I have is that even in the example of unproblematic “firing” — involving plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty — tales are legion of faculty who are not supported by their dept chairs or their deans, even when the syllabus is clear, the evidence is clear, and the correct procedures were followed. How, in practice, does “firing” students not become a privilege that (some) tenured faculty enjoy and that a much larger number of faculty cannot realistically have?
On a rhetorical note: your discussion is framed in terms of Oh My God These Kids Today. But when in the past were college faculty able to “fire” their students? Are you saying that it happened more then, or that it was less necessary then, or…?
I think there was a time when a teacher could throw a student out of a classroom, no questions asked; I also think today’s youth are particularly bad at the social contract. A perfect storm, you might say.
As for tenure etc., power will never be equally distributed in hierarchical situations. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist at all.
I don’t think I suggested that unless we brought enough power to share equally, no one gets to have any — if that’s how it came out, then I didn’t express myself clearly enough. My concern is about whether the people most likely to face fire-worthy students in their courses will also be the ones who get the least institutional support to do much of anything about it.
I’m interested in hearing from some of your, let’s say “more advanced” readers who were faculty during that no-questions-asked time!
Yup, the world is and will continue to be unfair that way, go figure…
All right. I won’t try to out-jade you. I simply meant to amplify one of your comments further up the page: “my concern is that even if you have every justification in the world, current academic culture requires a pretty onerous burden of proof; and even with documentation, the same university that forgives plagiarizing students seems to have a lot of trouble ignoring ‘bad’ evaluations”.
Hmmm. I guess my hope is that my admissions staff would “pre-fire” those students so I won’t have to! One can dream…
Except that admissions generally only sees what’s on paper, and assholes are generally not apparent until you meet them in person. Though I agree, maybe we should just start making interviews mandatory.
Due process is important, and so is an administration/Dean of Students, who understands that teachers have rights, too.
But have you ever had other teachers in a class? I taught a fairly complicated software class once. Three “colleagues” who took it always arrived late, chatted constantly when I was trying to speak, and insisted on about 90% of my time when students were working alone on whatever. I had to “fire” them, and they weren’t very happy or understanding.
And how about our–I’m including myself–behavior at meetings, in committees, in staff development classes, or out on the road at conferences?
Well, that just proves my (and Robert Sutton’s) point: assholes exist everywhere, and by sentimentalizing students (or teachers for that matter) we just make excuses for what should be universal civility. Though I am reminded of an study that observed teachers were also some of the biggest offenders in terms of bullying behavior. Natch.
I may be a cynic, but I believe most people have enough self-control not to act their worst — most of the time. If you’re including yourself in that statement, maybe you should take Sutton’s asshole test?
“If you’re including yourself in that statement, maybe you should take Sutton’s asshole test?”
Jeez, I was just trying to say that I’m not perfect.
Part of your dislike for academia is the way you were treated by your “colleagues,” no? That’s a dislike I share, especially when teachers’ behavior is the mirror image of the student behavior that drives them nuts.
My experience has been that the most unruly, rudest classroom is, lots of times, a clasroom full of teachers.
I get that you’re trying to be inclusive, but there’s big difference between the occasional lapse (who hasn’t snapped at a co-worker?) and using “we” if you’re not one actually one of the assholes you describe. If you’re noticing this stuff, you’re by default doing better than they are so why go for the self-deprecation? Indeed, why not share your observations with the class?
Teaching by example doesn’t work in this arena; IMHO people lacking self-awareness won’t get any until you point things out to them. Hence my love for “What Not To Wear” and its pedagogy.
It would sure be nice if pointing things out to people would change their behavior, but they mostly shrug their shoulders, suck their teeth, or roll their eyes, and that’s that.
I’ve been a union guy at my campus for most of my career, and as time has passed and we’ve gotten bigger and more complicated, I’ve had to spend more and more time during the summer–unpaid time for me when I’m officialy “off duty”–going to meetings, usually about fixing problems that administrators have created themselves. Administrators, are of course, on 12-month contracts.
One of my meeting mantras has been “C’mon folks, I’m the only person in this room who showed up on time, and I’m the only person who’s not getting paid. Something’s wrong with this picture, and I’m hoping you can help me out.”
That seems polite enough–and pointed enough–to light up even the dimmest bulb in the room, but the shoulder shrugging, tooth sucking, and eye rolling responses, together with the predictable “But I had something REALLY important that just came up” is all that ever happens.
So maybe the real lesson here is that assholes will always be assholes, and part of assholishness is not knowing you’re acting like one.
Oh, I know very well what academic narcissism looks like. I wonder what would happen if you said “No, Bob (or Sherry or Sydney or whatever), you did not HAVE something, you CHOOSE to do it rather than arrive on time — and that choice is precisely what makes you a narcissistic, asshole colleague.” (Okay, okay, sans the last phrase.) That is exactly what I would tell my students and it always succeed in forcing some unwelcome self-awareness on them, often accompanied by the typical fury of a narcissist whose self-image has been attacked. Oh, or you could say something “Wow, Bob (or Sherry or Sydney), guess you’re just as special a snowflake as those students you’re always complaining about! Hahahahaha!” Is that passive aggressive? Maybe technically, though I think the deliberate use of tendentious wit should have its own category — and it can often work really well with assholes.
And you really should read the book; or at least he Post Academic summary of it The point being that assholes may always be assholes, but the choice of what to do about them is inevitably going to fall to the non-assholes.
I am astonished that none of you seem realize that K-12 public school teachers never have the opportunity to “fire” students, so some students (and their parents) firmly believe that they have no responsibility to produce, pay attention, behave in class, study, not plagiarize or do anything else you all think they should be able to manage at the college level.
If they can’t manage those things at the college level, they aren’t at the college level.
That being the case, it’s to the benefit of everyone (including the student!) for the student who can’t or won’t produce, pay attention, behave in class, not plagiarize, and so on to take a while off and perhaps gain some non-school experience before trying again, once they’ve developed the capacity for those things.
Sadly, some people never learn; the book is aimed at post-student adults, of course. But that’s why I emphasize the universality of the rule: no asshole students, no asshole co-workers, etc.
I’m astonished that you are making such enormous assumptions — where exactly did anyone say that? And if you’re looking for a “whose life is worse?” contest I’d suggest you take it elsewhere; I agree that parents are producing horrible students at all levels (as I’ve emphasized many times on this blog) — but that’s precisely why we cannot let anti-education types divide and conquer educators by baiting them into fighting with each other.
This concept of being ‘fired’ makes me think of rules that were applied to school children back when punishment eixsted for disobeying the authority of a teacher in the classroom. If the student didn’t behave in class….ie in confirm to what the teacher required in terms of their behaviour…lines, detention etc. Yes, perhaps the students didn’t like having to do lines, etc but the point was that they learned that they had to confirm to the rules laid out by the school and enforced by the teacher. Yes, the idea of getting lines as a punishment wasn’t pleasant but one would learn that the authority of the teacher was paramount in the classroom setting.
Bingo, give the lady a cigar: the whole point of punishment (or firing) is that it’s not fun, but oh no, everything about the classroom experience these days must be fun. Ugh. It’s funny, because I’m pretty anti-authoritarian in a lot of ways, but basic classroom/conversational courtesy is non-negotiable, and to that extent, conformity trumps personal expression.
Yes, the whole concept of punishment (firing) isn’t fun but frankly I don’t get the concept that school isn’t fun. Didn’t we go to school to learn something so that we can perhaps earn a living? (Maybe we didn’t but I didn’t get that message.) The point of school isn’t to have fun (well, it wasn’t when I was there) but to learn. I totally agree with you the point is that basic classroom/conversational courtsey is non-negotiable that in the case of school (at any level) that conformity trumps personal expression. I’m begining to find myself thinking that school uniforms were perhaps a pretty good idea (am I getting old here??).
After seven years of teaching I must say I have learned to establish what I consider to be healthy boundaries between me and their bullshit. Not a zero tolerance policy, but at least an understandingnthat lame behavior and lame excuses are off the table if you want to keep attending class But new situations always arise that test my mettle. I’m just one of those ‘cool profs’ and a nice guy who occasionally gets burned by the omnipresent student con artist, the guy who has a well rehearsed explanation for every one of his fuckups. Anyway I’m split on this. Shades of grey will inevitably arise across the contested terrain of whether or not to be able to fire students. Part of me thinks youre being draconian and part of me thinks you are confronting a problem created by a whole generation of self absorbed narcissistic techno addicted spoiled brats.
Oh, I’ll cop to the draconian, because I think we’ve gone too far in the other direction. Of course I understand that unilateral power begets injustice, but so too does refusing to take a stand, and handing over power to a mob of ignorant and spoiled customers. But I’m old-fashioned that way…
But like I must add that the ‘customer service dialectic’ that marrs higher Ed today is about 180 degrees off course. And then the parents call…..
I tried desperately to fire an undergraduate once. Not only was she exhibiting extremely unpleasant and disruptive behavior in class, she loitered around my office and barged in unannounced to ask odd/uncomfortable/aggressive questions. It got to the point where I told my colleagues and Chair that I was worried for my personal safety. The Student Services people were well aware of her history of aggressive and uncomfortable behavior in respect to others and yet told me that I could not actually bar her from my class. There is a Code of Conduct in the University Handbook but no actual will to follow through on it, lest we alienate a customer.
ARGH.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about: the idea that somehow every student has a right to do whatever they want, just by virtue of paying tuition. It’s particularly disheartening if there was a demonstrable history, because that by all rights should give the college plenty of backing even if their main concern was covering their ass. Seriously, isn’t this (i.e. bending over backwards, being cowardly to confront students with issues) how horrific tragedies happen?
I had to fire a web design client recently. She had a grant so she had the money to fund her project. Her project even had some good goals that I felt good about in contributing towards as the web designer. However, she had some mistaken ideas like thinking the money she had to spend would buy my services to update the website for my lifetime.
When it came time to work on the site, she would not reply to emails or voicemails. I had some urgent questions for her and she completely ignored me. I tried to trudge ahead on the end project without her. Then immediately before the deadline, she tried to throw at me a wallop of contradicting requirements AND told me she’d pay me 1/3 of the agreed upon amount. At that point, I washed my hands of her and kept the website I had started to build since of course she had refused to pay me a dime.
WOW, that’s awful. But this is why I really do think teaching is great preparation for dealing with clients: many of them are just clueless, but some are real problems and after dealing with scads of students, you get to a really good judge of when it’s time for the smackdown. Really too bad when people don’t see how much work goes into building these sites, don’t communicate, then try to stiff you!
In the old days, firing a student was called giving them the smiling screw. I give them a B- or in the worst cases a D-; which amazingly means that the word gets around and they don’t take my classes.
Some of the truly clueless have asked me for letters of reference. I show them the potential letter. I write: “X took XYZ302 and received a B-. A B- is not a C+ but in my estimation the student is not quite above average. The result, as noted above the word gets around and they don’t ask me for letters. I’m know as a difficult cuss to the obdurates who take classes in our department. I don’t care what they say about me. They know that I take care of the good students — getting them into the right graduate departments etc. As a result, the disaffected mostly sit and stew on the sidelines and frankly I don’t give a damn about them.
Sounds like a fine policy to me…only thing is, also sounds like you’d have to have tenure for it to work!
I’m getting in on this thread a bit late but I have something I just have to share. I teach a 170 student intro class, and had a student who I noticed had a tendency to get up a lot to leave class for a minute and, curiously, to use the doors behind me that are not for student use. One morning he walks up to me before class, reeking of booze, full of chatter. Fr some reason i let it slide, thinking he may calm down Sits down next to a cute blonde and continues said chatter. Soon into my lecture he gets up and exits. Via the stage door again. He returns, then leaves. I’m watching him and now the whole audience knows it. The girl says ‘he’s using drugs’. White? I said. Yes she replied. I kicked him out of class upon his return. After class the girl hands me an empty bag wih drug residue on it. I’m pretty certain dude was snorting meth in my class! Then student affairs and campus PD get involved. They give ME a set of guidelines on how to handle the situation. Everying they told me was shrouded in ‘cover your ass’ legalese. They were so fearful of legal retribution they handled him with kid gloves. Despite 170 witnesses of his meth whiffing shenanigans he is still in my class. I was given no say in the matter. Anyway wopro I think I’m just writing to corroborate your point. If this guy can’t be fired who can?
WOW. Well congrats(?), that takes the cake, I’ve never heard of a student a) taking drugs in class and b) NOT getting thrown out for drug use. Again, so glad not to be teaching — at least when I lecture in front of adults, I know alcohol is the only drug I have to worry about.
Yes it was a bit disheartening to see their response. Ironically they warned me about him ahead of time, and by then I was already beginning to catch onto his act. Too bad they don’t let me burn one in front of the class as retribution.