Sometimes there’s a fine line between appropriate and inappropriate. And sometimes, there’s a big, fat, neon yellow line that screams DO NOT FREAKING CROSS ME.
I’m gonna say that Edward Feldman crossed the latter line.
Apparently, Feldman, who is the chair of the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, decided that he would ask he students to help him make a very private decision.
The decision in question was how he should grade a student who had recently given birth and was unable to attend a number of classes. Something that he decided needed the input of the entire school’s student body. He sent the survey to the class presidents to forward …
… to the rest of the students.
Here’s a copy of the survey from the Huffington Post:
Dear Colleagues,One of our classmates recently gave birth and will be out of class for an unknown period of time…Below are listed the options that Dr. Feldman has suggested. Please reserve comment on these options and provide us your opinion on them by voting when the time comes. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
a) automatic A final grade
b) automatic B final grade
c) automatic C final grade
d) graded the same as everyone else: best 6 quiz scores out of a possible 7 quiz scores (each quiz only given only once in class with no repeats)
e) just take a % of quiz scores (for example: your classmate takes 4 quizzes, averages 9/10 points = 90% = A)
f) give that student a single final exam at the end of the quarter (however this option is only available to this one student, all others are graded on the best 6 quiz scores and the % that results)Please let us know if you have other thoughts on how to handle this situation and please keep your eye out for the upcoming vote.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Your Presidents
I’m really, extremely confused as to why this was at all necessary. The fact that this student had a child and is out of class is a personal matter to be dealt with in a personal way. Did this professor take into consideration that the student might not have wanted everyone to know her business? Or that she probably didn’t want the student body to decide how she should be graded? Or, that the automatic grade options are just ludicrous in general and there was no reason to send out a survey using them as options?
A university official who preferred to remain anonymous is quoted as having said that “within a professional school that has a very intensive and lock-step curriculum, there are many issues to consider in these circumstances.” That might be true, but that doesn’t mean that the professor should go to the entire third year class of the school and reveal a student’s personal circumstances. It seems unlikely that the school has never dealt with an extended absence before- there has to be some sort of protocol, don’t you think?
Whatever the case, this action was extremely inappropriate, and I hope that Mr. Feldman realizes this.
Not only is this inappropriate but it also violates FERPA. As faculty, we are not allowed to discuss another student’s grade with the student’s parents, their other faculty (except in very specific cases), and certainly not with their classmates.
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To even have students grade each other’s tests or quizzes in class is a violation of FERPA. This questionnaire is so completely illegal that I can’t believe the university’s IRB didn’t come down on everyone involved.
As a professor who was employed by a college of veterinary medicine for 4 years, I’ll share exactly how it should have been handled:
Option A-the student should have taken a semester leave of absence and joined the next class rather than her original one if she actually gave birth on/near her due date. It’s not like this wasn’t predictable.
Option B-if the baby was a preemie, then it’s a medical withdrawal.
This is stupid for several reasons:
1.) it should not be considered different than any other medically-oriented absence
2.) Students should *NEVER* be in the position to determine how the grade of another student is given (unless they were working on a joint project), especially in a professional school (as they are hypercompetitive about class rank)
3.) To do this publicly and leave a paper trail was colossally dumb on Feldman’s part. A hand survey in his own class would have been bad enough, but this was just obscenely stupid. It should have been a dean of students question.
Lastly, I get the privacy thing in theory, but come on. It’s not like pregnancy is a medical secret. That makes it worse, of course, because everyone knows whose grade they are dictating. The privacy thing as it applies to grades is more of the issue because like it or not, pregnancy is one of those medical conditions that is not private.
As the inventor of college, all forms of erudition and general school marmery, I am outraged at the furor caused by the egregiousness of this post.
It is clearly a violation of HERP DERP.
A woman who is 6-7 months pregnant and attending college classes most people will notice she is close to giving birth and more importantly most people will not care. Unless they her class mates have been under a rock I think they could have guess why she was out.
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It is still a bad idea to ask everyone. Pointing it out unjustly gives it more attention then it needs.
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He should have just done what they do for soldiers that suddenly get called for duty. I think they get an I for incomplete.
I don’t think this is a huge invasion of privacy. Like Bobby says, unless she was really good at hiding her pregnancy, everyone knew. It does violate FERPA though (unless there was more than one pregnant women in the class who was out at the same time, then it’s generic).
Like Megan says, the student should have taken responsibility for the birth and withdrawn from the class if she wasn’t able to attend the classes and perform the work. Even if this was unexpected (waaaaaayy early), she should have withdrawn from the class. Since she didn’t, she should be graded on the work that she had already done and that’s it. If that means she fails, then she fails because she was irresponsible.
What if she didn’t want to miss a whole 4 months worth of a semester on a pregnancy? Maybe she was only going to miss 2 weeks (and perhaps only 2 quizzes)? Then this sounds really stupid, eh?
When I’ve had pregnant students in the past, the student and I have always set the parameters. In one case, a student only missed two weeks of the semester and turned in all the work before she left school. In another case, the student ended up on bedrest but she was able to email me assignments. In a third case, the student had the baby earlier than expected so she and I came to the decision an incomplete was appropriate. In each case, the women agreed to the terms and met the expectations.
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This professor sounds like a jackhole who never even attempted to work with the student and then decided to violate FERPA by discussing her grade with the entire student body. Again, how the Internal Review Board didn’t smack this down is beyond me.
A loop hole. He does not say her name. In no place did he directly refer to the student or what class she was in. The class that had her in it probably knows who, but that probably not enough to sink him.
Students should NEVER have the option to determine another student’s grade. Ever. It’s none of their business.
What about profs who have grad students do all the work, Susie College?
There are two scenarios. In scenario A) grad students don’t actually grade the paper, they merely make the comments or on tests they mark the wrong answers but don’t do the math. The professor does this thereby staying within the bounds of FERPA.
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Scenario B is the most common. Grad students are considered faculty and when they are TA’ing for a professor, their dialogue is considered essential under FERPA as both play a part in that student’s grade. Grad students fall under the same rules as full-time and adjunct faculty.
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Also in the university setting, grad students are not considered at all the same as undergraduates. Instead, they fall somewhere inbetween faculty and undergrads, but assume the responsibilities and rules of faculty while not receiving the wages or respect.
Scenario Number A) HERPA DERPA is a bureaucrat inspecting a manhole.
Scenario Number B) I write papers for doughnut holes and professors who smoke weed.
Hahahahahahhhahaha
I’ll disagree slightly. I’ve had group assignments and we’ve been asked to give feedback about how a fellow student contributed to the team effort, and the points given by each member of the group for a certain student were averaged for a part of the overall presentation score that person achieved. I was really happy with it, because it meant that instead of punishing the whole group for someone not doing the work, or one student slacking off and getting a good grade because everyone else took up the slack, the student’s total lack of consideration for team members/ refusal to do any work only affected THAT student’s grade.
I disagree even less slightly than you. Herp Derp.
Right, but did the students see what the others graded them at? Because if they did, that is a violation of FERPA. It shocked me to learn that, too. I do similar things in several of the classes I teach, but the students never see what their peers have graded them at. They receive a comment sheet with the peer feedback, but not the grade.
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In many ways, FERPA is antiquated and obnoxious. But sometimes it has value.
No jeneria, they only saw their final grade, which was partially based on others grading them (but only about a quarter of that grade); they didn’t see how others had graded them.
When students affect the grade of each other through their work, then I think they have reason to have input on each other’s grades.
When students are working on their own assignments, there is no reason for them to be brought in.
Even in those group projects, it makes sense only for it to be included as a part of the work put in, which is not so obvious in group projects (why I always hated group projects). It wouldn’t make sense if it were just a “hey, how do you think the rest of the group should be graded?”
Those that can,do,those who can’t teach.
Glad you got it all figured out.
College professors are over paid, self important camp counselors.
Your camp counselors gave lectures on causal relationships in sociological theory? What camp did YOU go to?!
UCL, bitch look it up. Confirmed my hatred of the English.
Thats whats wrong with me,I don’t base my casual relationships in a functioning sociological theory.
*sigh*
It does not matter how obvious her pregnancy was – it is still glaringly inappropriate to discuss it with her peers, let alone give them a say in her grade.
Jeneria is spot on in her comment on how such things are generally handled. Or, should I say – how *professionals* handle them. This prof is a disgrace.
It isn’t as if this is uncharted territory, there are guidelines already in place.
The man has a graduate degree and can’t figure this out on his own? It’s not because he is stupid. My bet is on spite.
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