He’s busy…so talk to the hand!
Professor Rob Coleman: The Ohio State University – Chemistry
He’s busy…so talk to the hand!
Professor Rob Coleman: The Ohio State University – Chemistry
He’s busy…so talk to the hand!
Professors Strike Back on mtvU – As Seen on Rate My Professors
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Now it's their turn...
Professor Rob Coleman: The Ohio State University – Chemistry
He’s busy…so talk to the hand!
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September 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
So don’t be a professor if you can’t not help your sudents with the hardest subject in the world “chemistry”. If you can’t help, then who the **** needs you??
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
“THE” Ohio State University?
Is that near THE Ohio community college?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 am
Lol the analogy was great
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
No one cares how busy you are. Students work just as hard to keep their grades up and do well in life. One of the best lessons most people learn in college is time management. Guess you must have missed that lesson because you were too busy burying your head in chemistry textbooks. It’s really too bad you can’t commit your time to your own students. It’s clear that your priorities are not designed for you be a professor–so stop teaching.
Also keep in mind that partial credit on a college exam taken after a few weeks of studying is absolutely nothing like doing surgery after a decade of school and rotations.
I’m a student at a different college, almost 500 miles away but one of my biggest pet peeves is when people (not only professors) decide to take up an activity (such as teaching) they know they will NOT have time for. Fix that.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
hey sammy i think you should also remember that profs at paid to research, not teach, therefore you are techinically not the priority. be thankfull for the ones u get who have time for u and who are nice to you but dont btch when u dont bc they are doing you a fovor really. thats simply a misconception that ppl dont realize. and he has a legitimate excuse for not having time always. and his doctor analogy is funny and true too. and sammy dont tell me that ppl havent told you that univ. is the real world and ur not gonna get spoon-fed andymore like in highschool. so dont whine like if theres something unfair, unexpected or missing bc there isnt.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Professor Coleman,
Listen, when it comes to being a professor who have to be more like a nurturer. I am sure most of your students will agree with that. If you many people are complaining about you then chances are they feel ignored. Talk to them but please learn to be ’sympathetic.’ If you cannot be empathetic and caring then you don’t have to be a professor. Whatever you teach these kids now will help them for many years. Whatever you put in their minds, they will remember when they will be faced with difficult situations and projects. So keep in mind that if you cannot commit 100% then you are not only cheating your students, but yourself. You do seem like a very ethical person, but please loosen up. I know that students play games, but not all of them and your sincerity (that if you want to be) and your ‘passion’ (if you have any left) will get your the respect and satisfaction that you want. Because you do want it, otherwise you would not had posted three videos of yourself on ratemyprofessor. Please do look into the reviews of professors who ’standout’ in diff colleges in diff. parts of the country, now that is what I call true passion! Good luck!
September 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Wow, some of these postings are elementary. People, you are in college now…act like it! Become resourceful. If the professor is too busy outside of class and cannot see you during normal office hours, find some other way to pass the class. This is part of a life lesson called growing up and taking responsibility for one’s self. I agree completely with Professor Coleman’s analogy even though I believe it is on the extreme side to prove his point. Professors at universities are not being paid to sit around and be your personal mentors. If that’s what you need, go find someone that’s already taken the course and ask for help! Stop whining that Professor Coleman has no time outside of class to teach you what he’s already taught you in class.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I don’t even go to your University but I think that comparing surgery with an exam is just bogus. They are two totally different things. What the heck are you trying to say? Your going to sue me if I don’t get the answer right on the first try??? At least there trying man! Instead of telling your students, “I’m sorry. You can’t have partial credit” You can instead take advantage of the situation and give your students some confidence by saying something like, “O.k. I don’t like to give partial credit because I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about what it takes to succeed in life. But from what I can see, you tried your best. So I’m going to make the exception for you this time on the condition that you give me 110% on our next exam. Deal?”. You can’t throw a feather less bird off of a mountain and scream for it to fly. Learning to “fly”, Just like learning anything else for that matter, requires time and practice. Saying that your busy all the time is just plain wrong. ( “The bird never saw it coming” said the ground)
September 6th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
**** you you son of a ***** *** hoe
September 6th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Do you like cheese?
September 7th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I pay a lot of money to go to college. If I give 100% in class and out, the prof. better give 110% that is their JOB. If you can’t teach, then quit period. Just like if I don’t study I fail.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
At at a research university, it is a professor’s main job to do research and publish. If he does not, he will not get tenure. Undergraduate students are not a professor’s main priority. If you want better teaching, go to a community college or a small liberal arts college. Go and do research at a research university.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
The point is as someone mentioned before. professors do NOT get paid to teach but to publish/do research. Teaching for them is an incidental cross they have to bear. You are an annoyance. The lecture time you steal from their lives every day is all you get and they are usually annoyed that they have to do even this. So buck up, work hard and enjoy the few professors you do get that show any inkling that they care about teaching.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
We should all keep in mind that professors have many responsibilties outside the classroom: research, presenting papers, serving on various committees, etc. Therefore, do not expect professors to be in their offices frequently. On the other hand, professors should keep their posted office hours, and during those hours, they should be willing to help students.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
And they’re called professors because…?
September 11th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’ve never heard such pitiful whining in all my life. “Be nice, professor!” “Give me credit for being wrong!” “You need to be available when I need you!” “Boost my self-esteem!” “I’m paying big bucks for tuition, so I own you!”
You are all completely pathetic. You pay “big bucks” for the CHANCE to EARN a college degree! It is not guaranteed! Nobody owes you a damn thing. You pay your money, you work your *** off, you prove you’ve learned the material, you get good grades, you get a degree. Nothing more–and nothing less!
Seems like too many of you expect to be spoon-fed your education–oh, and have your egos stroked besides. Some of you seem to think it’s not only a chemistry professor’s job to teach you chemistry, he needs to pat your little heads and tell you it’s okay you flunked your tests and then give you credit anyway because golly gee, you TRIED. Here’s a clue: Expecting a teacher to kiss your boo-boos and make it all better should have ended in nursery school. Or is it too hard to remember that you’re all ADULTS now?
I pity the world you inflict yourselves on when you graduate. You people will never be able to function in a cutthroat job market and struggling economy. But I’m certain you’ll find someone on which to blame your complete inability to function, just as you blame Professor Coleman for not babying you in his cl***es and pampering your oh-so-easily-bruised feelings.
Professor Coleman, I do not know you and I will never take one of your cl***es. But if this is the caliber of student that you are struggling to teach, then by god, you have my utmost sympathy.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Sue, you make several excellent points. However, there are a good number of professors who stoop to the level of engaging in emotional competition with their adolescent students. There are many others who go out of their way to indoctrinate students (esp. poly-sci proffs), and who won’t hesitate to fail any student who disagrees.
Don’t oversimplify the situation by assuming that all of the students on these boards are in the wrong, and all of the proffs, in the right.
I’ve had a lot of great professors whose passion for teaching inspired my desire to learn and excel. I will ALWAYS be thankful for those individuals. Unfortunately, there were also those who went out of their way to be ****** simply because I dared to offer a differing viewpoint on a given topic. Their intolerance for contrasting worldviews only proved to me what intellectual phonies those few proffs were.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:02 am
September 12th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Wow, are some of you off-base!
I said don’t ask stupid questions like “when is the final,” when it is on WebCT, the syllabus, and when I’ve announced it in class 25 times. I didn’t say don’t ask questions about chemistry. Pay attention.
And to Joe Daddy Mac (nice name, it’s cute) who doesn’t like my analogy between asking for partial credit for a MOSTLY WRONG ANSWER and surgery, ***? How do you think your boss is going to treat you in the real world? Are you going to get partial credit because you fused the cervical and not the thoracic vertebrae? Get a clue. At some point, you will have to live in the real world, and in the real world, partial credit doesn’t exist. Partial credit is for mostly correct answers, not mostly incorrect answers.
Did any of you bother to read my student comments? Go look at them, and then tell me why I’m a lousy teacher. Ask the Arts and Sciences Student Council why I’ve been selected for their teaching award about six times in 12 years.
Why do you think you will get better teaching at a community college? You will get ****py, watered-down teaching. Try taking the first semester of organic chem at a community and then switching into my class. You would flunk. Take my class, and you will learn the subject, state-of-the-art organic chemistry. A community college prof has probably never been in the lab and done real research. They probably got their degree from some second-rate university. That’s the whole point of a research university: teaching the subject as it is practiced, not just what it says in some book.
Saira, read the comments from my students before you make stupid, uninformed comments.
Rob, the cheated SMUMN student, because they spent 5-6 years in grad school working 80-90 hours/week, another two years as a postdoc doing research, taking a faculty position, teaching and doing research and getting grants to get tenure, then ramping up their research to get promoted to full professor. You don’t even get your first job until you’re 30+ years old, and then you get paid ****.
John Smith, you are wrong. Teaching is part of the whole package. If you don’t do a good job teaching, it reduces your chance of getting tenure. It is considered in your raise every year to the tune of about 25%.
Sammy, why not? I care how hard my students work, so why shouldn’t they care how hard I work?
Naima Luianeli, you don’t pay anywhere near what is costs to provide you with an education, which is why professors get paid so poorly. By the way, it is my job to teach, do research, and perform service. When those comments were filmed, I had a research group of 20 students and postdocs, I was on a federal grant review panel that met three times per year and consumed two weeks of dedicated time for me to write reviews each time, I published 5-7 papers per year, I had three NIH grants, I taught three lecture classes per year, two of them large (300 student) undergrad classes, and I served on numerous university committees. Not to mention that I have a family with whom I like to spend time with. It is PART of my job to teach, and I do an outstanding job at it.
Read the comments my students leave!
Sincerely,
Robert S. Coleman, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry
Vice Chair for Graduate Studies
The Ohio State University
September 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Rob, I wonder if college students were always as lazy and corner-cutting as they are today? I guess there’s an unbroken line from these losers, through “W,” to the drunken students at the Sorbonne who got their rowdy a$$e$ kicked by the Paris police in the 13th century, back to the Goliards. The only difference is that there are more distractions for them to get involved in. They feel all this 21st-century pressure to complete tasks and they’re lashing out at the person who acts _in loco parentis_, i.e, you.
First of all, kids, put those cell phones down. Check your e-mail only once a day. Kill that Facebook account. Text no one. Turn off the TV. Let the iPod battery run down. Find a quiet corner in the library, and pick up that textbook and study it while taking notes.
If you feel overwhelmed and want to rag on somebody, then you can blame the person who made you feel that all these other distractions were worth pursuing in lieu of your self-education (Messers Gates and Jobs).
And you’ll save some money too!
September 12th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Professor Coleman is absolutely right.
Since when did college students become whiny babies who have to be led through everything? Read the damn book! Look at the damn syllabus! Wanna be a doctor? FIGURE IT THE **** OUT FOR YOURSELF. You’re going to have to later.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:13 am
@Joe Daddy Mac
September 13th, 2008 at 1:14 am
@Joe Daddy Mac
You can’t can’t understand his analogy, you don’t belong in college.
What you are proposing is coddling. What happens when they do bad on the next test? Make the same deal?
This is college, if your answer is basically wrong, you get nothing. Learn from it and move on.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:15 am
@Naima
The job of a professor is not to teach, it is to do research. No professor ever got tenure for being a good teacher.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Rob Coleman,
Thank you for proving what a “hole” I suspected you to be. Seeing as how you never set foot in any of the classes I took at SMUMN, you have no room to comment on my experiences there. I find it interesting that such a self-renowned scientist as you won’t take the effort to size up a situation before passing judgement on it. Were you absent the day they taught about confounding variables in research? Your response to me certainly was sloppy, to be kind. Here’s a flash for ya: not everyone is willing to k iss yous a ss. In fact, some of us are willing to give you room enough to kick your own with your moronic and presumptuous comments. You claim, with pride, that someone who attended a community college would flunk your course. All that tells me is that your bias toward those students interferes with your effectiveness as an educator.
Please tell us again why you’re in the education business. Certainly, you’re not in it to expand anyone’s worldview. Oh, well. A paycheck is a paycheck.
I expected more emotional stability from such an important professor as you. After all, whatever would we do if you were to retire from abusing that captive audience you call a classroom?
Do let me know.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:04 am
September 15th, 2008 at 2:05 am
ok firstly note this guy seems awesome to me. Secondly helping you outside of class isn’t his first responsibility he gets paid to teach you in class and conduct research and depending on the university hold office hours at a given time or by appt. Also you really cant complain about the complexity of the course. If its an upper level chem course and your really that lost try reading the text book and paying better attention in class. If its a lower level chem course its not that hard anyone can learn basic chem by themselves with the help of a book try it. After you try reading and you still fail at chem switch your major. There problem solved now stop b****ing
September 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Rob,
Name calling is neither a mature action, nor does it demonstrate emotional stability.
Read the comments my students have left.
When you have similar achievements under your belt at a teacher, you will have the right to criticize me. Until then, you should refrain from making stupid comments. It is unflattering.
Steve,
It IS my responsibility to help students outside of class. That is why I maintain four hours of office hours each week and hold a two hour review session on the weekend preceding an examination. It is NOT my responsibility to be available on demand by any student who has a question. I do try and answer email questions before I go to bed, but I cannot be available for any one of 300+ students to drop in my office unannounced.
Professor Rob Coleman
September 16th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Dear Rob,
Sounds you’re in a pretty sticky spot Prof. Coleman. You’ve got 300+ students. If only the university could outbid the research grants by depositing their tuition directly into your piggy bank. Seeing as they can’t I can understand the conundrum you’re faced with. Your need for attention conflicts with your desire to whittle down the number of kids crying poor mouth at your door. You’ve come up with what appears to be a nice and easy solution, scare them off or keep them anonymous. It seems the problem is you’ve discovered how hurt their feelings are. How can they mean those things they say if you never gave them a chance to get to know you? And what’s worse is they take you’re replies seriously. When they watch you it’s almost as though you’re talking directly to each and everyone of those scared little young people.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Rob Coleman,
I believe I already have the right to criticize you. It’s called freedom of speech. I have challenged you according to your arrogance. I have seen true greatness in people, and you’re not even close. Am I supposed to be in awe of your teaching credentials? Because I’m not. I’ve known people who have forgotten more about their fields than you will ever know about yours.
I believe you’re faced with a situation which is novel to you: being faced with someone (me) whom you have absolutely no authority over, and who has no problem with responding to you with negative feedback. How you handle such situations will prove your ego strength.
I do apologize for the name calling. It was uncalled for, and I retract that comment as beneath the level of this board.
September 17th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Rob,
You are confused. Freedom of speech allows you to say what you want. That doesn’t mean that what you say is meaningful or relevant. What is confusing to me is how you can provide feedback on my teaching when you have never had me for a class or seen me lecture. You can certainly criticize anyone you want. The point is whether your criticism is valid. In this case, it is not.
Professor Rob Coleman
September 17th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
“When you have similar achievements under your belt as a teacher, you will have the right to criticize me.”
Those are your words, sir, not mine. I find it disturbing that you wear your arrogance and haughtiness on your sleeve. What you’re saying, and have been saying all along, is that no student (whether yours or not) has any valid reason to criticize you. You base that premise on the fact that you’re a professor and that the student isn’t. What you’re overlooking is that knowing more than others about some topic doesn’t qualify you to look down your nose at others. Intellectual snobbery is an oxymoron; how can an intellectual be so narrowminded as to assume that he’s superior to others? He can’t. He realizes that (a) he’s never so well versed in his field that he can’t build upon his understanding of it, and (b) because this is so, he realizes that his time is better spent increasing his understanding of his field than it is reacting angrily to anyone who provides him with negative feedback. That’s a good road intellectual honesty.
Is my criticism of you valid? I think so. Why? Because of your earlier comment which is intended to elevate your perceived status by belittling such students as those who attend community colleges.
I never said that you weren’t highly educated, nor would I. After all, you do hold a doctorate. That demonstrates an ability to work autonomously and to be highly productive. My point of contention with you is this mindset you have, i.e., that anyone who takes a course at a community college and then transfers into your class would automatically fail.
That comes across as narcissistic, immature, and grandiose. How could you possibly know what every community college student studying chemistry is capable of learing, or has already learned? And how is it that you know how every community college professor is presenting subject matter to the student? Your presumption that those students could never pass your course is reckless, to say ther least. From this point, you go on to inform me that I essentially have no reason to criticize you when I’ve never attended your classes or lectures, but my point was (and still is) to show you how ridiculous presumptions are, especially when you’re in the teaching biz.
My criticism of you is, at a minimum, at least as valid as any point you’ve expressed thus far.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Get over yourself Rob, no one owes you anything. I can’t believe that Rob Coleman gave your whiny, cry-baby rants any credence whatsoever.
You criticism is irrelevant and totally invalid. You are too dumb to realize that Dr. Coleman chewed you up and spit you out. Anyone with intelligence should know when they have been beat.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:33 am
u gotta be kidding me, if u r busy then why’d u teach? I just dun appreciate this type of attitude.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I think the teacher has a valid point but if he is taking a full time paycheck from the school then research grants should come second. Maybe go part time as a student and give those who take your class a fair cut of your time.
On the other hand there are always a small handful of students who take up way more than their share of an instructors time. Might that be the case here?
At least the professor here didn’t act the fool in his response. He should get a good mark for that. No?
September 18th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Well, I see someone decided to have a temper tantrum just because I actually dared to disagree with a professor about a point.
I hardly think he “chewed me up and spit me out”, as you so elequently put it. If you had even half of a brain, you would have seen that I called him out on his narcissism. Now, maybe YOU want to k iss his a ss, but I sure don’t. So good luck with playing the hidden curriculum. Maybe he’ll give you extra credit for washing his car. It’ll give you good practice for your lifelong career.
Good luck, Vern.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: those who can’t handle negative feedback probably shouldn’t be in the habit of dishing it out.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Rob,
As a teacher, I just wanted to offer a perspective from the world of community colleges. I’ve no doubt that every community college is different, but mine, I assure you, has professors who have done “real research” (though not nearly as much), and most come from excellent universities. Your job and mine are simply different. Professors actively choose community college if they truly enjoy spending their entire day with students. We are certainly not cutting edge in our discipline; we are full-time teachers after all, not researchers. We are much like high school teachers in that regard. At my community college, we typically see 80-100 teachers apply for each full time position, and we only hire those who incorporate the best teaching strategies based on educational research. Most university professors are not even familiar with educational research, nor should they be. You can be an excellent instructor without it, to be sure. Again, your job and mine are simply different. And I agree that our classes are not meant to be equivalent in rigor. At the community college we admit every student who wants to learn. We take them from wherever they are in their understanding and are charged with helping them get to the next level of their education and beyond. It’s a charge of which I am very proud.
Respectfully,
Michael Sweet
Professor of Biology
American River College
September 19th, 2008 at 3:59 am
You don’t even realize that he totally invalidated all your whines.
What more needs to be said?
September 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Michael,
That is very well said. I’ve come across several professors on these pages whose exaggerated self importance is truly disturbing. Rob coleman is of the opinion that students who transfer into his class from community colleges have no chance for success. To say the least, his bias toward those students is troubling.
September 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
To the one who projects stupidity by calling others “retard”:
The only thing Coleman invalidated was his integrity as an educator. Sorry to say it, but even proffs at AN Ohio State University aren’t as perfect as they would portray themselves, and k issing their sph incters won’t guarantee you a good grade. Then again, you’d need a GED to get into Ohio State, wouldn’t you? Good luck with that.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Obviously Prof. Coleman isn’t that busy…. He has time to not only post three videos;but, he finds time as well to have a debate with someone who does not completely identitify himself.
Although, I am slightly confused as to why he felt the need to “Strike Back” when 1) Most of his students like him and 2) he’s busy…
Anyway the best of luck to most of you, get off this site, do some home work, let a student know when the final is, and loosen up. All of you.
If you don’t like him, don’t take his class. And if you do like him, take as many as you can. You are only subjected to what you allow yourself to be.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
September 20th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Sally,
He does let them know. Like he said he mentioned it in class 25 times and is in the syllabus. Under that circumstance, a student who asks when it is deserves to flunk.
There are too many pseudo-students with an entitlement complex on this site. Most of you mental midgets can’t even parse these professors simple statements properly.
September 21st, 2008 at 3:27 am
Rob,
There is a huge difference between a community college and a research university. It is not self-importance, community colleges are glorified high schools and do not(except in very rare instances) require the discipline and rigor of a research university. Community colleges certainly have their place and perform a valuable service but to compare it with a university is ludicrous.
If you spent as much time in serious study as you do ripping on professors who dare call out ill-prepared lazy students, you might understand that a bad professor is no excuse for not learning or getting a good grade.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Qwerty,
You’ve missed the point.
I never said Coleman isn’t a good researcher. I simply asserted that any professor who feels the need to engage in emotional competition isn’t behaving professionally. If you feel that I was unfair, somehow, to “rip” on the proff, please keep in mind that mine was a reactive rather than a proactive stance.
Why would I spend time in serious study? I’ve already graduated. Thanks for your concern, however.
It isn’t my fault if Coleman’s ego strength isn’t sufficient to withstand negative feedback. Certainly, he’s good at dishing it out via “intellectual snobbery” (e.g., his disdain for those peasantly students who attend community colleges and then actually DARE to enroll in his course -gasp!). And yet, if anyone expresses disagreement regarding his arrogance, we’re vilified. Hmm.
I was successful in college in spite of proffs like Coleman, not because of them.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Sally sue,
I don’t like him (so far, anyway), and I’m not taking his class. Hope that fills the bill.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 am
You graduated?
Let me guess Business.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Ahh, yes. BUSINESS: the bogus major; the mother of all lies; the last refuge of the unteachable; the falsely accredited; 21st-century alchemy; the rabid pursuit of the venal; the reason for all wars; the yuppie Mecca; the reason we’re in this mess; the business of America . . . .
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Tell us how you really feel Ramon.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Hey, I was just quoting Herbert Hoover.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Dear Professor Rob Coleman,
What kind of teacher are you? **** you son of a bitch(illiterate)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Dave,
You might want to consider an anger management class or two.
I am curious if any of these whiners ripping on the good professor have the intelligence and drive to go into a demanding field like chemistry. Nothing like a hard science, math(not business math) or engineering class to illustrate the difference between your average lazy student coasting in the business department and serious students.
No, I am not saying that the “softer” majors don’t have serious students. <– Preemptively dodging the predictable, fallacious, and downright silly “intellectual snobbery” attacks.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 am
Qwerty,
If I had wanted to be a business major, I wouldn’t have this charming sense of humor.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 am
Dave,
I can’t say that I like Coleman’s arrogance either, but come on. Save the vulgarities for business majors.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
There is a lot of hating going on here. If the professor has time to post three videos on the site with written responses, he is obviously not as busy as he complains to be. Education is a business… A student pays for a product. The product is education. The school is the store and the teacher delivers the product. If the product is not being delivered, complain to management and have the delivery person fired. It is that simple. Just make sure that you have your ducks in a row with undeniable evidence that you are not receiving an education that you have paid for. What I find most interesting about all this is that the professor actually entertained this. He must have been solicited and paid well to post his videos, because why else would he represent The Ohio State the way he did? Lets throw the colleges laundry right out on the face of the planet or better yet how about under the planet bus. A direct respresentation of The Ohio State as a whole. Way to go Bullseye…… The target is on you because of an aggrevated professor who let his personal feelings counteract his judgement. I would think a highly educated person would learn how to NOT let a student get under his skin. I hope that the professor’s rabbit eyes have closed and he gets back to focusing on what is most imprtant (educating our future) not the 25% pay raise for tenor. if you do you job and stop waisting time and energy thinking about tenure, tneure will come automatically. If you are real hard pressed with stress and crisis management; try leaving your little box of a life and witness decision making that involves if a Soldier, Marine, Airman, or Sailor lives or dies because of your decision, then you will feel a little more at ease on your daily decisions while sitting safely behind the walls of The Ohio State University. Well I’ve spent enough time waisitng it on things as minimal as a student who doesn’t like a teacher or a teacher who should know better, but it was fun to get a little rant in. Maybe I chant some more another day. Have a great day, all ya and stay safe….. Life is only with us for so long.
Peace Out
Jim
September 27th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Just know that the time that it takes to “post videos” comprises, shaking hands with the MTVu producer and 2-man crew, sitting and responding to random student reviews that the producer reads for 45 minutes, shaking hands a second time with the MTVu producer and 2-man crew.
The student pays the university for the right to learn. The university then goes and begs the state of Ohio for money to supplement the state tuition. The university then pays the housekeeping crew, the admins, buys chalk and toilet paper, etc. With the few dollars left over they appease the faculty with a few bucks (but increase their workload in the next contract).
Only Ag-and-Tech schools deal with ducks and rabbits.
The university has nothing to do with the videos except that its admins are probably embarrassed by their faculty in general.
I’m personally “aggrevated” by your “judgement” when it comes to which vowels you toss into your words, if any. This is very “imprtant” if you want to get “tneure.”
Being a chemistry professor is not like being President of the United States. Basically Prof. Coleman does not have the right to send military persons to their deaths.
Peace, Jim. And Out, as well.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Knowledge is not a “product”. Gaining the ability to use that knowledge is not a product. It is not something someone can give to you. It is worked for, it is earned. That is what is wrong with students today, they don’t want to work for anything and if the professor doesn’t spoon feed them, they get lost and angry.
September 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Ohio: the Bullseye state. Yeah. That works.
September 29th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I see you’ve undertaken the spelling of Jim’s spelling. As long as you’re in a snitty mood, perhaps you would care to engage in some prescriptive grammar.
Or is that just a little over your head?
September 29th, 2008 at 3:50 am
After I watched all four videos I certainly agreed with Prof. Rob Coleman about how it is not his job to baby and nurture every single one of his students. How can you argue that he is not busy when he decides to film for this website? Obviously, millions of people use this website, and some students would like to hear his feedback addressing their opinions. It is time well invested because answering a couple of hundred or even thousands of peoples’ questions within this 45 minutes spent is essentially more efficient than time spent with a SINGLE student. To a professor, you are no more than a student; a mere seeker of knowledge that just so happened to fall in his lecture hall. Why do you get to be privileged? What makes you different from any other student? This isn’t high school anymore. The professor’s job is not to make sure you acquire the information he spews… that’s YOUR job. If you do not understand something, seek it on your own.
However, even though at first I agreed with his philosophy, I disagree in disgust with his bashing of others in his comments. Prof. Coleman, you scoff at those “lower” than you, but let me tell you this: just because one goes to a community college, it does not mean that their educational level and ability to learn are obsolete in comparison to your students. You boast about your credentials, but what good are credentials if you have no respect. (At least from me and a lot of other people) I am not arguing about how many masters or PHD degrees you have. I am not arguing about how well you teach or how good of a person you are. I am telling you that it is completely unnecessary to undermine those that attend community colleges. Maybe they would like to interact with their teachers more, or maybe they are just financially troubled and can not afford to attend a university. You said, “…how you can provide feedback on my teaching when you have never had me for a class or seen me lecture.” My question to you is, “how can you provide feedback on those that attend community colleges if you have never even met the person or graded any piece of work they have submitted? How can you make such a statement of their ability to pass your class when you have never seen their ability to work in a laboratory environment?” Prof. Coleman, I am sure you are an excellent teacher with a great capacity of love, compassion, and care for your students. However your bias towards those that do not attend a prestigious university is appalling. You are not the judge of how hard they have worked throughout their life to get into their position, nor are you the judge of how good of a student they are. I do not have teaching credentials. I’m 15 years old. However, I do have morals. I was taught to not flaunt my success in the eyes of the less fortunate. Many people dream of becoming like you, professor. Instead of being humble, you boast about your credentials like you have something to prove to the world. There are millions and millions of people in this world. What makes you more important than any one of them? You eat, sleep, and eventually die just like everyone else. There is no need to flatter yourself by claiming how amazing you are because the truth is, you are not. You are nowhere near superiority. You are despicable and shameful to professors everywhere.
Are you going to disregard my words and criticism because I don’t “have similar achievements under my belt as a teacher?” You disgust me.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:45 am
8===D
September 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Very well said, Sean. For a 15 year old, you seem to be so much more in tuned to what is really going on here. This should not be a debate over whether or not this professor is morally right or wrong, but as to whether or not he does his job as a professor first and a researcher second. It upsets me to see that so many professors these days have forgot that we as students come to school to learn and acquire knowledge for what ever field we have chose to make a career in. We do not hold PhDs yet and that is why we too have to dedicate 60-80 hours of week to our studies. We pay hundreds and sometimes thousand of dollars for textbooks that sometimes do not even get opened and we pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get professors who look at their students as a necessary inconvenience. What ever happened to teachers that genuinely loved their job? It is hilarious that so many people have gone back and forth and forgot what this site was designed for, to rate our professors. If Dr. Coleman has time to not just post one, but several comments on this site, than he should have time for that student, who regardless of what Dr. Colman may think, has paid to be a part of his class.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:18 am
What’s this? Professor Coleman getting his a ss handed to him -by a 15 year old?
BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
ahem
Sorry, Dr. Coleman. Is there anything I can get you? Kleenex, perhaps?
September 30th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Well, I’m only 6 years old (I guess that explains my non-standard English grammar and punctuation), and I support Professor Coleman. So there!
September 30th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I take back my statement about me being 15, it’s a meaningless comment.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I agree with Rob and Sean. Professor Coleman’s arrogance is appalling. While a professor shouldn’t spoon-feed his/her students, they should at least care about them and their education.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I wonder… Would the university have money to give you a grant if it weren’t for students paying tuition?! Students SHOULD be important enough to you for you to help them after class. Jeez!
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Grant money rarely if ever comes directly from the University. Since tuition doesn’t even come close to paying the expenses of the class, tuition money isn’t going to get funneled into research.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Rusty Shackleford,
Students generate a TON of money. One of my professors once said that if they paid him even half of what they made off of our one class he would be making more money.
Universities make a killing off of tuition. Its nothing to sneeze at.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
The tuition for public institutions is subsidized by your professors’ paychecks (state taxes). Annual tuition for my public college is less than what they pay one graduate student to teach two 3-hour classes as an adjunct. Just think of the cost of the utilities! I don’t know where you kids get the idea that money is flowing into the professors’ pockets (other than the fact that it is certainly flowing out of yours).
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
What if enrollment were down in a given university? Then that school would be less likely to receive research grant money. Students are necessary, even if indirectly, for grants to come in.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
When enrollments are down, per-student subsidies from the state drop concomitantly. That’s when they turn off the lights and stop buying Xerox paper. I’m not kidding.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Several students in my current Honors Organic Chemistry course suggested that I revisit the comments here. They’re pretty interesting, if largely uninformed. Starting from the bottom.
Rob: No students, I hire postdocs.
ti: Ohio State has never given me $1 of grant money. On the contrary, I provide the university hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on overhead. You might say that I pay my own salary. For $1.00 I get from the NIH, the university gets another $0.50. Your tuition dollars don’t pay for research.
Karrey: On what basis do you make the claim that I don’t care about my student? Did you read the comments left by my students? Offer some proof to your statement.
Andrea: How do you know that I don’t have time for my students? I’ll be spending this Sunday afternoon running a help session for my organic chemistry class. Sunday.
Sean: When students have trouble passing organic chemistry at Ohio State, we oftentimes send them to Columbus State Community College so they can pass. The grade correlation is about OSU C/CSCC A. Conversely, a CSCC B translates to a D or F at Ohio State. This is simply a fact based on many years of experience by our faculty. In addition, my step-daughter spent one year at a community college before attending Ohio State. According to her, there is no comparison between the level of expectations, the quality of instruction, and the quality of advising.
Jim: This is a commercial site. I didn’t post anything. MTVU invited me to be interviewed. I spent an hour on a Saturday afternoon talking with them. That was the total time commitment. I don’t represent Ohio State in any fashion. Note that I don’t mention the name in any of the videos.
Overall, you guys really need to get your facts straight, learn something about what faculty do, and pay closer attention before you make inaccurate and oftentimes embarrassing comments. You make assumptions that are invalid, you have no understanding about how a university is funded, and you appreciation for the duties of a faculty member are poor.
It’s a great job. I get to research what I want, I get to interact with highly motivated students, my colleagues are great, our staff is outstanding, the university has a whole is forward looking and values faculty input, and Ohio State delivers a high quality education. I love teaching. I’ve been teaching at the undergrad level for 19 years. I choose to teach undergrad organic over graduate classes. My students learn organic chemistry very well, and do well in subsequent quarters with other instructors. Those of you who feel that I don’t do my job need to look at the comments and my resume.
And for those of you who feel I am wasting my time posting here, you need to get a clue. You slander me, make false statements, and give an entirely misleading impression of who I am. Why would I allow you to do this? Do some research and then come back and tell everyone what you find.
Professor Rob Coleman
October 8th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I’m really glad I went to a school where the focus is on helping the students to learn (imagine that). Professors are NOT encouraged to bury themselves in research. This is a fundamental problem with our education system… it’s not focused on education. If a professor wants to go do research… go do it. But don’t pretend that you’re good at (or even interested in) teaching.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Professor Coleman,
I only have this issue, you’ve wasted at least an hour (at least) looking at this site, plus an hour of filming with MTVu plus an hour of travel time and or set up. So you have at least three hours wrapped up in this stupid web page.
At a few hundred grand a year for research, let’s say 500,000 for the **** of it, and let’s just say that on a good week you put in 20 hours of productive research. Key word: Productive — the average person actually gets things done 2 of the 8 hours at work every day… and I know you don’t have time to research 8 hours a day with your other commitments so I am being generous in my 20 hour a week statement. 20 hours a week of productive, progressive research is respectable. Alright, so you’ve done 20 hours of work and take two weeks off that’s 1000 hours a year in research, or $5000/hour that someone is paying you for your research in grants.
What I am saying is this: If your time is worth $5000 an hour, what the **** are you doing wasting it on this site? Seriously. No one cares what these people have to say and I’m sure what I am saying is almost irrelevant. All people have to do is look at your reviews on rate my professor or ask other OSU students to recommend a good chem prof and they will end up in your class.
Another interesting stat for some people out there is this:
If a person has a good experience he or she will tell one other person. If a person has a negative experience he or she will tell four or five others. So there are much greater odds that reviews will be negative on ratemyprofessor. Often times 20% of a professors students provide 80% of the negative feedback in reviews, while the other 80% make up the other 20% of the negative feedback, with the rest either neutral or positive. For Professor Coleman to have the rating he has is significant, especially if he has been with OSU teaching over 1200 students a year for a number of years. I attend a smaller college and some of my professors have that many ratings, many bad.
Professor Coleman, as a professor, feedback is one of the most important things that you can know in order to judge your effectiveness. I would recommend a survey and to have someone calculate the average stats and Gaussian distribution on what your students thought of your effectiveness as a Chem teacher + other things you care about after that factor. (Which I’m sure you probably receive in some other form other than ratemyprofessor… You could also put it on the web system OSU uses and make it part of a mandatory evaluation completed at the beginning and end of the semester) Four hours of office hours are often required but Sunday work is above and beyond what is necessary and shows dedication to dedicated students.
Now that we have calculated the value of your time, get off this site and stop wasting it. Go spend time with your family, get some sleep, help a student, or just read about other professors if you are bored. Defend yourself in the lecture hall, not on some forum.
I’m signing off.
October 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Rob coleman,
Thanks for that.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Ok seriously, give the guy a break. He isn’t really here at OSU to teach, he’s here to do research and along with having OSU have him doing research he is required to teach a class, so yes he is busy. Don’t even think that as a college student your time is more important than his. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t good at his job. If he can’t answer your questions then go ask your TA, that’s what they are there for and paid to be there for.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:53 am
K,
Did you get extra credit for that post?
November 9th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Prof. Coleman, as a community college instructor, I was interested in your observation that your organic chemistry students who receive a D or F tend to get roughly a B when taking the same class at the local community college.
I suspect that the o-chem class at this Ohio community college is just seriously under performing. I would caution you against generalizing based on one community college. Here at American River College, our institutional research office keeps careful track of the success of transfer students and likes to advertise that our students, after transferring to University of California and California State schools, actually do “as well as students who started their freshmen year” at the university level.
I’ll try to track down the data that we’re using to back that up, but I suspect that we are not very different from many other community colleges.
Having taught at 5 different community colleges and been a student at 4 different universities, my impression is that community college faculty do a better job of teaching basic skills to the general public, while university faculty do a better job of teaching advanced skills to the best and brightest.
Your blanket statement that there is “no comparison in the quality of instruction” between universities and community colleges is correct; we literally can not compare the two. They are apples and oranges.
Your 9/12 post said a community college prof “probably got their degree from some second-rate university.” But I don’t think my school is unusual among community colleges. It has some faculty from so-called ’second tier’ school and some from top-ranking schools. (My department has faculty from Berkeley and Stanford for instance). We are certainly proud of our faculty who come from prestigious schools but no more or less than we are of faculty who come from schools of supposed lower rank. That’s because evaluation for tenure here is based only on dedication to and a talent for teaching to a community college audience.
Imagine you went into a local high school and observed a “learning disabilities” teacher. Her teaching would be slower paced and, at the end of the day, her students would be less successful on average. You would be justified in telling a successful student to avoid her class. You would not be justified in assuming that her teaching methods were of “lower quality”.
What matters is that each student find the right fit, a place where he or she can be challenged and grow.
Michael Sweet
Professor of Biology
American River College
November 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
God bless all CC professors. That being said, my experience is this: CC instructors carry a heavy teaching burden. The 4-year people have significantly lighter loads generally. I’m in a 4-year place, and I give very difficult exams that are hard to grade and demand a lot from the graders (from me and my TAs–another luxury you might not have). When students take my class, after having had a CC experience, sometimes they’ll come to me and say, “I took your subject at XYCC and it was so much easier.” I don’t think it’s a matter of teaching or the complexity of the concepts; I think it’s a matter of testing. In other words, with so many sections and so much office-hour time expected of CC instructors, many (not all) cut corners on the examinations. So we find word-bank and true-false exams being given more than at the 4-year places. More difficult exams place different cognitive demands on students, and usually they’re a step up from HS-style testing.
Again, with all the burdens on the CC instructors, these teachers do a fabulous job. However, we 4-yearers do ratchet it up a bit even at the introductory level of our courses. Transfer students have to take that step up when they arrive. And, like all arriving students, some have a little difficulty making the transition from the previous grade level.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
This ******** is why you go to a private college!!!
November 15th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
That’s easy for you to say. You’re a Smart Kid.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Why would you bother posting a reply on a site that is associated with college students if you can’t spell to save your freaking life? Good job, guys! Thanks for setting a good example and letting the whole world know that there are stereotypical retards in college! You guys make me proud!
November 16th, 2008 at 4:01 am
This professor has a really nasty personailty, I don’t see him teach so I can be objective or “entertaining” as he puts it but his attitude is really bad. Like don’t ask dumb questions…ok I get that instructors give the students all the course information at the begining but did it ever occur that the person could have misplaced it, I mean come on now its college students get alot of papers. Like yes if the final is on June 2 and ou ask the professor on June 1, yea I’d get an attitude then also but to say don’t ask a stupid question….so would it be less stupid for them to just not ask and not know. I’m my college the professor would be hang by his balls for making a comment like that, I mean come on every college has bad professors but they don’t come online and act like their to good for their students, I go to private college in New York and it is kind of pricey but the professors are always availble, I’ve had lunch with my professors before I can honestly say that the worsssssssst professor at my school is noty as obnoxious as this. But like one of the people said above me state schools are more about research but honestly if you need to be able to reach the teacher, get help and ask questions with out the risk of being degrated you should really look into some of the private colleges in your area they really aren’t that expensive (given you don’t go to Yale or something) and it really makes a diffrence. Compare the proffessor rating from state universities to small colleges and you will see what I mean.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Christina, many private colleges admit very weak applicants, take their money from 4-6 years, pass them through, and allow them to leave with a defective education, unable to write a cohesive argument in English, viz, your post. A private college is under pressure to re-admit students who are on academic probation because tuition pays the bills. This is a fact. State colleges force you to educate yourself, which is what education actually is. They take no nonsense. They also take little money in return for a fabulous educational experience. Private college graduates (at bottom-tier places) might wind up with a pile of debt and a job at Dunkin’ Donuts at the end of the day. Caveat emptor.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Ramon, apparently learning how to question your assumptions was not included in your own education. You treat Christina’s post as if it were necessarily typical of her writing and typical of the “defective education” students receive at private colleges. Both assumptions are gross generalizations. I’ve studied at both private and public universities and in my experience the teaching at both is poor. The reality is that kindergarten teachers are more qualified professionally to teach than are college professors. At least kindergarten teachers receive teaching certification. College professors don’t. Teaching is a skill that goes beyond knowledge of a subject area. Teachers have to work at acquiring this skill. Very few college professors have done this. Maybe some people have the motivation to education themselves, but apparently not many professors do, or they would have taught themselves how to teach. If you really believe all learning is autodidactic then why charge tuition at all? Professors deserve no credit or money for what students learn. Universities should simply charge students a small examination fee to prove they have learned a subject and receive credit for the course.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Teaching is a talent. The skills are icing on the cake. Michael Jordan had talent. Had he been taught baseball skills at an early age, he would have made it out of Class A. “Unfortunately” he didn’t focus on baseball skills. A “teaching certificate” is worthless no matter what the level, if there’s no talent for teaching. The way profs supposedly learn how to teach is by attending classes for 20 years. I agree that it doesn’t work. Profs need mentoring from a young age. They need to be peer-observed by a master teacher on a regular basis.
I do agree with you that profs generally don’t give a flying f#$% about teaching and they s*** hard when it comes to pedagogy. Nevertheless, Christina has to start reading a good newspaper and turn off that cell phone.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Ramon, this is a nature vs. nurture argument. Of course it’s both. Obviously without talent or a vocation (calling) it’s probably a waste of time to try to teach. But talented teachers need methodology and training. Professor Coleman, for example, may be a talented teacher but he undermines his teaching with sarcasm and defensiveness, as demonstrated by his posts. He could learn to avoid these things and become a more effective teacher. But this raises the question: effective for what? What are universities for? In the nineteenth century they were often used as finishing schools for rich kids looking for cover for the nepotism they would benefit from when they graduated. In the middle ages they were training schools for medical, law, and theology students. These days they can be these things or just a four-year pyjama party, or at Ohio State a farm system for the NFL. It’s not surprising professors are confused about their role as teachers.
November 28th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Um, Rob, you’re engaging in adolescent behaviour with the rest of them. You don’t need to constantly defend yourself. I resent the comment regarding community colleges. Many of these professors left the Universities because they can’t stand their “clients”…spoiled little brats MADE to go to college, unlike community colleges where you have many second and third time degree seekers…usually very motivated individuals, many times against all odds. I graduated from a major university in ‘87 but I’ve been very impressed with my community college as I work towards a nursing degree.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Just my thoughts on all of this…
Dr. Coleman, after watching your videos and reading these comments, I feel I have to defend the community colleges. Although they are not four year Universities and most of the professors do not have Ph.D.s, in some cases, such as my own, they are necessary. I feel that community colleges are vital links to helping non-traditional students become students after their break from high school classes. If it had not been for the professors at the community college I attended, I would not be graduating from a four year University this coming May, with honors. They taught me how to study for college level classes, how to appropriately write college level papers, and several other basics that I did not remember after a twelve year break between high school and college. My G.P.A did drop by .25 between community college and my university classes, but had I not attended a community college, I would probably be no where close to graduating with honors. So, although community colleges may not offer the same level of classes that four year schools do, in some cases, they can and do help students learn to succeed, where normally they would have struggled.
To those of you who are whining about this professor and his attitdue, you really need to get over it. Professors are who they are and attacking them with inappropriate comments does not help anyone. Everyone has room for improvement in their lives, but you can’t change someone or their attitude by critisizing everything they do. If you are in college and you have a problem with a professor, go talk to them about it. Sometimes, the professor doesn’t even realize they are coming across the way you see them and they will make an effort to change what they are doing if you talk to them in a civilized manner, by explaining the problem and how it’s affecting you personally. Other times, they will explain to you why they do something a certain way and assist you in finding a way to understand it, but they aren’t going to ever do the work for you.
Although I see ratemyprofessor.com as a helpful site when there are major problems, overall, I feel that the comments need to be limited to the class itself and not the professor’s personal issues. Most people who leave negative comments on that site are those who have failed or nearly failed the class. In the four years I’ve been in college, and the 154 credit hours I have for my double major so far, I’ve only ever had one professor that I felt truely did not need to be teaching, and I got an A in her class, despite the fact that she was extremely disorganized and lectured more on her hatred of males than on the topic of the class. College classes are, in most cases, more difficult than the jobs they are preparing you to do. If you can’t handle the workload of a college class, then how are you going to handle the actual job? Think about it.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
We are losing our common sense! We are against our common sense! This is not the story of individuals. It’s the entire society’s. We are suffering for this weirdness, and we are to suffer more, desperately.
We didn’t have money, but we wanted to own house – the reason of subprime crisis. We don’t have enough money, but we try our best to use up not only today’s but also tomorrow’s and that of the years ahead – credit crisis is on the way! We don’t want to work hard, but we want to make easy and more money – we hate mathematics, sciences, and engineering, but we love to take majors which seem easy to study and which seem to produce more money, such as finance, business, communication, MBA, and so on – thus we have to “import” foreign teachers for mathematics, sciences, and engineering. As a natural result, we are losing our traditional manufacture and industry. We even don’t want to study now, but we want A’s and at least B’s. We each want to be super and over average, but we don’t know that’s ironical and impossible! We are all evil in the presence of Almighty God!
That each has equal opportunity to go to college doesn’t mean that each has to. We have the highest rate of college enrollment in the world, but we may – certainly – have on average the most low quality college students in the world. There are too many college students who behave like in elementary school. There are also too many college students in our nation who are not able to graduate from middle school academically in so many other nations – I know truth is ugly, earthly speaking, but we have to face it someday! They cheat not only their parents, the society, the government, but also themselves. They may own $2000 (instead of $600 or cheaper) value Apply notebooks and advanced graphical calculators, anyway, the best and the most advanced technology, because, perhaps, they claim these are things required in college and their miserable parents have to pay. But I have so many students who don’t know how to use the very features of their TI-84 which seems to them just a $5 calculator. The Apply laptops? If for the sake of study, most students should not buy it for more (free open-source) software packages are available for the cheap and mainstream laptops. Most professors are using the $600 laptops in my college.
There are 40 students in one of my general education mathematics classes in this semester. Three dropped. But there were only 27 who took the final exam. How about the remaining ten? They simply don’t care at all. No one even has given me any excuse why he/she failed to take the exam. This tends to be one way for some to play games with the federal law for financial support because of minimum workload for a full-time student – I don’t know if presidents, presidents-elect, senators, senators-elect, and other politicians and leaders know this kind of illegal behaviors or not. Of course, some of them were actively involved in the online evaluation of my teaching, his professor, while the best students ordinarily don’t have time to spend on that kind of task, which taught me years ago that the online course evaluation has been a joke. I do understand that life is really not easy for so many students who should not be in college at their present age. Doodling away four years and looking down at oneself is tedious, tough, and inhumane.
Comparatively, most of my long distance education students seem to be more practical and motivated because of many reasons of which age and maturity are the most important.
Thus, I wish parents would not send their child to college if they know he/she is not mature enough. Instead, they should wait for the right time. Otherwise, you are to devalue the money, over $100,000, which you all invest in the four college years.
Parents of present college students, you should also know that comments on this website is not objective at all. Statistically, those who gave comments are a very small sample, without mentioning a good and representative sample of all students who’ve taken courses from the very professor. For example, I’ve taught about over 1,100 students of which there were only 16 by yesterday who commented on my teaching – some were pretty positive and the others were negative. I doubt some students are using it to cheat their parents: their failure is not their own fault, instead, it’s their professors’! You don’t believe it? They can show you more negative comments about the very professor. You should have known that if your child is not good at things good, he/she is very good at many things bad – if that’s your case, I am sorry for you.
A professor of mathematics
December 7th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Prof. Winux: Interesting ideas. I hope you’re one of them there foreign “imports.” You don’t want your surly, immature and lazy 18-year-old, H.S.-graduate kid sitting home all day un/underemployed, so you pay the big bucks and send the kid to college. Let the academics babysit for the next 4-6 years.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Ramón: You’re right. Professors are unfortunately supposed to serve their new nannyship by providing the customer services as Wal-Mart does.
Thanks,
Winux
December 8th, 2008 at 6:15 am
how much time do you spend reading this blog Mr. SomedaysIcanteveneatlunchguy
December 10th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Some of you sound like babies. This guy seems like a good old fashioned no ******** professor. If you want to go far, get more teachers like him.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
FYI – Professor comes form the latin word meaning any expert in the arts or scieccnes. And based on modern job descriptions, what most posters on here are looking for is an “instructor”.. Professors’ job entails research (1/2 to 3/4 their priority at a place like Ohio State), teaching (maybe 1/10 to 1/4 of their performance) and service (less than teaching).. Also, a guy like this is going to have graduate students as well, whom he is in charge of mentoring (and they have higher priority than you as far as the university is concerned).
So, stop whining and go to a trade, community, or 4-year (e.g. small liberal arts colleges) institution.
The advantage of going to a research university is that the people who are there are involved in current research (like this guy who got a $1 mill grant from NIH!; likely he is a “big dog” in his field).. So you should be thankful that for small rates (compare this to tuition at a small liberal arts college) you get the time you do with these people. Be INDEPENDENT!
December 10th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Oh and all that does not suggest that the liberal arts colleges, community colleges and trade schools are not good things. They are great (I started at a community college and was where I first heard about what I am now close to having my Ph.D. in)..
Also, just because you pay for college does not mean you pay for a degee!!! You pay to have the information available to you for the times that are on your schedule.. Most professors are not required to keep office hours, but a lot do (most in my experience)..
December 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
A Ph.D. in scieccnes perhaps? Or maybe in spelling?
December 14th, 2008 at 10:59 am
It so AMAZING that you find time to strike back at students but you don’t have time to help us out!!! If you don’t care you WOULDN’T leave these feedback right professor? This is another dumb question for you?
December 19th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I had professor Coleman for Honors O Chem and it was my favorite class at The Ohio State University. He is clear and I always felt that he put plenty of time into our class. He even taught on the day after he broke 5 ribs. I think thats dedication. He is one of my favorite professors of all time, remarks about him being unfair or not giving partial credit are ridiculous, everything on his tests were gone over in class and in the book, and the important questions were emphasized in class numerous times. I dont understand how people who havent taken his class can attack this professor.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:52 am
Coleman,
Realize for one minute what you’re saying. You seem overwhelmed by everything you do, yet you have the time to laud yourself all over the site at the expense of making community college professors and students seem inferior. Our community college chemistry department holds professors from prestigious universities, and are currently involved in research as well. And please who do you think you are, you wouldn’t be the first prof. with a Ph. D that can make a wise decision about selecting a job suitable for him, be successful in other areas of his life including spending time with his family, maintain a balanced diet, and still have a positive and humble approach to this attack. Take that stick off your ***!! It’s the real world if you can’t handle it, don’t teach.
Oh but you need it for whatever reason:( Then admit that other professors whether they are better qualified or not, are aware of what education and teaching mean, and that you are not just an excellent one. Its the growth and learning process you idiot, you take students step by step so they can learn and eventually become doctors. And there will be all kind of students, even the ones that need extra help. Leave the suing for malpractice victims, that would be for students who’ve had many years of education including medical school. As far as your students, I feel sorry their school decided to hire you instead of a more dedicated and p***ionate instructor. Who are we fooling? I think we all know what the meaning of the words instructor and educator mean. And giving 50% in a job shows how prepared you are for the real world:)
Feel free to attack all you want. Your old age is getting to you. Better lighten up and eat your meals:)
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
What a pompous little F*g, fug too.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Having both attended and taught at both full-fledged liberal-arts universities as well as community colleges, the answer to the question of how they compare has to be: “It depends.” Contrary to Dr. Coleman’s derisive claim, CCs, in Illinois at least, maintain relationships with four-year colleges as a way of maximizing the success of their two-year transfer students. It is all very wonderful to be someone who has a supportive family in a sound enough situation to send one to the four-year school of his or her choice. Sometimes however, the bad things in life, such as divorce, bankruptcy, death, and major illness get in the way of getting that sterling ivy-league education that one was planning on. God bless any such person who doesn’t encounter any little fly in the ointment that constitutes the first 22 years of his or her life; the fact is, such people do not know how very lucky they are.
So what happens to the less fortunate? Shall we tell them: “You should have kept your eye on the ball better, loser?” I have seen people whom life has b-slapped hang on by their fingernails in four-year schools, while others try to get back on track in the CCs; and surprisingly, many of them are as intelligent as their petted and protected peers to whom no tough thing has yet ever occurred. What institution has provided these less-than-perfect people a safety-net from a living perdition? That’s right, those so-called high schools with ashtrays, the CCs. The contempt toward community colleges exhibited by all of you cosseted cuties, Professor Coleman included, is all-too-demonstrative of the fact that one can be both highly-educated, yet tragically unaware of the fundamental facts of life.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 am
It is difficult for wealthy, highly-educated individuals to conceive of the existence of the intelligent poor who do not share their luxury. The class of educated poor will only continue to grow with the collapse of our economy. I sincerely hope that the “lazy and stupid” stereotype will be diminished as a result, so some good may come of it. It is careless to assume that a superior education is available to all of the brightest in the nation. Even for someone with a 4.0 GPA and 170 IQ, community college may be the only option. As it will for eternity, money reigns.
Prof Coleman, if you are paid sh*t, it is likely equal to the value of your work in comparison to what most everyone else, under the top 10% SES, is paid in the U.S. Be grateful that you have food and shelter (unlike many of us), or try on a more lucrative career.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Then perhaps teaching isn’t the best profession for you. Yes, it’s college, but students aren’t self-sufficient, that’s why they go to class. I would think a professor would be happy to help students when they ask for it, isn’t that what we teach them when they’re young?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Too busy? If you can’t find time for the students, then maybe you shouldn’t teach.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I think it is so funny when professors put themselves on a pedestool. Although I have never met this professor, I can clearly see his ignorance. First off, about community colleges, many of the professors there who teach have P.h.d.s, while it can also be said that many of them equally as much do not. However, many community colleges will have science classes such as Organic taught by p.h.d level professors, if you don’t believe me look at hfcc.edu and talk to the organic professor who teaches there. Easily it can be said organic is much harder here than at many “high class,” universities, many people who have taken his class who have taken a five hour test can attest to that; I don’t even think a university final has even been close to five hours. Also, as you are probably sputtering to say, “what about so and so at Ohio State or what about my tests I challenge you to take one,” Yeah, I know university professors can be hard as well for Orgo 2 there was a twenty step synthesis on the final, and for other Orgo 2 classes taught by university professors there was only a three step; it just depends on the professor on how hard a class is not the university.
Oh yeah, if you just thought about it a second, even though you have internet, resources, TAs probably a good bunch who can’t even speak English and if they usually can are 9 times out of ten the dumbest worst explainers next to **** and always whining about their busy schedule, the ratio of professor to students is probably close to 400:1 whereas at a CC nearly 20 times less than that so unless you have divine powers you will probably just reach a small percentage of the class, those sitting in the front. If you don’t believe me check the stats of As, Bs and Cs in your class, most As will be in the front and most Cs and Ds will be in the back. Oh as for nominations, how many chem teachers do you really have teaching, selection at a big university sucks because there is none all the student can do is wait until next semester or just take the other poor sap who forced themself to teach the class. Instead of just blaming the students who are at fault for not putting enough effort, state the facts as they are. You are a single prof teaching 400 students, you cannot expect to reach them all and current university resources are not a good compensation for that fact. Second, you don’t care too much this is just a side-job just to secure your researching position many researchers don’t even teach just devote their time to research. However, you signed up for this knew what was coming so have the appropriate communication skills for what you signed up for not all researchers can teach just like not all professional athletes can coach a professional team; pretty much metaphorically face the music. All you can do to really to compensate for a lack of resources is just curve the class to form that classic bell shaped curve, have you ever really taken the time to ask why a student is struggling, no of course not you are in a research group with “twenty people,” I would say this is where the the CC professor with adequate knowledge and a degree from an adequate university takes favor, more selection, and less of a juggling act between research and teaching the student; I think this develops more of a want to teach and help the student (of course some students can’t be helped becuase they don’t care or expect something easy or false from the class) becasue they are just not trying to get buy, they know they are stable and therefore can finally find whats best. Anyways, not to ramble or imply that CC are better than Universitys, they are not because at high level classes they cannot supply the resources necessary to teach such classes adequately more money = more resources. The main point of this blog article or whatever is simply to point out that take a nuetral ground and this can be done by simply just stating the facts, just in case by this point in time students don’t know them. Also, being nuetral and pointing out some obvious faults with the educational system makes you look a lot less arrogant and actually shows some respect for the teaching portion of your job rather than making seem as if you are just pushing it aside.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
What a whack statement about 2 year schools. Unbelievable. That shows an extreme ammount of arrogance on your part Dr. Coleman, and it’s sad because watching your videos for fun, I agreed with everything you said. I want to slam my cl***mates head when they ask the question “when is the final exam”. Totally agreed with you, but then I read your comment about 2 year schools. It’s hysterical to me because I’m taking the same core courses as my cl***mates at the 4 year school that I’m taking my Atmospheric Sciences courses and somehow I always had the answers they were looking for. But they went to a highly distinquished 4 year school, yet they got worse grades on the tests then I did. They couldn’t remember if they learned Electromagnetic Waves in Physics. They couldn’t recall things from Chemistry 2. So, because they take those cl***es at a 4 year school they are getting a “better education” from proffessors paid to make the school money for research (students are not a priority) than from professors who are paid to teach? That doesn’t seem to flow correctly. Neither does the curves that are so famous at 4 year institutions. “Sure you got an a D technically, but on the curve you got a B!” So fake grades are better than well deserved grades. The cl***es may be “watered down” but not by much. I’ve seen the differences between Physics courses and sometimes the 2 year schools make the big institutions look stupid. At a 2 year school your required to take labs with all 3 physics where at other univeristies it depends on the degree program.
So, who is *really* getting the overall “qaulity” education, the 4 year schools where the students don’t even remember fundamental topics from their courses, and that get their grades curved, or the ones who actually have to work to get their C or B or A, because nothing less (at least in NYS) than a C transfers to 4 year schools.
Thats an open question for anyone: What’s better, taking a course at a 2 year school where the professor is there to ensure your understanding of the material and there is possibly a few subtopics not covered, and getting a B and a solid *conceptual understanding* of what they actually learned, or is it better to learn the extra topics, have a professor treat you like a file number and give you an artificial grade because most of their cl*** failed? Hmm…
And to think when i was younger I felt like a loser because I had to go to a 2 year school because of money and I felt like I lost out on a “better education”. What a ******* reality check that was. I’m glad I went to a 2 year school to learn Physics 1 – 3, Chem 1 -2 and Calc 1 – 4 because I would hate to be the idiots in my cl***es at the 4 year school who don’t remember what solid topics they learned, let alone apply them to anything.
Food for thought Dr. Coleman, food for thought. I agreed with everything else you said, but that comment you made was awlful. And I also question the integrity of a university that allows their dignified money makers to conversate with students on a public forum like this? If I was your boss, lol, your *** would been in trouble for making these videos and THEN engaging in arguements with folks that may or may not be legitmate good students. WOW. Good thing I got to a 2 year school!
January 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I’m a graduate student now and although I often make the plea for partial credit it’s because I’m lazy. I work in the real world, I have a family so I know the difficulties of making time by come on you guys are in college man up already.
Prof. I wouldn’t mind taking your class anytime.. You seem practical…
January 16th, 2009 at 10:05 am
typo **but not by
January 20th, 2009 at 3:28 am
You know, I like this guy and his comments. Personally, I think college students are quite full of themselves, often lazy and not serious. The real world is a harsh place, I like this Professor’s “tough love” approach. And he obviously has a great attitude about his teaching. I think he’s cool and we need more like him. That’s my position and thanks for asking. – Lance Winslow
January 20th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I am a graduate student and a college instructor. I’d like to debunk the myth that undergraduates put in as much work as a college professor. I went to one of the best undergraduate universities in the country, and trust me…the work load was nothing like what a professor is required to do. As an undergraduate you often think you have the weight of the world on you, but you are sadly mistaken.
Also, I am amazed at the number of students I am “forced” to give good grades to when they can hardly write a coherent paragraph. I don’t think 50% of the students at this institution (and it’s a reputable one) should graduate with four year degrees. They come into college with absolutely no education and leave thinking they are the ****. I can’t possibly teach my history students basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and the difference between a noun and a verb, when they should have learned this in fifth grade!! There is absolutely no reason that people should be graduating from college without being able to read and write. In fact, my students informed me the other day that they never read in any class. Are you ******* kidding me? College now days is like an extension of highschool where you are all too often spoon fed your grades. And don’t get me started on the parents that write me complaining that little Johnny or Susie didn’t make an A, when little Johnny or Susie never came to class. I’m tired of students that are dumb as a rock. If I had my way, I’d pick about 20 students and nurse them through undergrad. In the process they would learn how to read and write so that they could tackle larger cognitive problems.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Hi…dead thread, but what the heck…I have the unique experience of having taught at a major state university and community college (both as a post doc) and now teach in a private university with a research emphasis that is close to a place like OSU. In comparing all of these environments the quality of teaching at the private university is the highest that I have experienced..by far. We have teaching seminars, discussions of teaching practice, methods workshops and indvidual help in course design…plus peer review. The folks at my CC loved to teach but were tremendously challenged by the range of students…the O’chem class was probably 50% general chem rehash…plus (yikes) math skills brush ups. Students leaving that class with a B routinely did the dying dove at “big state U.” down the street, according to our outcomes assessments. A youngster doing work with us could be relied upon to get 18s-25s on their MCAT…and have no chance at an allopathic medical school. Best idea one of our regents had…we should only be about technical skills, nursing degrees, and job training…plus really push hard to help with high school equivalency. Well…that didn’t go over well..the state leg says “but we are paying all this money for two year colleges…if you think you can’t function as a college we should send this support to the big state Us and shut you folks down”. I think the main problems with CCs is that any percieved savings are an illusion (students just have to retake courses after “encountering challenges” at the next level) and that these schools really should be vocational schools and the sites of toxic clean up for America’s K-12 debacle. They should not have academic departments…at all. It drains huge resources from the larger state and private universities. As a side note, given our large urban, under-resourced and under-represented student population…my school is proud of having the highest retention and finishing rates among minority students in the state (especially for students that start with us..State U. flunks em out and CCs dumb em down)…and gosh they go to medical school at Yale, Northwestern, Stanford, NYU, Einstein…after getting 30s+ on their MCATs. I guess we are just passing them along
…maybe not. We really care about our students…we hold a high bar for expectations AND have recitations/office hours/study group sessions where we work one on one.
I agree that grant agencies are messed up and are taking the weird tack of not valuing this type of work as part of the whole package of who gets grants…it’s too bad since I get to be the unpaid farm team for schools like Duke, Northwestern and Cornell which admitted my last three undergrad researchers to Ph.D. programs. Also a 20 person academic lab seems like kind of a dumb idea to me…geez…does we even know the post-docs names? Do the papers really garner 1000s of citations and transform the field? Yikes. NIH is really trying hard to build bigness for its own sake…I know we need to help OSU keep its lights on with all that overhead…but oink!
Anyway. Mid-size, private, rigorous schools are your best bet…declining enrollments at state schools and troubled budgets at glamor Us mean kids are beating down our doors for an education with profs who do and teach…my 2 cents.
July 4th, 2009 at 5:22 am
@querty
Yeah Business, the one you work and will work for hunny, get off your virtual high horse
July 4th, 2009 at 11:30 am
OK YOU SAID THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO EAT LUNCH!!!!!!1
YOU DON’T HAVE TIME RIGHT????
SO WHY YOU READ YOUR COLLEAGUES, RATE MY PROFESSOR MESSAGES????
I REALLY THINK YOU NEED TO GO BACK TO THE BASICS AND LEARN HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TIME!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHA…… YOU DON’T HAVE TIME!
July 5th, 2009 at 10:14 am
This is why you go to Davidson!!
July 14th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
unless universities and colleges completely seperate teaching from research obligations, you shouldn't expect professors too much as educators. that's your first mistake. they are teaching at college or higher levels for reason. because they didn't want to *teach*. at college, the students should be trained and educated enough to be indepent and active learner who is responsible for their own learning. if not, they shouldn't be there. i have to blame the so-called teachers at high schools who spoiled them by giving too much empty complement to inflate their ego.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:15 am
It's not about kissing boo-boos, it's about the fact that upon that grade hinges our future, yes, on that grade, on that test, made by an annoyed professor who doesn't give a crap about what happens to his students. So, you sound like either a. another professor who doesn't give a ****** because you are now bitter from watching your students pass you by to go on to greater things or b. someone who is use to kissing up to teachers and god forbid you will ever have a teacher treat YOU this way because you"ll be the first to go screaming to mommy
July 16th, 2009 at 5:15 am
i agree with you on that we are in the real world and we shouldn't be spoon fed. however when we are paying $250+ per credit hour and you are taking a 5 hour class that is already difficult, there should be office hours or info on Lead sessions for the class. I struggled with Circuits 1 for EEs because there was absolutely available. Bottom line is that we paid for the class and we deserve available help if needed.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:57 am
then they should mention it in their syllabus that they have limited time and point out known help sessions. why should we pay to take the class then fail it because you can't understand the key concepts. I understand that the professors won't hold our hands, but if you are genuine effort to understand the material and are still having problems, then you seek the professor or T.A.. Plus we are PAYING them to teach us.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:20 am
there's a difference between holding student's hands and refusing to help them when they have red the material and put the time in the homework and still don't get it. I don't know what major you are but I know with mine (electrical engineering at University Missouri Rolla) that kind of a mentality of for our math and science classes would cause a huge chunk of our students to fail out. The idea of the office hours is to go in to get something explained better or clarified so you can understand it and apply it your tests and later classes. Chemistry is a tough class and having taught by someone who generally doesn't care and won't even give the luxary of being available for his office hours, which he is required to be anyway. What I'm getting at is that not everyone learns as fast or the same and you can still put in the time and then some and still have problems its not fair to pay over a grand, work your ass off and still have to retake all because your profess or is unavailable for you to ask the key questions that would have made the difference.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:10 am
You are wrong with your statement that community college courses are watered down. I go to Missouri S&T and am taking Calc 3 right now and the the math program at St. Charles Community College is more difficult than Rolla's and is in fact one of the most difficult in the state of Missouri. I understand that you are a busy and there are plenty of professors in Rolla, however they still managed to mention in our syllabus and lectures of available help sessions. I'm all for not holding students hands because we're entering the "Real World" but when you're already re-reading the book and notes over and over again and still not understanding the topic, it's obviously time to ask the professor (via email or office hours) or attend a lead session. Do you inform them of such help sessions or mention it in your syllabus?
I put in atleast 15 hours a week on both physics (which had around 200 students) and circuits and if it weren't for the fact that i could talk to my professors, I would not have passed either class instead of getting an A in Circuits 1 and a B in Physics.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I agree. Mr. s_c should get his extra help. They do have tutoring in most colleges, especially for those who have a learning disability. You should look into it.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Also, I agree that the tuition should be doubled and that they double the number of faculty available for every class. One set of professors would teach the class proper and the other set would teach the same class again later in the day to answer any questions that students have. This way, students carrying a 15 class-hour load could go to class 30 hours per week. And, in order to fully utilize the space, these remedial sessions would run from 4:00 p.m.-midnight. We'd get the eloi to teach the day sessions and the morlocks to teach the night sessions. Extra classes would be held on the weekends so that the really good students could stop by after frat parties (or work) and improve their grade. Everyone would have the opportunity to take exams over and over again until they get 100% on all tests. And then the college president could open his house once a week for indoor marshmallow and weenie roasts where the spouse (or domestic partner) would be able to serve Kool-Aid, and the dean of students would visit each dorm room at night to tuck students into bed and read them "Goodnight, Moon." Yeah, that would be way cool.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I would like my bridges, refineries, chemical plants, power grids, etc. designed and built by slow learners. Oh. I forgot. This is the USA. We already have that. We have to ask ourselves the question, "Is our children learning?"
July 21st, 2009 at 12:38 am
Oh, Rob, ROB! Who cares if little important you got a grant and had a (puff, puff) group of people following him around? The teaching job is too much for you, you idiot. That's why you are bragging about how *busy*you are, and if you're so busy, Rob, why do you have time to answer this post? I thought that grownups were secure enough not to care quite as much as you seem to care about what others think of them. You bully, why are you bashing 17 and 18 year olds? What will happen when these students go out into the world with their degrees? They will find that charmers like you, thank God, are the easy-to-avoid, second rate weirdos of the professional world. Get lost.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Come on… what is he supposed to do? Just wait by the phone for students to call?
There is a great saying:
"Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute emergency on my part."
I have a feeling that those people calling outside office hours are procrastinators that had ample opportunity to connect with the teacher.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 am
It's easy to assume that it's a bunch of lazy kids that want to be coddled through college when you look at the comments here but that is not always the case. That is why I laugh at characters like "Sue". Funnily enough, after sitting in her high horse and shouting down her disapproval of the imbeciles who dare complain about a college professor, she says, "Professor Coleman, I do not know you and I will never take one of your cl***es." If that's not a knee-slapper…
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
He is supposed to have and honor office hours. He never mentioned having office hours. He said that he didn't have time outside of class which is bull. Part of what professors are paid to do is to have and keep office hours.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I am so glad that I don't have to take chemistry. You seem like a world class jerk, just from your "strike back". You have no time for students. I am sure if someone with A.D.D asked something that isn't ….." when is the final?" you tear thier head off and s*** down thier neck. Just because they don't remember something doesn't mean they were not paying attention.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:45 am
wow dude……. i guess your one of those elitist types…. noone can reason with you……. you are smarter than everyone else…. and their is not a single community college professor as smart as u….. well i have a lesson for you……. you are not elite you are the same as a ditch digger and a spongebob fry cook…GET OFF THE HIGH HORSE
August 7th, 2009 at 1:49 am
oh…if your so busy WHY ARE U ON HERE
August 7th, 2009 at 6:00 am
If you want to do research, you really don't have a choice but to "be a professor". Office hours and showing up to class are required, which gives a student plenty of time to get help. Good for him.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:38 am
life is all about the $$ benjamins $$
some dont care about you, just the monthly paycheck
August 14th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Julik,
If your future hinges on that test (it doesn't) how about learning the material, as opposed to cramming? Your future hinges on how well you can learn new material and apply it to the problem at hand, not how many facts you can stuff in your head for a few hours.
**********************************
ADD?
Seriously?
About 1 in 10,000 with that diagnosis actually are.
August 14th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Lora, evidently the hardest subject in the world (your world, that is) must be English.
August 16th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Two words: spell check.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:01 am
This is why the U.S. rates so poorly on a global scale. Teaching just isn't important anymore.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Dr. Coleman,
I really admire the fact that you took the time to respond to nearly everyone's (if not everyone's) remarks. In my view, it shows that you care and that you still have a great deal of passion for what you do. You are right, you guys don't get paid nor are you appreciated nearly enough.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:28 am
I loled. Professor Coleman trying to win by posting as someone else ^^^^
August 21st, 2009 at 7:40 am
"pay closer attention before you make inaccurate and oftentimes embarrassing comments"
Hypocrite! We all are. Thought you point to how a university is run, you provided epic fail with embarrassing inaccurate comments about community college and the student therein.
August 30th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
@WTF, I'd like to see your official statistics for that statement.
I've just spent 15 minutes reading over all the comments on this page and I can say that I'm truly disappointed with the level of immaturity of the professor AND the supposed college students/graduates. We cannot debate over whether CC's are legitimate educational institutions because we are not from the same place. Here in NY CC's are a bit watered down at first but most professors will not hold your hand in the latter stages of earning your degree. This might not be the case in Ohio or in California or in Washington. We can only criticize what we know. Perhaps, Dr. Coleman knows more about CC's in Ohio than someone from California does?
I agree with the fact a lot of learning in college should be independent. This does not mean the professor can simply spew out his knowledge then be absolved from the success of his students. If all learning was to be independent, why attend college in the first place? We are paying for your time, teach us something.
At the same time, I find that many college students will spend hours trying to figure out the easiest way to get that A. I admit, I have done it. But I found that if I really put the time and effort into learning the material and doing all that was expected of me, the results would (99%) always be positive. Effort does count. I don't want to hear any of that "real world" garbage. We are in college because we are not ready for the real world. Do not expect a Freshman to be ready to learn completely independent from his/her professor.
And what of this real world? The real world where a professor can get away with sub-par teaching skills and make tenure? This is the "cutthroat" job market?
Anyway, those are my two cents. None of this is directed towards you Dr. Coleman. Or anybody in particular. I am a 2nd year student at a "competitive" university in NYC.
August 30th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
CCs are legitimate in so far as students take them seriously. They're stepping stones for those who, for whatever reasons, can't get their financial, emotional, or intellectual acts together at the beginning point of college. We're in college because we're not ready for the real world. We're in CC because we're not ready for real college. That's a fact. No judgments here. There are a lot of CC successes in the USA, Richard Carmona being only one (you can Google him).
Effort counts in so far as it gets you to reshape your thinking and improve your ability, even though 100% effort might, in some cases, yield a D grade. Unfortunately, the correlation between effort and performance is not 1.0.
Teaching is mostly an art ; it can't be taught but only developed. You have to begin with some talent, some ability to convey information and a love of selling your knowledge. Unfortunately, I have to agree that many profs are teaching at universities solely for the scholarship and research perqs. I had one prof in grad school who said, "Next semester the administration is throwing me into the pit with the undergrads. They have to do that now and then to keep up the façade." This creep was a shitty grad school teacher and a world-famous, but self-serving scholar. Many great scholars, however, are great teachers as well. Richard Feynman was but one (you can Google him, too).
September 5th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
The problem with these "professors" that have research projects on the side and are required by the university to teach or write papers during the year. They dont want to teach and look at it as imposition on their brilliance. They could care less about the undergraduate students that they teach with the exception of perhaps a chemistry major with potential to work on the professors research project.
If you will notice his comment on not being available is because he has a 500K research project. That is his real interest.
If you dont want to teach then leave the security of the university job and join the rest of us here in the real world working for the companies sponsoring your research projects. You are too gutless to get a real job and leave mommies apron strings.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:52 am
I have an analogy that may explain the importance of partial credit:
You hire an architect to build you a $ 200 K house. After it is finished, you move in. On your first night at your new house, half of it collapses to the ground. The next day, your architect shows up to get paid. You complain about having lost half your home…the architect replies, "ok, since only half the house collapsed, how about if you just pay me for half the contract". Will you?
September 14th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Well, that depends Naima Luianeli. In RO1 institutions, a professors main priority is to bring in money from external sources to do research, and publish and this way hike up the reputation of the university. Thus, a decent professor at an RO1 school should bring in about 1/2 millon bucks in grants each year. University admins really could not give a rats ass about students complains if a professor is kicking ass in his research.
You want teachers devoted to you 24/7? go to a liberal arts college – a tiny one.
September 27th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I respect your opinion. However this professor has the wrong priorities. It goes TEACHER then researcher. Fool
October 4th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
To Professor Colemen:
I am a GA at a state school in Ct and you are totally correct. They expect to be spoon feed and soothe their bruised feeling after taking their exams and quizzes. They email and complain to my primary professor but they forget to mention they come to class unprepared including not purchasing the lab manual needed for lab. So how am I supposed to spin this around so I can keep my position until I graduate grad school and possibly remain as adjunct there. Students at this university email my primary professor because I talk loud and theyt take that as yelling at them. Are students that sensitive because of society? My high school students were not this bad. They at least listened and if I talk loudly because that is just my nature they didn't run to the Principal or Vice-Principal. They all new me and my good nature with them. My students who want to learn, learn and they come back to tell me how thankful they were they had me.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
He is too busy to help his students, but had time to make that video. However, many of college students need to go back to 2nd grade too.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:56 am
actually I would have malpractice insurance and that way I dont become a bum like kirk herbstreet.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I would skip lunch for a half a million dollars of funding.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Hahaha. LOVE this guy.
Everything he says makes sense. If you don't know how to read the fucking syllabus, that''s YOUR problem. And yes, in that case that WOULD be a stupid question.
And I'm sure he answers questions outside of class, just maybe not as many. A lot of professors have research grants they have to fulfill. I wanna see YOU get half a million each year and still tend to everyone's needs.
That's what study groups are for. Get off your ass and go make some friends.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Play that hidden curriculum, Allie.
Just be careful not to smudge your lipstick when you kiss that a ss, ‘k?
December 13th, 2009 at 3:42 am
this is one of the major problems with the education system in America. Students should be getting their education from teachers where their sole job discription is to further the education of their students. I go to a community college in delaware and the students who go through our math department are known to be stronger in math afterwards then students who attend the University of Delaware which is a major college for engineering. The reason we develop stronger math skills is because our professors are actually there to teach us and not to do million dollar research. It is just a shame to know there are university professors out there that do not give a flying f**k about the youth who are going to be running the country when they retire
December 31st, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I don't care if you broadcast the date of the final on TV; when someone asks, answer and don't get so obsessively hung up on the fact that people are gonna ask again and again. The world does not revolve around you sir, and most people are more concerned about the studying part; that last sentence of the class where you mention it in passing is often not even heard. In addition, believe it or not, not everyone in the world has access to the places you mentioned; I know several people who can't afford a computer or even bus fare. Should they flunk just because they're poor?
As for all those little comments on RateMyProfessor.com being entertaining, I am surprised that you have the time to review the website considering the fact that you usually "have trouble finding the time to eat lunch". I'm happy we're so amusing to you; at least someone is enjoying the pain expressed in some of those comments. I, myself, intensely enjoyed the comment on these page describing your teaching style.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:15 pm
You remind me of those doctors in the Victorian age that would prescribe things like leeches and blood-letting to cure yellow fever or infections. Yes, sir, there are many whining ninnies in the world. There are also many doctors who kill people through incompetence, indifference and arrogance, and I will continue to support them because, one day, one of those doctors may be yours.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I had a teacher, some time ago, who would receive awards for her abilities; every year she would receive some award for her prowess. Whilst in her class, she allowed my peers to bully and harass me; I was right in front of her desk and she would let it happen right in front of her eyes. The administration, the parents, and even the students all called her a good teacher. When the administration changed, she never received an award again and was under scrutiny by the new administration; it seems her curriculum was inadequate.
Strange that you would rush to point out other people who agree that you're a good teacher instead of objectively examining the claims of students. Also interesting is that you would print your current resume on the bottom of your rant; are you THAT concerned with appearances; do you feel that you are entitled to better treatment because you are so accomplished in your field? I feel sorry that you are this upset by other people's comments, but even more sorry for the students who have to tolerate this behavior from someone as "accomplished" as you.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I personally know a professor who taught at Harvard and is now doing research at Columbia. He doesn't teach – just does research. No one told him he had to teach, and I'm sure no one said that to Professor Coleman either. If he wasn't there, maybe those students would get the help of a professor who had more time to devote to those students and, therefore, do a better job.
The way you type reflects your character: impatient, foolish, poorly thought out, dismissive, and void of the attributes of an intelligent human being.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:47 pm
That, of course, makes the assumption that he has actually taught anything. It is wonderful that Professor Coleman has advocates for his defense, but I have to wonder what your motives are.
As for "growing up", I think you need more of it. It is not very mature to tell someone they should stop whining; what you should be doing is wondering why they're whining in the first place. There are many reasons: childish student, lazy student, hard material, incompetent professor, etc. Telling someone what they should do does not make you a grown up. It just identifies you as a person who tells people what to do.
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:23 am
If I remember correctly he did say he couldn't be avalible 24 hours a day to answer question which otherwise means that he is avalible and does help people sometimes. Besides all that he is a professor and all they are payed to do is lecture really its rather amazing that any professor have time for there students because there usually doing research of some kind. From my understanding professors lecture, TAs do everything else. If you need help that much go to your TA or hire a tutor, no ones going to hold your hand.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:30 am
Funny he finds himself with lack of time in the lunch department yet miraculously finds it when he wants to read AND comment on what his former students think of him as well as his colleagues. From what I can see in the video, I would never want a man as seemingly arrogant as him teaching me organic. Perhaps I am wrong, but I'd rather just read the book.