Have you ever been in a classroom where your teacher simply did not care about you?
While my hope is that you have been positively impacted by every professor at Virginia Tech, in reality, it is evident that this is not the case. The tenure process at Tech gives professors academic freedom; simply stated, some professors do not have incentives to improve the learning environment inside of a classroom. I believe we, as students, deserve more.
If you are as fortunate as I have been, you might have had one or two professors, like Steve Skripak, who go beyond the call of duty for the welfare of his students. Here is the exact e-mail that I received from professor Skripak, associate dean of graduate programs for the Pamplin College of Business and my professor for an upper-level finance course, which is built on the framework and mission to apply successful techniques in the “real world.”
“Good morning folks,
This morning, it occurred to me that we are halfway through the course, and that I have yet to hear any feedback from anyone about ways I might improve it. Obviously, I am hoping that the class is proving to be a worthwhile use of your time, and if that’s why I’ve heard no input, that’s fine. But I do want to remind you that it’s student feedback that will help me deliver a course that is useful to all of you, so if any mid-semester adjustments are in order, please do let me know. We have some interesting topics coming up like case interviewing, formulating effective interview questions, and negotiating job offers, so I hope the best is still to come.
See you in class later today. By the way, any input that you’d like to offer anonymously can be slipped under the door to the MBA office after hours. I promise we don’t have any surveillance cameras!
Steve”
This is what professors should be doing all the time — asking for feedback from students about ways they can make their experience better. Not only does this show students how approachable they are, but it adds to their learning experience. Classrooms should be more focused on building a community, one built on the framework of accountability and actively caring.
As students, we need to appreciate and recognize those teachers who go above the status quo and help those who do not. We all complain every day about those teachers who do not meet our expectations and yet we don’t offer them feedback to improve.
However, teachers should want their students to have the optimal learning experience while they are at Tech.
Although we all appreciate those professors who go beyond the call of duty, have you ever told them that you appreciate their effort? By having the courage to voice your suggestions and appreciation, you can define your experience and the experience for your professors. Other professors will hopefully want to be recognized, so they will follow suit. Seeing that you can improve the school and make a professor’s day with a simple thank you, the question remains, will you take the time?
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Don't blame the tenure process. My experience has been that it is the individual professor, regardless of tenure status. And as one who has been in many meetings and on committees, etc. with faculty members, there are a good many here who care very much about the students and the education they receive. You might be pleasantly surprised.
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Most (not all) professors that I've had of the lower level Engineering courses simply don't care nor will ever care about improving how they teach. They are there most of the time to do research related tasks and teaching class is merely a side requirement for them. There for they do the bare minimum to get by and teach dull poorly organized lectures that I could have gotten off wikipedia and taught myself.
The burden is placed on the students who have to put every effort to even get a C sometimes. It's a shame and hope it improves someday. I came to tech thinking it's rankings reflected educational quality but it only reflects research funds.
This phenomenon I have only witnessed in the 1000,2000, and maybe 3000 Engineering courses especially but could be elsewhere as well. It's a shame.
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cannot agree more. I know of not just lower level engineering classes. But even higher level engineering classes--that feels like the professor is just trying to fail the whole class. A professor that doesn't care about the student, makes ridiculous hard tests, and disrespects the students when he/she speaks up and tries to ask questions.
Professors like these should be removed and penalized for their bad teachings. These teachers foster on making life as difficult as possible for the students and suck life out of them in general. How is this 'education'?
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I am in the same boat and unfortunately here engineering professors are judged by the output of their research, not the output of passing students. The higher level administration in Engineering or Education in general at tech is as much to blame as the professors themselves who don't care about teaching but are required to do it.
It'd be different if this was cheap or free education but it's NOT. I contemplated switching schools after suffering my first 2 years here after originally coming to tech because it's SUPPOSED prestigious engineering school but I guess it's just research not education quality.
Even MIT has better education quality on top of their research reputation, trust me I've taken their FREE online video courses to supplement my education here which shouldn't be needed and some of that is even better than what I get in classrooms here.
On our part as students, we need to really really thank those good professors we do get here and make sure it is known we appreciate their efforts in the classroom. Not all professors in engineering are terrible but a lot are.
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Just remember that only 35% of a professor's evaluation is based on teaching, while something like 60% is based on research. I agree that professors should "care" about their students and the classroom environment the professors provide, but when the evaluation system values research more than teaching, this is exactly the environment you're going to get.
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I still don't think it would take or cost much for the university to develop better education and classroom quality initiatives. I've had one or two good professors that were actually very interactive and it was hard to fall asleep or loose attention because of the interaction and interesting lectures they put on. However 90% of my other engineering professors have a hard time speaking English or are just plain boring and evidently don't want to be there. When it gets to the point where I'm overly supplementing much of my education here via youtube lectures or wikipedia, something's not right.
If tech could just require professors to take like a 30 or 40 hour course over like say 2 semesters of how to be a good teacher overall that may help or at least show the university is trying to improve.
I dunno, I just know it generally sucks and it isn't worth what I'm paying for. I guess it's just the degree that counts in the end.
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I think the route to go in starting to improve would first for every professor to send out a survey to the students and ask the students what they want of them, how are they doing? What can they do better? How are the exams? Do they reflect what they have been taught accurately? Can the exams be better written? The list goes on.
Then the professors or whoever is higher up should take what most students are requesting into consideration. Also even though we upgraded to scholar, I think there could be a lot more potential in online interaction in the classroom, example video lectures or video notes ect.
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