Finals are fast approaching here at Boston University, and you know what that means: we are all getting way less than our recommended eight hours of sleep, and Mugar Memorial Library is packed to the brim with students terrified of failing.
But one professor at Texas A&M Galveston University made every student’s nightmare come true when he committed the unthinkable: he failed every single student in his business class.
Professor Ivan Horowitz informed the students in his Strategic Management class of their punishment in a rather strongly worded email. He went over their list of transgressions, which included cheating and lying and telling the professor “to ‘chill out,’ ‘get out of my space,’ ‘go back and teach’ … listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself… been caught between fights between students,” among other allegedly reprehensible acts.
“None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass or graduate to become an Aggie … I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level … I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade,” Horowitz wrote in an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed.
Horowitz wrote an email to senior administrators to inform them of what he’d done and to warn them that the students would probably complain. He wrote that the students are “your problem now.”
A spokesman for Texas A&M told Inside Higher Ed via email that “all accusations made by the professor about the students’ behavior in class are also being investigated and disciplinary action will be taken” against any students found to be actually offending.
“No student who passes the class academically will be failed. That is the only right thing to do,” the spokesman said.
Possibly the biggest problem? Students need the class to graduate, and a failing grade will obviously spell trouble. However, in an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Horowitz said that the students in the class do not deserve to graduate in the business field based on their academic and behavioral performance in the class.
Horowitz said there were only a few students who actually did perform well academically and behaviorally. He said he asked the university if he could continue to teach only those students, but was shut down. He felt that failing everyone was his only option.
He claims that if the university changes the grades he assigned, they would be violating his academic freedom. He also said that before this, the only times he has given an F are in instances of cheating.
While behavioral issues are not necessarily out of the question when considering grading criteria, and obviously, he is the only one who truly knows how badly the class misbehaved, this guy just doesn’t sound rational. To fail an entire class, even if the majority were poorly behaved, is a bit drastic.
Factoring behavioral issues into a final grade is something that needs to be done more carefully than making blanket decisions like this. Something that would work better is putting it on the syllabus so that people know in advance — if a student is late to class this many times, they get this many points deducted from their grade. Specific rules that make sense are fairer than “you all fail because I say so.”
Mouthing off to the degree that Horowitz claimed it happened, however, is another story. But still, it should be evaluated and handled case-by-case. Cursing in a teacher’s face and cheating are offenses worthy of serious punishment. It’s a matter of human decency and maturity.
Even if the class actually was as poorly behaved as Horowitz says, blindly agreeing with his decision to fail all of them wouldn’t be giving the students a chance. If 29 of 30 of them were poorly behaved but one student was completely fine and is still being punished to this degree, that’s not fair to the kid who actually wanted to learn. Horowitz said it himself: there were a few students who were deserving of a passing grade. Failing those students is unethical and unfair.
There has to be some kind of other punishment that can be awarded, rather than jeopardizing these students’ futures so drastically. These are seniors in an upper-level class, and as of right now, they aren’t graduating, something they only just now found out. It’s not the professor’s job to ensure he has a class full of angels, but it is his job to do something about this ahead of time rather than waiting until the end of the semester.
