Professor Fired For Trashing Colleagues On Professor Ratings Site
from the how-nice dept
Yesterday, we posted about the British politician who was caught emailing himself to increase his own responsiveness rating. However, if you can't make yourself look better by pretending to be someone else online, why not make others look worse? In the comments to that post, someone noted that there are many professors who go to the site RateMyProfessors.com and pretend to be students to boost their own ratings. We've written about how freaked out some professors are by the site. It appears one professor didn't just boost his own scores. He signed up, pretending to be a student, and gave bad ratings to a bunch of other professors he didn't like -- specifically ones who didn't agree with his political viewpoint. This wasn't a new professor either, but someone who had been on the faculty for over thirty years -- and who has now been fired for the little stunt. As for how he got caught? Turns out he brilliantly posted the negative reviews from his own office, making it easy to track him down. Of course, rather than using the same excuse as the UK politician (that he was just showing problems with the system), this professor also refused to help with the investigation and, when finally caught, blamed everyone else for the amount of stress they put on him, which he claims was why he did this.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Excellent Example
And we wonder why our young aren't doing so hot in school.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
umm.. they tracked him by IP address. Empty your cache all you like, techdirt.com still knows what IP you posted _your_ comment from.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
Just saying! I realize it goes against the grain, and that whole maturity thing is just a bunch of hooey, I know, but what the hell... let's give it a shot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Excellent Example
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
I think what the guy meant by saying our children aren't doing well was because of behavior like this, not specifically this guy teching everyone. I agree most techers today are no more mature than the kids they teach. I went to a parent conference for my nephew, his parents where out of town and i was watching the rugrat, the teacher actually complained because my nephew correted his grammar and pronounciation in class. The kicker here is my nephew is the 2nd grade! So why is this teacher complaining to me instead of bettering himself to teach our children correctly? If the teacher pronounces a word wrong of coyrse a bunch of second graders are going to learn the wrong prononciation. I told the guy he should brush up on his english skills and if he liked I could arrange a time for my nephew to tutor him. He said it wasn't funny and i said I wasn't joking. My nephew was moved out of his class shortly after. This is just one example of the many horror stories I hear about teachers, it's sad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
-Jerry
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why fire the guy...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Why fire the guy...
Wow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Its the phone & cable companies fault
The entire digital media service community seems to get ahead by bad-mouthing each other, it should work for professors too, right?
Seems a little childish, especially since it was "other professors he didn't like"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hey! Try being a student who is STALKED ONLINE by
Someone over there in the administration was apparently tracking website traffic and told a bunch of classmates as well as all the adjuncts who were teaching what message forums people posted social and political opinions on outside of school (this wasn't even a school computer, as I live off campus).
Why were they so interested? Ultra left-wing school, and I am a moderate (socially libertarian) Republican rather than a liberal. Also, the school is linked to a church called United Church of Christ, and the UCC members sit on the board of Advocate Healthcare system which is being sued over some price-gouging of the uninsured patients allegations. The lawsuit is moving forward on all counts, and since I had mentioned the price-gouging/charity care case around other people, I think they started getting really interested in stalking me around online. Just a theory, but it seemed that way, because one adjunct kept mentioning lawyers in class (how unusually coincidental).
Then, when a student said she was interested in law, the adjunct instructor goes "It's a crowded field." I mean, don't ENCOURAGE your students to aim high, or anything, right? What an imbecile this man was.
So yes. I agree that professors and adjuncts can be downright nuts if not creepy and unprofessional.
They stalk their own students around online, they post their own reviews, and for even more info, see this website...
http://www.thefire.org
In America, we are dealing with some truly crazy professors around here. Must be from inhaling too much red ink, or something.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]