Complaining about a prof. when he heads the department*UPDATE*

[Cindy B]

Yes, the title says it all. My professor STINKS this semester. It takes him 5 days to email a student, his course is full of grammatical and spelling errors., and some of the information on the course is inaccessible! He has the wrong dates on assignments, and his directions are unclear.

Just yesterday, I got an assignment graded. He said I didn't offer an opinion, and I did! I sent the assignment back to him with my opinion BOLDED! I wonder how long it is going to hear back from him

Since this is an online course at my school, I willl never meet this individual.

I want to complain about him, but since he is the head of the department what do I do? We submit our evaluations of the course electronically to him (as an assignment), so I don't want to blast him if he can see it. (That can be tricky)

What would you all suggest to do?


*****************UPDATE*******************


Well, I guess the call to the dean helped.

He did read the assignment and responded (on the same day, what a shocker!) and he actually apologized. He did say that he reposted the grade, but I haven't seen it yet. (He may have posted the grade, but it hasn't made it to the website yet.)

 

[izzy]

I don't know how your University is set up, but where I work, they would probably suggest that the student go meet face-to-face with the professor first (rather than using e-mail), if that's not satisfactory then go to the Dean, and then the Provost.

 

[Cindy B]

Well, its an online course, so meeting him is not an option. They don't encourage that (for some strange reason)

I may have to go to the dean, of his department.

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Atleast with my school, the evaluations we did for the courses were not supose to get back to the professor until half way through the semester after when you took the course. I know it is an online course (I took many of them) but I also don't think the evaluation will have your name on it. I would be honest in your evaluation and tell all about how he was this semester. Now with tenure professors it is nearly impossible to get them to change their ways.

 

[NMAmy]

I work at a community college and this is what I would do: call and find out who the Dean is. Make an appointment to see him or her. Take documentation (print out copies of online lectures showing errors, the paper that was in question, make a list of course information that was inaccessible and explain why--anything that you see as a problem) and discuss it CALMLY with the Dean. Administrators do like to know if there is a problem with an instructor even if he is the head of his department.

Evaluations should be anonymous even if you send it electronically. Do you complete the eval online or are you attaching it to an email? If it's online, it should NOT have any identifying information. Evaluations are there to help instructors structure their classes better--not to punish students who disagree with their teaching style.

Best of luck to you. I know what a difficult situation this can be.

 

[tar heel]

How big is your school? He may not even be doing the grading/correspondence -- a TA may be in charge.

 

[CBRorBust]

Go to the Dean and then blast him on pickaprof.com!

 

[Cindy B]

Well, I did leave a message with the dean in regards to him.

I will print out all the errors and send them out as well.

(Thanks fro that info, that is very helpful!)