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 A fellow chemistry professor at NYU argued that students who couldn’t pass Jones’ class probably shouldn’t be allowed to become doctors. “Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level, I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients,” he said.

I echo these articles takes this here, here, here, here, here

In particular I agree with these exerts:

“One of the students complained that the grades did not reflect the time and effort they put in.

That perspective misses the point. In life you are graded for results rather than effort. The students better understand that pretty soon.”

“I’m a college professor and echo Dr. Jones’s observations about students having increased difficulties with concentration the past decade or so, beginning with the advent of smartphones (nothing wrong with being distracted in public with smartphones but I still agree here)and the ubiquity of social media. And although, in my experience, students are doing better mentally this year, they are still struggling in the wake of the pandemic.

From this article, Dr. Jones sounds like a brilliant, deeply dedicated (still teaching at age 84!), if demanding professor. I would, however, amend Marc Walters’ statement to say that the university would “extend a gentle but firm hand to the customers and those who pay the tuition bills.” That’s really what we’re talking about: pleasing customers, getting good reviews, maintaining high U.S. News rankings, etc.

I, for one, hope I don’t receive medical care from a doctor who couldn’t pass a tough undergraduate organic chemistry course”

“ I taught a language that is difficult for English speakers to learn.

One year, the first test of the second semester came back with scores in an upside-down bell curve. The students either wrote a nearly perfect exam or missed almost everything. Very few were in the middle.

I asked the “A” students each to write an anonymous paragraph about how they had studied for the test. I collected these paragraphs and compiled them into a single handout.

When the class saw the handout, some of the students who had done poorly said things like, “But that’s a lot of work!” Exactly.

Teaching mostly at small colleges that prided themselves on giving students individual attention, I had generous office hours and offered review sessions before the finals. I put certain aspects of the course on a self-paced basis.

Guess who showed up for the office hours and review sessions. The students who were already doing well. Guess who zoomed through the self-paced part of the course. The students who were already doing well.

Doing poorly in a class should be a reason not to go into certain fields. A student who can’t hack organic chemistry does not belong in medical school. A student who can’t hack calculus shouldn’t go into engineering. These courses should not be simplified for their sake.”

Alternatively, we could just make sure that everyone gets a good grade so no one has their feelings hurt. But good luck relying on one of those doctors or engineers.

From NYU News “ Maitland Jones — an NYU organic chemistry professor whose contract was terminated after his students petitioned against his teaching practices — made headlines this week, appearing on the front page of The New York Times on Tuesday. Since the story broke, many have placed the blame for his sudden dismissal on the students who created the petition, criticizing them for not stepping up to the challenge of a notoriously difficult university class. Since the story broke, many have placed the blame for his sudden dismissal on the students who created the petition, criticizing them for not stepping up to the challenge of a notoriously difficult university class.

Several NYU faculty members, however, believe that this anger against students is displaced. Instead, they blame the university’s administration for the precarious nature of their contracted, non-tenured positions.

Jones was a contracted faculty member with NYU and had taught at the university for 15 years. When his students started a petition that criticized him for concealing class averages, eliminating access to online lectures and talking down to students in his classes, the dean for science at the university’s College of Arts and Science ended the professor’s contract suddenly, just before the fall 2022 semester began.

“What happened to Maitland Jones is the thing that has made me the most frightened I have ever been as an NYU professor,” said Jacob Remes, a clinical associate professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and an organizer with CFU-UAW Local 7902, the yet-unrecognized union of contracted faculty members at NYU. “What it tells me is, I can be fired. Not when my colleagues want to fire me, not even when my students want to fire me, but when a dean decides that I am more trouble than I am worth.”

CFU-UAW consists of more than 700 contracted faculty members, all of whom are employed temporarily by the university and do not qualify for tenure. The union has not been formally recognized by NYU, so members cannot participate in collective bargaining with the university. Therefore, the university can alter their terms of employment, including salaries and benefits, without union consent or approval.

Remes said that the situation is a stark reminder that the jobs of contracted faculty come with few guarantees. He added that the lack of employment protections that led to Jones’ termination is a perfect example of what has led NYU’s contracted faculty members to unionize. However, he expressed full support for the students who voiced their frustrations with the professor and his class.

“My issue is 100% with the administration and the way they handled it,” Remes said, “Students should feel free to organize and be activists for their needs and their educational experiences.”

Rebecca Karl — the president of NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and a tenured professor in the history department — agreed that the university was in the wrong for dismissing Jones without due process. She called upon the university to acknowledge CFU-UAW as an organization, and said that a formal recognition would be beneficial to both faculty and students.

“A vast majority of the hugely growing numbers of contract faculty on our campus are staffed by people who live from paycheck to paycheck and who have very hard time making ends meet,” Karl said. “Making them afraid for their jobs and summary dismissal without due process is contemptible for a world class university such as the one that NYU claims to be.”

Karl also took issue with the New York Times article for omitting the fact that contracted faculty at NYU have been attempting to unionize, saying that the article neglected the nuance of the situation. 

Elisabeth Fay, another CFU-UAW organizer who teaches in the College of Arts & Science, said that Jones’ dismissal was reminiscent of another incident last year which made her fear for the stability of contracted professors at NYU.

In December of 2021, administrators of NYU’s School of Professional Studies abruptly shut down the school’s Comprehensive English Program, which catered to international students learning English as a second language. All but one of the 12 full time faculty members employed by the institute were told that they would be let go after their contracts expired in August of 2022. More than 50 adjunct faculty members were also either transferred to different departments or terminated as a result of the closure. 

Fay emphasized that incidents like the closure of the Comprehensive English Program and Jones’ termination highlight the role of the university in perpetuating job insecurity for contracted workers. She said placing the blame on students was “misguided,” and emphasized that the students who formed the petition did not call for Jones’ dismissal in the first place.

“Every time something like that happens, we are reminded of how little job security we have,” Fay said. “Our students are not the reason that our jobs are insecure. The NYU administration is the reason why our jobs are insecure. Anything that I can do to refocus attention on that would make me happy.”

NYU spokesperson John Beckman told the Times that Jones had received the worst course evaluations across all of the university’s undergraduate science departments. He also wrote that Jones “did not rise to the standards we require from our teaching faculty,” pointing to many student complaints.

“At this moment, it’s really beneficial for the NYU administration to have all of these stories focusing on entitled Gen-Z students making it impossible for faculty to do their jobs,” Fay said. “That’s not a picture of students that I recognize, but it’s one that serves the NYU administration very well right now. They would much rather be talking about undergraduate study habits than the job security of faculty.”

Online forums:

“ Someone earlier in the week posted "leaked emails" of questionable authenticity. The images themselves seem to have been deleted now, but if they were authentic they were in fact incredibly condescending, rude, and unprofessional. However, if they were real, I doubt they'd only have appeared in a deleted imgur album given how much attention this story has received, so I'm reluctant to put much stock in them until I see more evidence.

That said, from what I understand, they terminated his contract before the beginning of a new semester. He was an adjunct in this case. I get that he was a super freaking accomplished adjunct, but how many other adjuncts will lose their contract on the basis of student complaints? Tons. Surprise, if you give up a tenured position, you no longer get the benefits of being tenured. Don't like that you can get "fired" for this? Good, then quit making it about you and make it about the countless adjuncts and junior faculty that have been suffering from this lack of security in their position for years.

I think that many people are quick to want to support him because we too see many students as being more entitled, more whiny, less resilient, etc. (whether or not this is actually the case vs. if it's just biased perceptions I am not certain) than they were "back in my day." And we see this as something we all see and hate: Admins bending to the will of students customers and letting education suffer.

But some of his past students have spoken on the record and state he was just not a very effective educator compared to others teaching similar subjects.

I wasn't in any of his classes, I didn't see any of his (verified) emails. But I am definitely reluctant to fall in with the common defense of Dr. Jones, because given what I've seen thus far from all the discussion on /r/professors and the few news reports I read, I can easily see this being an out-of-touch academic on his high horse adjusting to life without tenure where he's actually being held responsible for his teaching abilities (which does include affability student rapport to at least a small degree, if your students are afraid to ask you a question you are a bad teacher). A literal meme.

(And yeah, as someone alluded to, this comes up every few hours on the professors sub so there's lots there to read if you're interested.)

“A number of students have also spoken on the record that he was one of the best, most supportive and most transformative teachers they've had. The truth is, students are often a bad judge of what effective teaching / pedagogy is: most associate effective teaching with not being challenged.

That said, "rigor" can absolutely be toxic, and a lot of the claimed behaviors (i.e., shaming students in class and emails) have no place in the academy, in my opinion.

But that doesn't mean he was "too old to be teaching" or an ineffective teacher. It means he was an asshole who had no business interacting with students. We need to be able to separate the two.

A number of students have also spoken on the record that he was one of the best, most supportive and most transformative teachers they've had. The truth is, students are often a bad judge of what effective teaching / pedagogy is: most associate effective teaching with not being challenged.

I think this is an interesting point and one that I've thought about a fair amount in light of this NYU story. I'm not sure if it's something specific about OChem, but my own experiences when I took it years ago keep coming to mind with this story. The professor I was taking it from was an exceptionally good teacher who held his students to high standards and didn't compromise his learning objectives to make things easier, instead expecting the students to rise up to meet the challenge.

As stated, I think he was an exceptional teacher and pushed/challenged me in a wonderful way. But I also know that is not the experience every student had who sat in that lecture hall with me. A challenge that drives and motivates students to reach their true potential may be the same challenge that crushes another student because they needed a different pedagogical approach and they struggled with his no-mercy style.

I suppose I'm just echoing the sentiment, then, that we can't put too much stock in a student's evaluation of an instructor's ability to teach, though coming to that conclusion from the other direction of not taking people's positive experiences as signs they were a good instructor.