MORE ECLECTIC STORIES I DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR
by
Herbert Jack Rotfeld
Professor of Marketing
Auburn University, Alabama
Rotfeld@auburn.edu

There are too many stories I wish I never heard. All are true, or so I was told, but names are changed so more people can feel guilty....

Cynthia was told that she failed her comprehensive doctoral exams because she showed too much originality and analysis in her written answers. She was supposed to just repeat what she was told in her classes....

At Whybother University, the department faculty discussed possible assignments for the Spring capstone strategy course. For the first half of the semester, the student groups worked on a campaign for a national competition, with the best team refining their work to later represent the school at the regional eliminations. As the faculty debated assignments for the other seven teams who did not win the intra-school competition, Jill sarcastically said that the students could be told that the course was over for them and that they were done for the semester after the eight weeks. To her surprise, the dean later sent a note that thanked Jill for her suggestion and he implemented it....

Jenni told her favorite teacher why so many of her classmates disliked the course. "They have a problem with you because you're different. You want them to think."....

As an associate editor for the academic journal, Frank quickly spotted an error in the editor's selection of Wat Meaworry as one of a manuscript's referees: the senior author of the paper was at Professor Meaworry's school and an acknowledgement note on the cover page thanked him for comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. Calling the editor to point out the error and suggest alternate reviewers, Frank was told that Meaworry had already returned his review and checked the box on the form indicating that he did not recognize the paper or know the authors....

The students' teacher evaluations had many complaints about the pop quizzes. In one typical statement, "The quizzes force me to do all of the readings for each class and that takes up too much time. We have other things to do with our lives besides study." Student complaints like these are heard by many faculty, but in this case the department chair focuses on this to draw a conclusion of the faculty member was doing a bad job as a teacher....

Department chair Darby Manservant faced a difficult problem with an only five percent available for raises plus an administrative directive that salaries be brought more in line as compared to faculty at other schools who possess equal rank and seniority. Noting that some senior faculty had doctorates in areas other than marketing, Manservant came up with the novel solution to make their equity comparisons to faculty in lower-paid fields of their degrees such as communications, psychology, education or economics. This allowed conclusions that these salaries were "equitable" even though thousands of dollars lower than some junior members of the department. And it was just coincidence that some of these junior faculty were co-researchers with the chair who gave them 15 percent raises that year....

Even though she was only a doctoral student, Ronya was a very prolific researcher, with articles submitted to many conferences and journals. And while her advisor, Kar Edit Grabbit, had not done any work on these papers other than retype the title page, he was a co-author on every one. Ronya "allowed" this because Grabbit told her that no one would consider a paper that did not have a full-time faculty member as co-author. Having no basis to know any different, she believed him. And when one paper was accepted at a major journal, Grabbit told Ronya he was taking her name off since she wasn't ready for such visibility....

A comment from the students' teacher evaluations: "I am not sure how much I've learned because I do not know any of my [final] grades yet."...

Of the many faculty now wed to graduates of their department's programs, it is possible (but not probable) they ran into each other after the class ended and then started dating, or met after the student had graduated. It is questionable but almost acceptable if they started dating when the student was enrolled in the program but not taking classes taught by that faculty member. Consensual or not, the line gets crossed when faculty date students from current class rolls. And no one would find it acceptable to hear of a faculty member who enrolls a lover in independent study courses or supervises the thesis. Unfortunately, the worse the story, the more likely we are to hear it....

Heather told her mother that her professors are getting so bad about caring that some of them hardly expect students to turn in assignments and still pass them when they don't. Her teachers are amazed when she comes in to ask questions and find out about Internet exercises listed in the back of some textbooks. After all, she's asking about something that won't be on the exam....

Teaching a capstone course and seeing several weeks of limited progress from his students' efforts, Terry asked them to write a short paper stating what they wanted to get from the class, what they were willing to do to get it and what they needed from the teacher to get there. The first paragraph of one student's paper bluntly said: "Since I am paying $540 for this class, and not you, I think I should have the right to do whatever I choose. I want an A [and] I think that by coming to every single class on time and staying until it is over, talking in class and completing all of the assigned required work, should earn me an A."...

There are more stories, but I wish I didn't even know these.