The interwebs are abuzz with a story about Professor Irwin Horowitz, a teacher at Texas A&M Gavelston who sent a scathing email to one of his classes informing them that they would all be failing his strategic management class. The email form Horowitz contained the following statement:
None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character. It is thus for these reasons why I am officially walking away from this course. 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 claimed that he had witnessed multiple counts of cheating and had derogatory slurs yelled at him in class. However unprofessional the behavior of the students had in class, it is simply despicable that a teacher, especially in the field of higher education, would simply give up on a class, especially on those in the class who have a thirst and desire to learn. Horowitz even had the nerve to tell the administration that the students were “[their] problem now” and that he refused to further teach the course.
Horowitz says that this type of behavior has been occurring all semester yet never reported any incident of academic indecency or inappropriate behavior to the administration before sending his email failing the entire class. Horowitz made a bad decision in allowing the problem to persist instead of dealing with it when it first arose. There was no way for the administration to magically know that this class was an issue without Horowitz, or possibly another student, bringing it to their attention.
Fortunately, after the problem came to their attention the administration of the university stated that a student who was passing academically would not receive a failing grade and that a full investigation of Horowitz’s claim would be put in place. This is the action that should have been taken in the beginning of the semester with Horowitz spearheading the effort to create academic honesty and civility in his classroom. A students desire to learn should never be discouraged due to group punishment as Horowitz did by attempting to fail everyone in the class.
This exemplifies why we need to focus on putting teacher’s who have a passion for teaching and for helping those to learn who want to in front of our students. If the teacher has no desire to be in front of his or her class then the students will have no desire to be there as well. This is not to say that Horowitz had no desire to aid his students in the beginning of the semester, but obviously had that desire worn down by the subset of disruptive students. It’s clear that Horowitz reached his breaking point, but it seems like he has to take some of the blame for this occurrence due to his inaction in the early stages of the course.
EduNation Revolution 
Wow, this is pretty shocking behavior for a professor. It seems like there is no way every single student in the class was disrespectful and unethical, so to implicate the entire class as a group is simply unfair. Students deserve evaluation on an individual basis. If one student yelled a derogatory slur, or another cheated on a test, he or she should be held responsible by the school administration. It is not that Horowitz’s concerns about the class were unwarranted, but his way of going about it was unfair to the students who really did care about the class. Hopefully Texas A&M will hold Horowitz accountable for his impulsive behavior, the bad students accountable for their behavior, and ensure the good students receive proper treatment and education.
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My thoughts on this incident go back and forth. On one hand, his obligation and profession is teaching young minds and helping them achieve their goals, no matter their susceptibility. On the other, if the class really was as obscene as he claims, not much learning would be done anyway. In no circumstance should he have the right to fail every single student in the class, especially because there were a ‘few’ students doing well, according to Horowitz. Some students need that credit to complete major requirements for graduation, which is a scary (and expensive) thought in itself. Very selfish and immature move, but what a way to go out. Wish I could’ve been in that class for a day.
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I am conflicted on his response. Distracting and disrespectful students really detract from learning, especially in college where the learning environment is somewhat less personal. Group punishment on the other hand is highly discouraging as a solution. Not all of the students deserved this and the professor’s lack of initiative seems odd. I do not know why he did not even attempt to contact any administrators about the issue or attempt any other disciplinary action in advance. In failing these students at the end of the semester, it fails to teach the students anything. He should have taken pre-emptive action instead.
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I seriously can’t believe that a teacher can go to such an extent as to fail all the students in his class and give up. His use of words like “disgusted” and phrases like “do not in any way embody the honor that this university holds” are very strong and, in my opinion, exaggerated. I do not disregard the possibility that a couple of students might have not deserved to pass, but for certain there were students that did. If the issue was as serious and terrible as he said, I don’t think he could have lasted so long without complaining to administration. He didn’t have anything to prove such misbehavior due to his lack of reporting any misbehavior; therefore I think this makes Horowitz’s point of view very suspicious. I am very interested in hearing the results of such investigation.
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I will definitely followup on this story because I have never heard of anyone, especially not a college professor, failing their entire class via e-mail. Luckily with modern technology, I am sure that the administrators will be able to access videos of lecture and gather witness reports to try to piece together what drove him to this point.
Students can be very disrespectful, though at the higher education level, the worst I have seen is not paying attention or falling asleep. His accusations about academic integrity are interesting, because I doubt every student was cheating. Furthermore, I have been thinking recently that what some uptight teachers consider “cheating” in the real world is dubbed collaboration. Why are we so often focused on “doing our own work”, and idea engrained in us since elementary school, when we in fact will be working in groups the rest of our lives.
What do you think about the cheating/collaborating distinction?
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Professor Horowitz’s case makes me wonder if this instance is touching on a deeper problem within university institutions. My first question to ask would be, what is Texas A&M Gavelston’s hiring process for professors? From my experience in the College of Arts & Sciences at my own university, the majority of the professors are hired on the basis of their own merit. Therefore, the hiring process focuses on their own research and their success within the field. This is a very toxic approach, as it de-emphasizes the practical need to understand proper teaching methods. When a hiring process is more heavily weighted on the teacher’s merit rather than their experience helping students succeed within the classroom, I can imagine that it will create a very professor-centered learning environment. A professor’s role should be to pursue all means to facilitate their students’ capacity to learn the material. I worry that a distracted hiring process may hinder the development of quality teachers.
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I agree with the above comment. Unfortunately at the end of the day, universities, especially private ones, are like any corporation. They target prospective consumer (students) with hopes for raising revenue and staying competitive. Thus most of what they do, which is supposed to cater to current consumers is in fact a marketing campaign mounted in the interest of future profits. In hiring teachers, they seek to improve their brand. Thus they hire based on accomplishments and how prolific the teacher looks on paper—as advertisements for the university—not based on their ability to engage students intellectually and relate with them—as educators. Students are then coerced into applying to the universities with the best “ratings” with the most famous people teaching, not the best teachers teaching. The issue of universities acting like greedy private sector institutions is pervasive and needs to be addressed, or our students will no longer be the most well-educated and will ultimately grow up to propagate the cycle, leading to the decline of American education, and prestige worldwide.
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