There is a growing debate over the firing of an NYU chemistry professor, who said the difficulty of his class ultimately led to his dismissal.
Dr. Maitland Jones Jr. was fired by the university earlier in 2022. Jones said he was let go after students complained to the school that his organic chemistry class was too hard.
More than 80 of his 350 students signed a petition claiming Jones was responsible for their failing grades. On Tuesday, NYU released a statement saying in part that there were multiple student complaints about his dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and lack of transparency about grading.
"In short he was hired to teach, and wasn't successful," a spokesperson said, adding that there were "troubling indicators" regarding his teaching, including a high rate of withdrawals.
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The course evaluation scores for Jones, who the school said was hired for a year-long appointment to specifically teach organic chemistry, were "by far the worst not only among members of the Chemistry Department but among all the University's undergraduate science courses."
When Jones learned that he would not be returning, he stopped grading his current students' work entirely, according to the school.
But supporters of the professor said his firing is unfair.
The spokesperson said "NYU disagrees with and is disappointed by the way the matter with Professor Jones has been characterized." That comment may be in reference to an article in the New York Times in which colleagues and even other students defended Jones and his teaching methods, saying those who signed the petition were upset about their grades.
The petition did not call for Jones to be terminated, according to the Times.
NBC New York reached out to the professor for a response, but Maitland was not immediately available for comment.
PoliteCanadian2 on October 5th, 2022 at 22:12 UTC »
My university had a shit Comp Sci prof for years. We all knew he was shit but couldn’t avoid him since he was the only one to teach this course.
Finally we had to take the course but we had a group of us all close to graduation. His first midterm was complete shit - interpreting spaghetti code - nothing like what we had been covering in class. We marched to the Dean’s office (we had never been there, didn’t even know where it was). Presented our case in a levelheaded manner, explained his reputation and gave her the midterm.
The next class guess who was sitting in the back row? Yep the Dean. The prof apologized for his midterm. The next semester he was gone.
You’re welcome, students who came after us.
Sparklefanny_Deluxe on October 5th, 2022 at 18:44 UTC »
At a certain level, organic chemistry must be taught well or you lose your students. My last organic chem class, we had a shit teacher. He yelled at us that of the class of 60? Only one student passed the buffer test. Then he proceeded to do question/equation #1 on the board. Took him 15 minutes to solve the question and he made mistakes (which we caught and told him). We were given 50 minutes to do 9 questions, how would passing even been possible?. He yelled at us that if we don’t show up for his Saturday morning extra hours with him, then don’t be surprised if we fail for lack of effort. Never mind the school hosted tutor sessions from grad students (which 15 of us attended on the reg).
Eventually the school fired him, but at the expense of how many potential STEM graduates?
Everyone_dreams on October 5th, 2022 at 18:37 UTC »
Never forget one chemistry professor. He was the only one who taught a certain class on the off semester (fall, not the projected time to take the class).
I was told that I should do what ever it takes not to take his class and to wait till next semester. I didn’t listen.
100ish students start the class. The man sits up at the overhead projector and does examples but never actually explains anything. I end up buying a different text book from the one he required in a desperate attempt to teach myself. I fail the first test and I am panicked. There is no curve, he made that clear the first day.
I dropped the last possible day and there was 13 students left in the class. We went from a full room to an empty room in a few weeks. I know that at LEAST 8 of those failed, I know because I spoke with them the following semester when we all retook with a different professor.
The professor was tenured and was apparently great at bringing in grant money and doing research. But should never have been allowed to teach.