A group of students apparently got their NYU Chemistry
professor fired for allegedly being too difficult.
The class was so difficult that many of them had a hard time passing.
And later it turned out that the administration at this
university decided to let him go.
Now the professor who got canned is Dr. Maitland Jones Jr,
who taught organic chemistry or OCHEM for decades.
And he not only wrote a 1300 page textbook on the topic and
probably forced his students to buy that specific textbook for his class.
He also pioneered a new method of teaching the subject.
Now he was difficult.
He wasn't a professor who believed in engaging in grade inflation which very
much is a thing.
I know first hand [LAUGH] students,
are just kind of expected to pass by showing up.
And not really having the skills necessary to move on to the next phase.
But nonetheless he claims that for
about a decade his students have shown quote a loss of focus.
Which led to worse test scores even as Jones made exams easier.
Now he said quote, the problem was exacerbated by the pandemic.
In the last two years students fell off a cliff.
We now see single digit test scores and even zeros.
Last spring 82 of Jones 350 students signed a petition against him.
Claiming that his organic chemistry course was just needlessly difficult.
Let me just pause for a second.
I think organic chemistry by the nature of being organic chemistry is difficult.
I couldn't pass an organic chemistry class.
I know myself.
I know my skills.
I know my strengths and weaknesses.
OCHEM weakness, okay.
And so these are students who are likely gonna apply for med school.
They want to be doctors.
Being a doctor is difficult.
I don't know if they know that.
There should be zero grade inflation in any major.
But especially for majors having to do with the medical field.
Just my thoughts, I don't know.
>> For life and death.
Look, I'm gonna do a couple of caveats here, one in the beginning,
one at the end.
So, first caveat is sometimes teachers are pricks.
And so I know I've had personal experience with one.
I've told this in members only sections before.
But in high school we had this county teacher who was just out of control.
And and so give you a sense of it.
So, he gives me a D+, which nearly sank my ability to get into any decent school.
Back then it was much easier to get into good schools.
So, I skated it barely by the skin of my teeth anyway.
But maybe I deserved it, right?
But I went to Ivy League College in that same class got an A+.
So, obviously I knew the material,
he was just giving out bad grades because either way he thought it was funny.
Or the rumor was he wanted you to pay for his tutoring class.
And if you didn't pay for the tutoring class,
you're gonna get a disastrous grade no matter what.
Now, if you have something like that against the teacher.
And you could prove, hey, it's a scam or
they're doing it on purpose for some other reason.
Then yes, absolutely,
then do a petition go forward make sure you get the son of a gun, okay.
>> I agree with you on that.
But here.
>> But here >> But
here there is no such allegation at all.
>> There is no such allegation.
>> Yeah.
>> In fact, I wanna get to the petition because the students signed that petition.
And I think the wording of the petition is important to understand where
they're coming from.
They're not complaining about some scam.
Where they have to take some tutoring class in order to pass, no.
They write, we are very concerned about our scores and find that they are not
an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class.
Yeah, but look, you can put a ton of time and effort into a class if you're
not grasping the material and you're failing to pass the tests.
Or whatever assignments you have.
It is what it is.
You're struggling because you're not absorbing it.
You're not understanding it.
You're not passing.
But nonetheless- >> And by the way, just real quick.
>> It's also not true the other students and other teachers said that
the kids that had the worst grades are the ones that checked the videos,
that explained the material the least, right.
Some of them didn't even check it at all.
So a lot of them were not at all doing the work.
And they're like, well, I'm already here and I'm trying to go to medical school.
So I demand a good grade.
Well, that's not how it used to work.
But unfortunately, it looks like that's how it works.
>> Yeah, I got to share my personal experience with this.
Because anyway.
But let me continue the petition continues to say.
We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and
low grades has failed to make students learning and well being a priority.
And reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well
as the institution as a whole.
Now, this is really important to understand.
The students just wanted him to change the way he handles the class.
They did not call for him to get fired.
That is important to keep in mind.
But the university fired him.
And I think the reason they fired him has to do with money, I think.
Okay, so let me get to those details.
So Marc A Walters, who's the director of undergraduate studies in the chemistry
department summed up the situation in an email to Dr Jones before his firing.
He said the plan would quote extend a gentle but firm hand to the students.
And those who, this is important, pay the tuition bills.
An apparent reference to the parents.
So if you have the students withdrawing from the class,
that means that departments tend to get resources based on enrollment.
How many students are enrolled?
They make decisions about whether or not they're going to offer a class based
on whether or not there are enough students enrolled in that class.
If you have a bunch of withdrawals.
That means that you're not bringing in the students with
the tuition money necessary to bolster the funds.
And the resources of that department and money talks.
So the estimated total cost of attendance for an on- or
off -campus student attending NYU over the 2022-2023
school year is a whopping $83,250.
Administrators at such tuition universities have a lot of incentives to
make sure that their students do not fail out.
That isn't about snowflakes but about the economics of modern higher education.
Any battle in the culture war is always about the culture of economics.
>> Yeah, so that that kind of goes to my second caveat here.
Which is, look if NYU just said, hey listen,
we're just gonna be soft from now on.
And so if you come to NYU we're giving out As like they're candy, right?
We don't really care.
We just want to make money.
And by the way, there's a race to the bottom and that part is true.
A lot of those schools are now getting softer and softer and softer.
Because if you go to undergrad and you get bad grades,
then you can't get into a good medical school or maybe any medical school.
Or law school, etc.
>> And your ranking suffer.
>> Yeah, and so that hurts your rankings.
The people writing literally bad reviews hurts your rankings.
So many of these things hurt your rankings.
And what do they care about?
They used to be obsessed with education.
A lot of these schools are nonprofits, but it doesn't matter.
It's the culture.
Is all about money.
And they're in an endowment race right now, right?
So all the top schools, like I have $30 billion endowment.
I have $40 billion endowment.
But what are you doing with that?
You're supposed to make the education better.
But ironically, you're making it worse.
Because they can't see straight.
They've lost sight of the fact that you're supposed to be teaching the kids.
So that when their doctors, they know what to do and
they don't accidentally get people killed.
Instead you're worried about who's got the bigger,
you know what in all of these schools.
So, if they were honest about it, I would say,
okay that maybe at least buyer beware, right.
But they're not,
none of these schools admit to it when they're actually all doing it.
And in fact, this professor says, look,
things started changing, noticeably about a decade ago, right?
And all of a sudden now all the kids expected really good grades.
So they could do their next part of their career.
Well, there's a good way to get really good grades.
By studying hard.
That's how it works.
>> Yeah, and look, I obviously don't teach chemistry.
But I noticed this issue with journalism classes.
Where students would submit their assignments, articles, their reports.
And a lot of them had difficulty even constructing sentences, right?
And so I would grade them appropriately based on what they were submitting.
And these are upper division journalism classes.
I'm not gonna pass someone who is not ready to move on to the next level.
It's not fair to the next lecturer or professor.
And it's also not fair to the student.
They need to be equipped with the skills necessary.
So one of the things that I actually ended up doing to prevent them from
failing is I made like a separate group of students.
And I worked extra hours to work with them more intimately to make sure that they
had the skills necessary to pass, right?
And luckily that worked out.
But I do remember, when they would get grades that they deserve,
they would be furious.
One of them even went immediately to the head of the department to
complain about how I'm too tough.
And it's like, I just want to make sure you know how to construct sentences when
your writing your articles.
>> No, I know a decent amount of professors.
And they're all saying the same thing.
There's a sense of entitlement now.
And you know what it comes from?
The customer is always right.
Because now they're teaching the students like their customers.
And to be fair, the students and the parents, they're paying.
>> A lot.
>> Business schools now on average,
the top business schools cost $200,000 by the time you're done with them.
So, if you're paying $200,000 for something you want good value.
And good value is being able to show a report card that's got really
good grades on it.
Whether you earned it or not because you paid for it.
>> Exactly.
>> So that's the phenomenon that's underlying this particular story.
And he had just, so you're clear, he was not tenured.
He was a brilliant professor who has been doing this a long time.
He was on a yearly contract.
So they could end his contract.
But what that does is a sense of message to all the other professors.
You better not give out any bad grades.
It doesn't matter how much they suck and how much they don't know the material,
give them a B and move on.
>> And look, tenured professors, it's becoming a thing of the past.
And it's pretty gross because that academic freedom that comes along
with being tenured is really important.
But also universities, regardless of how much they charge for tuition,
are relying more and more on adjunct professor.
Who don't even really have yearly contracts or any real protections.
And they barely get paid anything.
But they still do the same amount of work that a tenured professor would do.
Finally, we want to know what you think.
We have a poll on this at TYT.com/polls.
Was NYU's decision to fire a chemistry professor over a student petition
justified?
Yes or no?
>> Yeah, and I'll add one last thing.
Which is that in law school I tried hard the first semester did pretty well.
And then afterwards decided to coast because I decided I wasn't gonna be
a corporate lawyer.
And there was one professor who caught me and gave me a bad grade.
I've always respected him the most.
He was right, I was dogging it.
And when you're dogging it, you should get a bad grade.
That's how it used to work.
And that's how it should work.