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These tweets about students going to the dean about a professor's syllabus upset me -- even when I think a student's concerns about course content are relevant and important. I'll say why:
Because a former dept chair at another institution where I worked many years ago was intent on sabotaging my reviews via teaching evals. He first demanded that I change a 100+ person class mid-stream, after I'd planned with the learning center all summer, asked a TA to spy on me
AND eventually, unbeknownst to me until my annual review had been written, sent what he called a "student delegation" to a dean to complain about the fact that the course changed mid-stream. IT WAS FUN having to write an even, considered rebuttal to this person's review.
I think I've told this story before, but I remember going to several people in my dept and outside to ask: hey, is this normal? Do people usually do this? "No, but do what he says." EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO CLAIMED TO BE ON MY SIDE. "Oh, you wrote a wonderful response to his review."
Because I had receipts. I had every email exchange with the learning center, along with bullet points about what we discussed. I posted the syllabus in the dept as was the normal procedure, before class started. The pedagogy was unorthodox but sound.
The following year, I taught courses and received favorable -- exceptional, even -- evals, and he still tried to bring it back to that one bad course. So OK call out profs online, treat it like customer service, but realize that it's folks like me against whom it works.
I'll add that this is also where I get annoyed by the critical 'complaint' discourse re: how complaints are seen as a nuisance to the established order or whatever. Complaints are also weaponized against us
They are selectively read and used in service of power. To protect the institution. "Well, we listened to what you had to say." "we have a formal process in which such complaints might be registered"
Guess who I complained about? Guess who complained about me? Guess whose complaints ultimately mattered? I'll just say that it does not surprise me that the uni leadership wrote a rude email about... Title IX
