I am little tired as I write this, however, a professor at my college has biased against me, and many other students. She bullies and belittles people over things such as in one girl’s case, a hearing problem, my fast paced speaking, one girl having to miss a few classes in one week because her daughter was ill, and countless other cases over the last 16 years of her tenure. The problem here is that I dropped her class in March, because she wouldn’t let me take my exam at a later date. I was an emotional wreck after watching my cat die of FIP, and in that same time period, I got a bout of food poisoning that kept me in the bathroom all day or in bed whenever I could get rest. three of the four professors I asked to push back my exam were understanding, and let me do so. However, the professor in question would not let me take the exam a later date. She called me weak for being sad over my cat’s slow and painful death, and acted like food poisoning isn’t that serious. From that point on she had a bias against me, making rude comments at times and consistently calling me out for various questions, which being asked questions in itself is perfectly fine, however, how often she did and her attitude when doing it, as well as her tendency to cut me off when talking was unbearable . Her quizzes and exams are all short answer, which can be subject to biased grading. I did plan to see if I could take this class at another institution, but the head of the department sent me a message acting like he was mad because I even asked this, and implied he’s upset that so many people don’t like this professor. Basically, the head of the department tries to protect her because nobody else likes her, not even some of her peers in the department. She apparently gets reported to the dean a lot, but nothing is done as she helps with recruiting and has tenure. I was supposed to officially graduate this semester. This class is the only thing holding me back from that. What makes this worse is that I spent so much time on this neuro class that my other grades suffered a lot, resulting in me getting mostly Cs, high Cs at that, but this school doesn’t use a ± system, which means a 70 counts as much as a 78, and an 80 as much as an 89, and so fourth. I was thinking of going to grad school for I/O psychology, but my grades taking a hit, and not passing this class have affected these plans. I am unsure of what to do, and feel very stressed right now.
Go see an academic advisor at your school and ask for suggestions. If the prof is tenured, you prob can’t do much.
Yes, does your school have an academic advisor? They most likely know a lot more about your school’s policies and maybe knows other students who have had the same professor.
Just because someone is not nice doesn’t make them a bully.
It sounds like your cat really did die, but on the surface it sounds like one of many lame excuses professors hear. My favorite was always, “my roommate’s boyfriend broke up with her and so I had to miss class for a week while I was comforting her.”
I suggest you take the class again, do well so that an incident of intestinal distress doesn’t cause you to fall so behind that you have to drop the course.
Her treatment of other people was worse than how she treated other people. For example, her tendency to belittle and mock a person with a hearing disability, throwing pencils like a child, cutting off professors from other institutions when they give a presentation, and other instances of uncalled for behavior. The woman is in her 50s or 60s, yet acts like a child. She is an example of tenure giving somebody too much protection. It doesn’t help that her lecture style is hard to follow (she talks in circles) and alternates between shouting and whispering. As for the cat, I showed her vet papers from the appointment. All the other professors I had, including my capstone professor, let me have extra time to prepare, while the professor in question did not.
OP, it sounds like this professor has been bullying students notoriously. My college has the academic grievance process; as part of informal process they advise to talk to the the professor first, for example during her office hours and talk openly. If it doesn’t help, then go to her department director/chair & if it’s not helping then the student can go to the dean. If it doesn’t help the student can request to refer his matter to the College Academic and Student Affairs Committee and then the request has to be in writing and within few weeks the committee has to schedule a formal hearing.
This woman being this way is already bad enough but, if it is affecting your life, your future then you have to consider your options. What I do in times of distress is I make a list of ideas and plans to get out of my situation. I include everything from the crazy ideas to the reserved ones. This gets my thought process going and eventually I figure something out.
Here are the things you can do:
- Find a higher authority than the department head and contact them. Compile a huge list of your grievances plus those of all of your classmates and fellow professors and send it to someone with power over this matter (like a dean). Use this to either be able to take this course at another institution or at least make a change. 2.Create a plan to get her fired (someway to get her in legal trouble or something of the sort).
- Compile a bunch of short answer quizzes, record your lectures and get her comments on tape, and get a bunch of witnesses to create legitimate data and try and go after her in court. As ridiculous as this sounds, your dreams are being affected by this hag. If you can prove it in court that she is biased (and get the help of a statistics major to make things more legitimate), then you can argue everything from psychological trauma to "OMG MY LIFE IS LITERALLY OVER sob sob ".
- Try and start things over. I imagine her animosity towards you is only increased by your tone and replies back to her. No matter what she says, suck it up and be as nice as humanly possible. Buy her gift cards for every holiday that exists. Study as much as you can.
- If all else fails and you can't graduate and you can't get her fired or she isn't changing, just transfer. Leave this wretched university and start over. Hopefully you can transfer most of your credits and finish this major.
If I were you, I would try steps 1 and 4 first then 3 if things are getting horrible and 5 as a last resort.
Imagine being a college professor. Of course, the job does not pay enough.
You committed to a 4 year course of study to gain an education and advance your career. That does not have anything to do with getting a cat. Generally speaking, and I think this is a good thing. humans live longer than cats. So if you obtain a cat, odds are it will die before you do. The alternative is not preferable. In any case, steel yourself in the even that you obtain a cat during college. It might die. Same with a goldfish, nothing against fish.
I am sorry your cat died. But that has nothing to do with your education. Quizzes are not “subject to biased grading” any more than wrong answers are subjects of discrimination simply because they are wrong answers. Distracting yourself with your perceptions of what your professor has been up to “for 16 years” seems nonproductive. If your situation was that tragic from your perspective, than you might expect you education to be delayed. So you failed the class due to life circumstances. Repeat the class next time and graduate
Focus on your own performance, not how unfair you think this professor has been to others. While it is tough have a dying pet, adults are expected to continue to perform in their jobs even when a pet is ill – missing a little time is okay, but at a lot of jobs, missing major deadlines due to a prolonged pet illness isn’t going to cut it. I also always told my kids to keep their grades as high as possible so if they got ill there would be some cushion in their grade. One had to learn this the hard way via a bad grade after getting sick finals week; you can’t count on getting a break if you get ill.
I typed fast and had some problems with my post above which is more negative than I intended. Sorry about that. My point was similar to what @intparent said above. Your primary responsibility, like that of all your peers, is to your classes. To the extent that you veer from that responsibilty, you separate yourself from your peers, for good or bad. To the extent you can engineer your college experience, make it work. To the extent that you are subject to the vagaries of life during college, adapt. Otherwise, you will be set back. If you are set back, try again.
Yeah, you will have to get used to life throwing you curved balls. The last seven years have been a nightmare for our family, but we still have to work to get food on the table. Our clients don’t really care if we have a death in the family or a child in the psych hospital. 
I know that, MaineLonghorn. It’s her malicious nature that bothers me more than not getting an extension on an exam. I have had difficult professors before, but none of them had the poor attitude and penchant for belittling and demeaning other people as this woman does.
My high school d had a teacher currently that is seriously lacking in tact and/or is just plain rude. She is disorganized and tends to harshly grade subjective type things in a way that is frustrating. What I tell my d is to learn what she can from this teacher, do the best she can in the class, and then hope she never had this teacher again.
The truth is that there are sucky teachers/professors. Sometimes you are stuck with them. Like my d, my worst one was also in high school. The good part is that once you make it through a class with that kind of teacher, it puts other teacher issues into better perspective.
At this point, you need to talk with an advisor at your school about what you can do (where, whether at that school or elsewhere) to get this class completed and passed. If you have to deal with an advisor who is defensive of this teacher, be diplomatic and say that perhaps the teaching style works for others but hasn’t worked well for you and you would like to consider all options. If you must still take the class with her again, learn what you can, donanything you can to pass the class and let her other issues roll off of you like water off a duck’s back.