Possibly. Maybe not. Unless things have changed, back in the day when I was a TA for a prof teaching the lab section of an Organic Chem class, I routinely had several pre-med students in my section who could barely pass the class. These kids always seemed to be eager to inform me of their post-undergrad plans. On a couple of occasions, I was even asked not to ruin their chances… I always referred these “petitioners” to the prof for a second opinion. 
He was not amused.
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This might be a dumb question but I’ll ask it anyway. Why is Organic Chemistry considered a difficult class? I had to take a semester of it and found it interesting (a lot of geometric thinking). Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. I preferred physical chemistry. Is this difficulty specific to premeds/life science majors? Do chemistry/materials science/chemical engineering majors etc. find the content equally challenging?
My chem e thought the organic chem sequence were the easiest classes she took sophomore year.
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Many life sciences majors like mol bio or genetics majors can graduate without ever taking any orgchem, which is perfectly fine. It is a mandatory subject for medical school hopefuls. Organic chemistry requires a substantial amount of memorization (named reactions, anyone?) as well as critical thinking, ability to visualize things in 3D, and also some knowledge of thermodynamics, kinetics, etc. IMO, chem E majors usually do fine in this class.
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My guess, however, is that the memorization skills one needs for Organic Chemistry pale in comparison to the memorization skills one needs for Medical School. No? As for the rest of the skills you mentioned, it’s all in a good day of study, nothing unique.
The most surprising thing to me was how NYU mishandled this. It is not hard to gracefully suggest that an 85 yr old professor might wish to retire from active teaching but stay on as an advisor or emeritus for the chemistry department. The administration that instead made this about student happiness and didnt even consult the relevant department seems to have flubbed this.
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Wouldn’t the best person to know the answers is the professor himself? He’s been teaching the same course for decades, and to lots of premed students. If he concluded that these students “were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate”, earned “single digit scores and even zeros” on exams with reduced difficulty, I’d be inclined to believe him, would you not?
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Yes, I would expect someone who has taught this course for 5 decades at various schools has confronted and successfully answered those matters previously.
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Many doctors did not find OChem hard to get at least a B. Many premeds who did not make it into med school did. Ours was problem based and challenging and went way above and beyond the book, which made it fun for some and stressful for others who had never had a class like that before. OChem is a great choice for a weed out class because is a prereq to Biochemistry, which is essential to understand on a deep level for the vast majority of medical fields(and is a key class in first year medical school). It is also a prereq for pharmacology, also a key core subject in medical school.
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I do believe him. These are the kind of results that one would expect when a professor is completely out of touch with the needs of the students.
He’s been teaching for 5 decades and hasn’t been deemed out of touch until now. What have changed? The professor or the students?
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I’m not concerned about the low means on the exams. My first inorganic chem exam had a mean of 37 out of 120 even back in the stone ages. Most universities grade on curves, so it’s not like a median of 40 means the entire class failed. Low means don’t equate that a professor is out of touch.
I think there is more to this than is being reported.
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One might wonder why this year’s class was apparently so much needier than last year’s class-yes, covid occurred, but students do need to show some resilience. Did every other professor and school drop their rigor for this year’s class? Do this cohort get a permanent pass?
One of my kids was in a very hard physics course at a comparable school during covid. Professor didn’t feel the students had demonstrated enough mastery of the subject on the final exam in December. He sent an email with recorded lectures during break, explaining they werent required but the follow-on course would assume knowledge of the materials therein and strongly suggested students learn the material. If they are behind, it is the students’ job to catch up, IMO. Most of the students performed ok in Prof. Jones’ class at NYU despite having endured the same covid years.
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Probably both to some degree, but primarily my guess is that the students have changed and he has been unable to adapt. It’s not at all uncommon in academia. I’ve witnessed it myself, and it is very sad but it does happen.
Plus Covid drastically changed the students and the educational landscape, and it seems he hasn’t been able to adapt there either.
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Yes one does have to wonder. Seems very unlikely that these particular students became “lazy” virtually overnight, as you conclude. Seems more likely that, for whatever reason, this octogenarian professor was no longer able to reach students in the wake of Covid.
Not that I know of. And I am unaware that this sort of breakdown was commonplace in such programs. So either these particular students in this particular class are inexplicably “lazy” or this professor isn’t getting the job done. The latter seems more likely.
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I agree the change primarily comes from the students. The professor did make the exams easier to accommodate, but apparently not to the full satisfaction of some of his students in this class.
We can’t endlessly use Covid as an excuse for every failure. Besides, it’s hard to see the connection between the inability to properly read questions on exams by an NYU sophomore premed student and the obstacles s/he may have faced because of Covid.
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Most of the class passed the course-so apparently most students found the professor effective.
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I think you and a number of others are fixated on easier vs. harder exams, but if they weren’t passing because they weren’t learning then that at least suggests that he is at least partially at fault, doesn’t it?
Not necessarily. We’ve all passed courses with horrible professors. I recall the only time I ever spoke up to admin about an ineffective and incompetent teacher was after having received the highest grade in the class. (It became rather awkward when the Professor tried to hire me to research.)
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Not really. Again, there is likely more to the story, but the onus is always on the student to learn the material. The instructor can, and should, facilitate the learning, but should not have to spoon feed. Nor should he be forced to teach to the lowest common denominator.
We’ve all likely had less-than-effective instructors, but that didn’t warrant a higher grade because “teacher didn’t teach.” If you want to learn (or do well in the exams if grades are more important than learning for you) put in the work.
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Why? One cant force adults to learn something, or spend time studying-there are always more fun available options to them. It is not a professor’s job to force knowledge down an unwilling adult student’s throat. The material was presented, lots of extra resources were available; if some students couldnt be bothered to learn the material, that is not the professor 's fault.
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College is not self-study. Professors aren’t superfluous to the learning process for most 19 year old kids, especially post Covid. Some kids get by with crummy professors but, at 19, some kids need professors who are more adept at teaching. That doesn’t make them dumb or lazy, nor does it mean they won’t “put in the work.”
Those who don’t think quality professors matter should save the tuition money and just buy your kids the books.
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