Haunted by students past

I blame Sara. OK, not really, but today she and I went out for lunch and she did ask if I'd heard anything from No Thesis about his failing grade. I hadn't at that time, but when I checked e-mail tonight, what do you know, there he was, telling me he was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that although he had completed every assignment, he hadn't passed the class. I said that he needed not only to complete the assignments but to complete them so they average out to a D or better--and his hadn't. Notice I didn't mention the plagiarism thing: ostrich-like, I'm hoping madly he won't ask for details of why his paper grades didn't average out to above a 59. It's almost certainly a vain hope, because I'm pretty sure his sister (who wrote his paper) will be in a huff about why her brilliant work didn't lead to a passing grade for her brother. If he does ask about it, I'll tell him he needs to come talk to me, thereby gaining a little time for myself to A) do a real plagiarism check to see if maybe he didn't rely on his sister but relied on a web source I can nail him for and B) failing that, can figure out how to approach the whole issue. I know I'm tenured and all that (and I don't see the school bringing me up on charges because I failed a student for a plagiarism I can't definitively prove--nor do I forsee a court case, though in our litigious society, one never knows). But I still don't feel comfortable with the "it's plagiarism because I say it is" thing. I just have to remind myself that it is, in effect, my football, and in this case, the game is played entirely by my rules: I don't have to explain, justify, or make sense. I want to for my own reasons, but I have the authority to be as arbitrary and capricious as I like, as long as I don't break the rules of my own syllabus.

Ack, argh, yuck, blech. I HATE this kind of thing.

And although I've been on campus the last two days, doing placement readings ($), I have yet to post a single flyer for 281, or to check with advisement about whether there will be opportunities for a captive audience I can try to lure into my class. I did ask the web master if I could send out an e-mail to all students to "advertise": got a pretty vehement "no" on that idea. Ah well, it was worth a shot. I just checked, however, and I have gained one student: that brings me from 3 to 4, a 25% increase in enrollment! Hope springs eternal. As other classes fill, I'm hoping kids get chased into mine. It's a bit discouraging, because--as I experienced fall semester with 229--the ones who end up in the course because it fits their schedule (and the one they wanted was closed) usually hate the class and end up dropping. But if it runs, and if I end up teaching it as a sort of seminar to a very small group, I'm happy. Please, God, let it run!

Favorite student blooper of the day: "I was following the speed limit, driving precariously like I always do." Watch out for those steep drop offs!