Four months ago, I posted about the case of Frank J. Rybicki, a college professor at Valdosta State who was sued, arrested for battery, and suspended from teaching after he took it upon himself to shut the laptop of a student who refused to stop surfing the web during class.
A couple of days ago a Georgia jury found Rybicki not guilty of battery. To the surprise of no one—including, I’m fully confident, the student in question—“nobody was able to offer evidence that he intended to hurt his student’s finger.†In response to the “customer is always right†argument made by some RBC commenters the first time, Rybicki
said he thought the real issue in the case was the right of a professor to maintain the classroom as a learning environment. He said that he realizes that some students disagree, and tell him things like “I paid for this class so I should do what I want.” But Rybicki said that what a student pays for is “for me to teach,” and that means setting some standards in the classroom.
It sounds as if the vast majority of Valdosta State students backed Rybicki, a popular teacher.
This is not, however, a happy ending. Given the acquittal, Rybicki will now be free to teach in 2011-12. But the university told him in June that he wouldn’t be welcome after that. (Rybicki doesn’t have tenure—but unless the reporting is very bad indeed, it sounds as if he’s been fired well before his tenure review.)
As I said the first time, if your opinion on this resembles mine, a certain college president needs to hear it. And now that opinion will enjoy the backing of twelve duly empaneled citizens.
Winston Smith says
Well, their president is Nosferatu. That’s probably part of their problem.
Note to self: stop complaining about own institution. Insane and screwed up as my university is, it’d never do something this insane and screwed-up.
Tim says
Actually, it never got past the grand jury.
The student, Krista Bowman sounds like an over-pampered twit with an absurdly high opinion of herself. I suspect mom & dad have the right connections otherwise this decision makes no sense whatsoever. She has apparently graduated and probably felt she had little to lose and it might actually help her career. She seems to think she’s CNN-bound. Her education may just be getting underway.
Perhaps the good news is that, with her out of the way and a new interim president, maybe the university can revisit their decision. Your emails would go to president@valdosta.edu
Keith Humphreys says
The only way I could be more sympathetic to the professor would be if the finger injuries had been intentional.
Bruce says
Something that’s always been unclear to me is the rationale for putting wireless internet into lecture halls in the first place. It makes sense to have internet access in libraries and communal spaces and perhaps in conference rooms, but what’s the educational justification for equipping rooms where people should be paying attention? (And this isn’t just a case of spillover – lots of university lecture rooms have routers deliberately installed.)
Jadagul says
What’s never been clear to me is why professors feel like they should be monitoring their students’ attention-paying. It makes sense in high school, but college students are adults and we should let them decide to ignore everything and fail the class if they want to.
FuzzyFace says
“we should let them decide to ignore everything and fail the class if they want to.” Agreed, except then they come back with, “I paid for this course and showed up for every class, so I deserve at least a B.”
Jadagul says
Ah. Well, if you can’t continue to ignore them then, that’s just sad.
Jadagul says
Ah, I realize that may have sounded meaner than I meant it to–I meant, if the administration won’t let you continue to ignore them, that’s a really sad situation.
all the students' professor says
The issue is that her actions were distracting to others who were actually there to learn.