I thought this should be online... Updated!!! 10-12-03 

I thought this should be online... Updated!!! 10-12-03

Ok so my skitzoid marketing instructor sends the whole class an email telling us that if we leave class early and cause a disruption he will lower our grades. For some reason I seemed to have enough free time on my hands this week to go to war with him over this and I found it pretty interesting. Here is our email battles for all to see online. I started withhis origina email and ended with his last one. Everything is in order. Enjoy...

From now on in this class, people that leave and disrupt class are warned not to do this. If I can identify you and I think you did it intentionally, this will affect my impression of you and your final grade. For the rest of you, thanks for your attentiveness.
Dr. Skitzoid

So I got offended and wrote this...

I do not appreciate being threatened in Email. I am not using my Auburn account because I don't want you to alter your impression of me and dock my grade because you dislike me. However I am pretty sure that grading people on how
you like them is not in accordance with university policy. I believe that if you read the Tiger cub you will see that it does not really matter whether you like me or not.

Thanks

Skitzoid responded with this witty stinger...

There was nothing dealing with like/dislike in my message, it was merely dealing with classroom management procedures and the instructor has every right to manage the class properly. As long as you do not disrupt class, everything is OK. If you want to see me about this, come during
my office hours.

Of course I had to reply...

I have no problem with "classroom management" I am not talking about that. I think everyone would agree that the instructor has every right to manage the class properly. The point I am making is that statements like
"If I can identify you and I think you did it ntentionally, this will affect my impression of you and your final grade."

are threatening and imply that you will lower students grades simply because you dislike them. That may fall under classroom management to you, but to me that is a blatant threat, and I do not appreciate it. With statements like that being made there is no way I want to come by your office. I would be afraid to come near you for fear of affecting your impression of me and my final grade. Thats just what I need is to explain to people that I would have done OK in marketing, but the instructor disliked me so he lowered my grade.

No thanks.

Well he had a little something to say about that...

You are not seeing the point of the message. People were leaving early
and disrupting what I was doing in class. If you did not do this, you
have nothing to worry about. I will not hold it against you to come to
my office and then explain this to you. Classroom management deals with
the issue of leaving early without permission, not personal
likes/dislikes.

And I felt obligated to tell him he was wrong...

OK I think I am getting it now. You do not want people to leave class because it disrupts class. If a person leaves class early that will cause a disruption. If a person causes a disruption and you identify them, that will make you have an unfavorable impression of them. If you have a bad impression of a person then you probably dislike them. If you dislike some one then it is OK to deduct points from their grade even though that is not a grading criteria listed on the syllabus.
So even if a student makes high A's on their tests and assignments they could make a B' or C in the class because you invented new grading criteria based on a pet peeve of yours. I guess the reason for the confusion is because I did not see any of this in the sylabus, and it just came as a shock to me.
Thanks for clearing everything up.

He really told me this time...

You seem to feel strongly about the implications of my statement when there is no proof of the like/dislike aspect. Certain things are considered the norm of operating a class whether they are on the syllabus or not. I felt it was necessary to illustrate it the way I did
so it does not happen in the future. If this is not satisfactory to you, then you should drop the class.

I think he tried to dodge the issue and did it pretty well until that last one, but he just got lazy in my opinion. What do you think?

Ok so big man and I got into it again, and I am stubborn and a little arrogant so I decided to post the final emails between the 2 of us.

Mine...

Ok so basically what you are saying is that you never told the entire class
in an email that you would alter their grade if you had a bad impression of them? You never told the class that causing a disruption would alter your impression of people and their grades? Tell me where to look on the syllabus to
find the part about grading criteria that concerns ANYTHING other than the points earned by tests and assignments.

Classroom management has to do with keeping people under control. I understand that it is your job to do that. The like dislike aspect is not something I made up.

"If I can identify you and I think you did it intentionally, this will affect my impression of you and your final grade."

Let me break down what I read in that statement and you tell me how I mistook it. I hear you saying that if you catch a person leaving your class you will have a bad impression of them that will reflect in their final grade.
If you can show me how having a bad impression of someone is grounds for subtracting points from their grade then that is great. I read the syllabus and it says NOTHING about our grade being totaled based on your impression of us. There is nothing in there about us losing points because you got aggravated. I just want to understand, so help me out here and explain to me how I misunderstood
your words. Be very specific because we don't seem to be communicating here.

Thanks

Well he finally cleared things up for me...

As mentioned, the only way to clear the issue is to talk to you directly which is not going to happen. You
are the only person to do this email and the people that did leave without telling me called to explain why it happened. So, this will be the last email.

So basically I think this dude represents all that is evil whicle at the same time being a huge dork. In any case I still have a high B inhis class and he wears the same shirt to class every day. All in all I think I am the winner here.

Opinions?