Dr. Z,

We would like to begin by making it clear that our goal isn’t to get you fired or replaced, but to improve our experience in your class. This semester is unprecedented, and has been difficult on all of us. As you stated, you have three children that you’re homeschooling during this pandemic, and health concerns that caused you to move the class online. Many of us are dealing with similar situations, whether that be homeschooling children, dealing with health issues, taking care of sick family members, etc. However, we feel that you haven’t been fair to us this semester. We understand you’re trying your best, as are we, but we have concerns that we’d like to address with you.

1. A syllabus wasn’t posted until roughly the 2nd week of class, and hasn’t been followed at all throughout the semester. This has caused a lot of stress, as a lot of us prefer to stay on a schedule with assignments given that we have other classes and responsibilities.

2. We’ve had sporadic assignments that are few and far between, with little preparation for most of them. This is difficult, as we have other classes and assignments, as well as responsibilities in our personal lives such as jobs or children. This is concerning, because if we do poorly on one assignment, does that mean we’ll fail the class? That isn’t fair at all given how few assignments we’ve been given throughout the semester.

3. Service hour opportunities are announced at most a few days before or even hours before. The most recent example of this is the email you sent out tonight, November 8th, for a service opportunity on November 10th. That isn’t far enough in advance for a lot of people to switch their schedule around for. Furthermore, the service hours are a problem in and of itself. Requiring 10 service hours in person during a global pandemic is a huge problem for a lot of people, as many don’t want to go to an event in-person even with a mask on. There’s a reason school is mostly online this semester, and a lot of people aren’t willing to risk their health or their family’s health for this. Because all our classes are online this semester, several class members aren’t living in the area right now either. Why can’t there be an exception to the service hours under these exceptional circumstances? Possibly online or written opportunities instead?

4. You have been unprofessional with students. While we understand you were upset to see screenshots that some students were planning to report you, that was a private conversation that you were never meant to see. We had every right to have that conversation in our personal time, and it should never have been shared with you. Whoever shared it had no right to do so, and it’s not professional for you to retaliate against specific students because of it. Once you found out about the messages, instead of messaging the whole class about it, you targeted the individuals in the screenshots and said a few things that weren’t professional to several of them, including personal attacks against one. Just because you are upset does not give you the right to intentionally make a student feel bad about themselves, and is entirely unprofessional. Before tonight, you have also been unprofessional when sending emails at all hours of the night, as well as displaying passive-aggressive behavior in these emails. We have proof of those emails if you need them as a reference.

Again, we would like to reiterate that our goal was never to get you fired or replaced. We don’t feel like you’ve been fair to us during this semester, and we hope you will take our concerns seriously and address each of them.

Sincerely, Class of 2022