'We knew we were playing with fire': Professors fail students, students tell dean, dean fails professors

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Nov 22, 2023 7:00 AM EST

There's always a bigger fish when it comes to the chain of command; if someone tells you they have the biggest and brassiest bells, you can almost guarantee they're still answering to someone whose bells are bigger and brassy-er.  Still, people like to pretend that they're in charge and wield whatever power they have with impunity, and they certainly don't like being reminded that they do, in fact, answer to a higher power—especially when that reminder comes from some upstart students who are supposed to be the ones learning the lesson.

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  • University certainly presents the chance for some silly situations, like this humanities class project, which was supposed to determine a large portion of the student's grades but ended up being oddly reminiscent of the latest dystopian Mr. Beast video, forcing students to remain in the “game” for as long as possible, despite medical risks and starvation, in order to earn their grade.

    The professors overestimated their power when they sought to fail an entire portion of the class for overturning their weird experiment, so the students appealed to a higher power instead.

  • 01
    "We're going to talk with the dean..."
    via Wan San Yip
  • 02
    Font - Oh, you're giving all of us a failing grade on our final project? We're going to talk with the dean of the department, then. LOC TL;DR: Humanities profs think a simulated society project can only implode and try to give half of their students failing grades. We took it to their boss and got some of the grades reversed after someone got the teacher's guide for the project from the bookstore.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 03
    Font - The background: My humanities classes were taught by three professors (team-teaching, lectures, small groups, etc.) and that worked out most of the time. However, our final project was a classroom simulated society and they split the class in half to do this. They told us all that we had to stay in the rooms in a portable and couldn't leave. The rules for the project were that the students were split into upper-class, middle-class, and
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 04
    Font - lower-class groups with each group having an irregular amount of "tickets" for travel, money, and food/drinks. The upper class got 10 tickets for almost every category, the middle class got 5, and the lower class got two. Each of the three had to decide how to spend their tickets and could give them away if they chose. The upper class was the only one that had travel tickets and the lower class was the only one that had entertainment tickets (TV time).
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 05
    Font - In the first of the two sections of the group project, all the students stayed the whole 4 hours and the project went about how you would expect it to go, with the upper class "ruling" the other two and taxing them in tickets.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 06
    Font - That section of the project was during the school day, between lunch and dinner. Our section was directly following them, so we couldn't go to the dining hall for dinner. We also couldn't bring outside food or drinks. I had to eat on a schedule for medical reasons, but was told that I would only be
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 07
    Font - allowed to do so if I bought food/drink with our group's tickets. I was put into the upper class, so we had enough tickets for me to be able to do that but then there were none for others to have anything. We (the 5 of us in the upper class) ended up splitting a can of pop and a small bag of chips.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 08
    Font - The people in our section of the project were mostly missionary kids (I'm not, though), so we were mostly an idealistic bunch to begin with. All but one of the lower-class group left the building to go eat dinner because they knew they weren't going to get fed otherwise. They weren't allowed back in and got failing grades because they didn't follow the rules for the project.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 09
    Font - The malicious compliance: The rest of us followed the rules to the letter, but did it our own way within the confines of those rules. The tickets got spread around mostly evenly so everyone could travel, have at least one food or drink for their class to split, and have entertainment tickets. When it got to be
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 10
    Font - hour 3 of 4, our class started singing, "Show me the way to go home." We then started singing all the most annoying songs we could think of for the last hour. We absolutely drove the profs up a wall, but they couldn't tell us to leave because then they would have not followed the project rules, either.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 11
    Font - We knew we were playing with fire with this one because the project counted for a good chunk of our final grade, but we didn't care after finding out that the profs weren't going to allow any exceptions to the rules even for medical reasons. (After we were done, we went to see if there was any way we could still get dinner, and the cafeteria stayed open for us a half-hour after it was supposed to close so we could eat. It was on a Friday night.)
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 12
    Font - The fallout: On Monday afternoon, we all came into the lecture hall buzzing about the two extremes of the project. The people who ran off knew that they were going to fail, but the rest of us in both sections were sure we were going to get passing grades. We were all told that the first section, the one that imploded, would get passing grades and the second section, the one
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 13
    Font - that shared more equitably, would fail. One of my friends worked at the campus bookstore and knew that each stack of the project ticket/rule books came with a teacher's manual. Since these profs did this project for all their humanities classes at this level, they didn't get a new teacher's manual each year unless the project changed drastically, so the rest of the teacher's manuals were sitting in the back of the bookstore (locked up, though). The friend told his boss what happened and h
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 14
    Font - Those of us who had completed the "failed" section of the project had the professors' words on tape because we were allowed to record lectures. We took that and the manual and made an appointment as a group with the dean. The dean thought that the profs had been utterly ridiculous and we got passing grades for the project.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 15
    Font - The profs tried to argue that there was no way that the project could ever have had that outcome, but the dean didn't go along with that. His answer? "You teach at a Christian university and expect that your students aren't going to follow their beliefs?" The profs had to change the syllabus so the next year had the simulated society project removed and something else put in its place with better rules.
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 16
    Font - NightMgr I'd go with malicious medical compliance. "Professor, I think you need to call 911. Lack of eating has made me very, very sick. I'll need an ambulance. Does the university have insurance for this kind of issue or will my insurance company need to sue you directly for putting me in this position?" 134 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 17
    Font - Star_World_8311 OP Believe me, I was considering that before my group said we could do it this way. There were phones that we had access to in the portables (landlines at the time), so I could've called 911 myself. 52 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 18
    Font - ThirtyMileSniper This sounds unreal. Holding back students from accessing food and drink sounds like a liability for staff and the administration. It's a really bizarre situation. I can't see the malicious compliance here though. No one told anyone to go to the Dean or consult this manual. 220 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 19
    Font - Star_World_8311 OP The malicious compliance was following the rules of the project but doing it in a way that we knew they obviously didn't expect. We pooled our resources so that everyone got what they needed, which was the MC on our part. We could tell the profs expected our section to fail, so we did what we could to succeed while staying within the framework. We then brought it to the Dean so that the profs had to try and justify their actions to him. 4133 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 20
    Font - Ranos131 The fact that it was during dinner is wrong and likely against the rules. The fact that they refused to make an exception for medical reasons was illegal. KMA 44 Star_World_8311 OP Yep. Reply Share 8 Reply Share ●●●
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 21
    Font - hollyjazzy I find it appalling that food was not allowed in for medical reasons. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen, if there were any adverse reactions to that rule. I'm surprised the Dean didn't pick up on that. 19 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311
  • 22
    Font - SMA Star_World_8311 OP I don't think the Dean had realized that one segment of the project was to be held during the time the cafeteria was open for dinner. He was shocked when we told him that. 17 Reply Share
    via u/Star_World_8311

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pro revenge student university students malicious compliance revenge college student problems group projects petty revenge group college student
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