Slander by a student. What would you (or your school) do?

[Soooo Tired :(]

lthough this is my first post, I am not a newbie here. I have decided, in an effort to maintain my anonymity (since I have alluded to my location and experiences in many posts over my time here), I would start with a new name regarding this issue. I assure you, I am not a troll and will not disappear after this post (although my current work and life situation leaves me little time for social media posting).

I am an educator in academia. I am also the course leader. I've been teaching for a while (over ten years), and have historically been teaching in the class with the highest fail rate. We teach as a team; regardless of whether I am lecturing (there are multiple sections, and I am not required to teach every semester, and I do not teach the entire course, ever), our fail rates are consistent. This alone has been an issue that frustrates me terribly; I see many bright students who end up barely passing and feel helpless (because although I am the course leader, I really have little say). Our exams are departmental, and all questions are decided among the entire team of lecturers.

Recently, I was the subject of an incredibly inflammatory e-mail written by an anonymous student. I was accused of many things that are either a) untrue, b) out of my control, or c) incredibly hurtful. This person is out for blood, and I have no idea who it is. This was sent to the entire department as well as the president of the college. In a strange ironic twist, I did not receive the e-mail. I first thought it was intentional, but then it was brought to my attention that my name was on the list of receivers (I feel like it is a sign; that I wasn't meant to see it). I have not seen it, but have gotten a general idea of the subject matter, as well as the incredibly negative and downright nasty tone of the writer.

Needless to say, I am quite bothered by this. I am well aware that not everyone likes me, and I really am okay with that. Truth be told, I don't like all my students either. However, I treat them equally and focus on the objectives of the course I teach, and am mature and respectful enough to keep my personal opinions to myself. If I have any concerns about their character and personality, I present them in a professional, constuctive and civil tone (and be open about who I am), and not sling someone's name though the mud on a social media site or in a mass emailing.

I have had years of mostly positive evaluations (again, not everyone likes me and appreciates my teaching style, as I do not spoon-feed and teach to the test). I keep in touch with many students who have graduated and continue to thank me for my effective teaching style and caring manner in which I deal with them on a personal level. I counsel a lot of students when they are failing, or have failed the course and need to figure out what to do next. I truly mean it when I say love nothing more than seeing them succeed- a concept that many students find hard to believe. I feel like I give them more than I give my family, at times. This is one of the thing that I think bothers me the most about this.

The other thing that is really bothering me is that my boss doesn't feel the need to pursue this, to determine who this is. Her belief is that because the student stated they are leaving our school (because they have issues with the entire program) that that is enough. I disagree. We have no real idea who it is, and this person could very well sill be in class. I feel that not doing anything about it sets a precedent that this behavior is acceptable. The students are aware of this (they received a different e-mail that I was cc'd on, which led to a discussion board of sorts... not all nurses... and word got out about the faculty attack). I also feel like this sets a precedent (that some already feel prior to this) that admin is not interested in protecting us.

I'm not as thicked-skin as many of my colleagues (which makes me really question my future in this part of the profession). I'm not a vindictive person, I don't normally wish ill will towards most people; unless provoked. I tend to keep my opinions to myself, with the very opinionated circle I am in. But this bothers me. It bothers me that I am the focus of water cooler discussions by students and colleagues. Many are defending me, so I hear, which makes me happy. I just don't want any extra attention, neither positive or negative.

Am I wrong to be feeling this way? Is sweeping this under the rug the appropriate way to go? We (faculty) have also been advised not to respond to any emails like this. I'm tired of being the better person in these situations. I'm tired of keeping my opinions to myself. I could get a job that pays a lot more in the hospital and get abused by patients, and at least I could justify that they are sick and under a different kind of stress. Yes, students are stressed, but you are entering a profession where you need to know how to handle yourself, your communication (and your stress) in an appropriate matter. I know many think our jobs in academia are 'cushy' (students words) but I beg to differ.

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

If the whole class is consitently failing then something is wrong . Maybe a team meeting is in order. Time to revamp the curriculum and test questions. As far as the slander, that student should be reprimanded . That behavior should not be tolerated. I truly hope this gets better. Also do a self evaluation . As course leader can you make some changes ? Pay attention to the student survey's and their input.

[Gorjesss, BSN, RN]

I take major issue with profs who state they don't "teach to test." While critical thinking is incredibly important there are subjects that are so diluted and complex, you are simply doing a disservice to your students if you are not presenting the most pertinent information, giving homework on the most pertinent information and then testing on the most pertinent information. I 100% agree that of you have a consistent high fail rate and this isn't a prerequisite class to weed students out of the nursing field, that you need to reevaluate your approach and joint teaching. I have had many profs like you (describe yourself) where I had to endure a soul sucking class to get an A. Your roll is to facilitate the information and present it in a way that all learning styles can adapt and endure, not debilitate a student. I encourage you to reevaluate this course, invite some auditors and sit in on classes that are highly successful and of equal difficulty.

As far as the letter is concerned, let it go. People say and do awful things everyday. As long as there is no threat to your person or property, forgive and move on.

[Soooo Tired :(]

I wholeheartedly agree with the issue of the failures. It has been an issue since before I came to the school, and we are continually making changes that seem to be in vain. I added this in to paint a picture of the situation at hand.

Unfortunately, "course leader" doesn't come with the power and authority it should. There are many people on the team with more seniority and strong opinions about the way things should be. I hate to say this on a forum like this, but there are some who fit that stereotype of "lets weed them out". I do not subscribe to that theory. Just today, some of the issues addressed in the students email came up, and they seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

[Soooo Tired :(]

I take major issue with profs who state they don't "teach to test." While critical thinking is incredibly important there are subjects that are so diluted and complex, you are simply doing a disservice to your students if you are not presenting the most pertinent information, giving homework on the most pertinent information and then testing on the most pertinent information. I 100% agree that of you have a consistent high fail rate and this isn't a prerequisite class to weed students out of the nursing field, that you need to reevaluate your approach and joint teaching. I have had many profs like you (describe yourself) where I had to endure a soul sucking class to get an A. Your roll is to facilitate the information and present it in a way that all learning styles can adapt and endure, not debilitate a student. I encourage you to reevaluate this course, invite some auditors and sit in on classes that are highly successful and of equal difficulty.

As far as the letter is concerned, let it go. People say and do awful things everyday. As long as there is no threat to your person or property, forgive and move on.

The course was just re-evaluated and is literally re-evaluated every semester. I cannot emphasize in writing how much we do every single semester to improve the situation. We look at the entire picture- the admission requirements, the previous course's (painfully) high pass rates. Again, I am not nearly as powerful as one may believe (and I think that is part of the student's perception of the issues). I am an untenured professor with less seniority than half the team.

As far as teaching to the test, it seems that we have different definitions of this. I definitely do give them the tools. I have repeated discussions in class that start with "as a nurse, what do you think the priority would be for a patient with xyz disorder?" It's not on my slides, bolded and highlighted. I bring in real life stories, situations that my clinical students (who are sitting in my lecture) may have encountered that point in the direction of the type of questions we normally test them on. Teaching to the test, OTOH, would be "this is what is going to be on the test", or "you only need to know this, this and this med for the test (even though there is a page of meds to study).

My character as a educator is being threatened with such inflammatory comments. When a coward send this to the president of the school and cannot be transparent about their concerns, it's kind of hard to let it go. I pray that it never happens to you, as it is NOT a good feeling.

[pixierose, BSN, RN]

I can see where this would bother you, a lot. A student slams you in the worst ways possible, to the highest offices, bringing you to everyone's attention ... while they remain safely anonymous and can sit back and watch the aftermath unfold.

Vengeance is sweet.

Yeah, I can definitely see that being a frustrating, irritating experience.

I'm confused though: why do you think your "character as educator is being threatened?" Meaning, we nursing students know for the most part who is disgruntled and why in our class. Many of us take the character assassinations with a grain of salt. Many of us want these students to just knock.it.off.already. Nursing school is hard. Deal.

However, if the character assassination is that bad, and other students/staff are tending to AGREE, then something is up that you truly need to address and improve upon.

[milesims]

There was a similar issue at my school regarding slandering a professor.

A few students would post on social media bad things about a professor and make fun of him/her throughout the semester. I won't say the details, but the professor's child was part of this social media group and he/she told the professor.

All of these students were punished and I believe they were all gathered to explain their behavior and apologize.

But sending an email slandering you to all faculty and have no action be done? That's ridiculous.

If I were you, I would pursue the subject. If this is allowed to continue, other students may see this as acceptable and more events like this may occur.

[caliotter3]

As my husband would say, you might be getting "wrapped around the axle". Try to take a vacation. Maybe some rest will give you the perspective to see that this is not the situation to continue to stew about past the initial assault on your better sensibilities.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

In most places, a person can make an anonymous complaint against someone with whom he works. People also share war stories about their experiences in the workplace. It happens. While it's not nice at all to send a blanket negative email about you to everyone, I bet it happens more than we would like it to happen.

I agree that those who know you and know the students would would be likely to write such tripe, will form their own opinions about the email. They already have opinions about you. They're not likely to change opinions about you based on an anonymous email.

It seems that your employer won't do anything about it, so what can you do about it? Anything besides fret about it? Maybe, for your own sake, it's time to let it go and not let the crud occupy your brain-space.

[feelix, RN]

There is no such thing as an anonymous email. Emails can be traced. It is another matter that the email came from an outside domain. In that case, nobody can do anything about it. Does you school have a social media policy? Do the students sign it? If not, action needs to be taken. Unfortunately, if the email came from outside, it cannot be traced. Someone will, however, sooner or later, snitch.

The first thing I would do in this situation is, step down from course leader position and let someone else catch future bullets. Students should not be failing consistently in a course. If they are, change is needed. If you are not responsible, step down and let someone else catch the flack. p.s. Team teaching is a formula from hell. You can never agree on what to teach and how to teach it and what to test

[2nurse2teach]

Ugh! I am so sorry this happened. A personal attack is always hurtful, but even more-so when you truly do go the extra mile to promote student success (and it very much sounds like you do!). I'm trying to figure out if the above negative responses to your post are coming from other nursing faculty?! I have to doubt it, because anyone in a faculty role knows how difficult it is, and just how unfair and common something like this can be. I am in your shoes as a member of a high-fail semester team and I've seen, and experienced similar attacks in our program as well (you as team leader are a prime target -- special thanks for all the extra work that title entails, huh?!).

Amidst our generally awesome group of students each semester, we always have those who somewhere between mid-terms and finals feel the threat of impending failure, and panic. In meeting with those students for retention or exit purposes, I would say the number of students who in the throes of this panic begin to throw blame around GREATLY exceeds the number of students who are able to self-reflect and identify personal factors (full-time+ work hours, personal crises, family issues, irregular course attendance, etc.) that may have negatively impacted their success. Most rant for a while and move on, but there is always that small handful who will resort to character attacks or legal threats as a last-ditch in preserving their status. Those emails almost always bypass the targeted course faculty and are sent right on to our program director.

This email was surely generated by a student who does not have the personal tools for success right now and is grasping at straws to try to reconcile as it would be unlikely for someone with a legitimate complaint to have to resort to character/personal attacks. Someone was going to be a target, and it just happened to be lucky you. It's in your (and the school's) best interest to let it go and hope that this student will go away. Depending on the nature of the complaint, a response could be viewed as retaliation and create more trouble than one student would be worth. I know it's hard to take the fall for that, but you really do sound like a good teacher and all those years of positive evaluations will greatly outweigh anything one individual has to say.

So in that: Keep your chin up; keep fighting to turn out great nurses (which certainly involves much more than teaching to a test -- what?!); and keep championing for all of those great students who deserve it! In what sounds like a culture of "weed-out" attitudes, they need your voice and your support. This will blow over. As far as this individual who was willing to make these comments without a signature? I predict a bumpy road ahead until (and if) he/she is able to develop better personal coping strategies.

[delawaremalenurse]

If your Department Chair has chosen to not pursue an anonymous letter then she/he made a wise decision. It would be a waste of time, effort, and resources to deal with an "issue" that a person or persons is not willing to present in a forum where one can address the items point-by-point as well as address and question the accuser.

You're better off letting it go and focusing on your class objectives, curriculum, and overall pass rate.