What to do if I'm being bullied by students?

Question

I've recently been the subject of bullying by a group of students. I taught a difficult module alongside another module, which was taught by somebody else. The other module was much easier and offered huge amounts of support. Students described having their hands held in this module. One student told me that this module felt like students were being treated as newbies, whereas my module felt like they were being treated as second year students at a Russell Group university. The university where I work is more teaching focused.

Having heard feedback from students, I think that the tasks I set them were quite challenging, and I don't think they were used to it. I'm still adjusting to the level that the students are operating at in this university, and were I to I teach in the module again, I would adjust the level.

However, the main issue is that students posted rude, personal and abusive feedback in the module evaluations and also posted nasty comments on the module forum. I also got nasty emails from some students, and although I passed this up to management, nothing was done and I was left to deal with this alone.

It has affected my self esteem and my confidence as a lecturer. I've always had plenty of good feedback before and I've always felt competent in my role. I don't know if I have any rights in terms of being bullied by students, but one student has just told me that there is a Facebook group where I was being slated and there were really personal comments. The student I spoke to today described it as a bit of a hate group, directed at me. One student even copied an email that I had sent her (a photograph of it) and posted it on a Facebook group. I'm not sure if this contravenes any confidentiality regulations.

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this and if anyone had any advice. I've been teaching for 10 years and I was on the verge of quitting my job, and I don't feel like I can easily face teaching these students again. On a personal level, I see it as an opportunity to develop greater resilience, but I can't help the fact that it really feels undermining and threatening to be in this situation.

Any advice or support would be appreciated.

Answer 1

In short, the behaviour of your students is not acceptable - no matter how good or bad your teaching was.

If something like this were to happen at my university, I as vice dean for teaching would invite the whole group for a face-to-face meeting and explain to them how adults should solve problems.

In fact, this is something you should aim for, since the problem will persist and affect others as well, since the students' behaviour will not change.

We had good success with early feedback opportunities (not just the end term evaluation), micro-evaluations (anonymous feedback which can be a one-liner) which are discussed with the whole group, an honest open door policy, and with involving student organizations and representatives early on. Some course formats have to be explained to students over and over again... This might be helpful in the future, but won't help for now.

If you are still teaching this course, I'd suggest an intervention (if possible with the help of another neutral professor) where you address the problem in front of the class. If possible, summon an extra meeting which does not take place in your usual teaching room. For such a setting, I would suggest just asking the students about feedback regarding your lecture, but ask them to follow commonly accepted feedback rules. Afterwards, tell them what you took as the take home message from the feedback.

Afterwards, you should tell them that you prefer direct communication about any issues.

In the best case, they should be ashamed afterwards...

Answer 2

I'm sorry to say this, but - as I see it, I don't think you were bullied.

You got negative (individual) feedback, and perhaps some of the messages were even nasty like you said they were. People may have even complained about you in a Facebook group (which, if I understand correctly, you have not actually read the contents of). That does not constitute bullying.

Remember, you are the person in a position of power relative to these students. You set their grades, you can make demands of them, you decide if they face a module that's easier or harder.

If they had contacted your friends or family to deride you; if they had spread lies about you; if had tried to publicize their derisive comments to as many people as possible on campus; if they had threatened you with some kind of retribution, or been physically violent towards you; etc. - then you might have called it bullying.

It's perfectly legitimate to feel shaken, insulted, hurt, by their behavior; but it seems to have been within the bounds of what you should just tolerate.

So: Bear in mind the positive feedback that you often get; it's an assurance that you can and do teach well, in most situations. Talk about this experience with close friends and colleagues, or your spouse if you have one. In fact, given the severity of what you describe, perhaps you should consult a psychologist, for more personalized advice about how to handle this situation. It seems to have touched a nerve that runs much deeper than the experience with these students.

Edit: Note that even if you don't agree with my point of view, it's a point of view which many may adopt, given the information we have. And if there are many whom you can't convince you were wronged, your justification for any retaliatory action or complaint would be very shaky. Try to turn the tables and see what this scenario sounds like from the students' point of view.

Answer 3

Capable lecturers, especially if they come from research-heavy institutions, treat students as copies of themselves - assuming maximum competence, enthusiasm, skill and perseverance. But you cannot assume that. If you are lucky, you have 5-10% of students coming close to that level.

But you are a teacher, and you have to serve the grand majority. So, your next task is learning how to teach effectively. Most students react well to being taken seriously.

So, rather than semi-formal evaluations, one thing that works well is getting face-to-face response from students early on about whether the course is too easy, too fast, etc. If they say it is way too difficult, you have a gauge that you are probably too fast. You then may want to slow down. If they say it is "a bit too hard", you are in good shape, because you most likely want to stretch them - make it clear to them, though. Students, again, in my experience, respond well to explanations why the course is not and should not be too easy, as long as they see a reasonable chance to pass it and serious effort on the side of the lecturer to help them achieve the desired level.

The key is and remains: communication. However, it is the face-to-face that matters. Once communication begins to go on behind your back, we get to a more problematic situation.

And so, now to the matter of bullying. This is, unfortunately, a self-reinforcing process. It is doubtful that this can be stopped short of a very serious warning by the university, but I suspect anything short of a direct threat of violence will not mobilise the department to your protection.

One idea is really to block any of these negative messages. You are not likely to be helped by the department. There is almost nothing you can do to stop a collective of students to run their bullying activity against you, once it has taken off. But you can minimise the effect on you. If hate-mail is sent to you, archive it, but do not read it in detail. Do not respond to statements about people having Facebook pages about you. Far too often, these people project their own shortcomings onto whoever made them face them.

The past cohort is pretty much a lost cause. Cut your losses. However, for the new year, adapt your pedagogy, get feedback early and often, even face-to-face. Do not be subservient, but demonstrate that you are interested in students' opinion, even if you may not always be able to follow their requests. Finding the right balance is a learning process on your side. With this, hopefully, this negative experience of yours will soon fade into an indistinct past.

Answer 4

I can only answer for the U.S.

Here is a sample excerpt from a Code of Conduct. This one is from the University of Wisconsin:

Harassment or bullying is language or conduct that is unwelcome and sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive such that it could reasonably be expected to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment, or has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a person's academic or work performance, or a person's ability to participate in or benefit from the university's programs, services, opportunities, or activities, when viewed through both an objective and subjective standard. This includes harassment or bullying that occurs through electronic means, such as electronic media, the internet, social networks, blogs, cell phones, or text messages.

From your description, this seems apt. The start page for the Code of Conduct gives contact information for "Community Standards & Student Conduct."

Please, file a complaint. And check the policies at your institution. If you find something relevant, cite it in your complaint. If you don't, propose that something be added.

Next time: when you start seeing some red flags -- if something feels a bit off -- start documenting, and inform the office that promotes healthy and respectful student conduct (or your department, as the case may be) that you're getting a bad feeling and will update them in a week as to whether things are worse, the same or better. Establishing a line of communication BEFORE things reach crisis point can be helpful.

Why should you file a complaint? Part of being a good university citizen means providing specific negative feedback about something that is not right, so the university can work continually on improving the study and work environment.

Edit: Additional remarks.

1. The climate in your university will only become more positive if the members of the university community work together toward that goal.

2. Find a teaching mentor or an office that provides pedagogy support for teachers. Spend 5% of your time reading about teaching and observing other teachers and keep a journal about your observations and your reading. As you gain theoretical knowledge and practical experience your confidence will grow.

Answer 5

The only practical advice here is: Get used to it. The system isn't fair and it isn't nice and the University doesn't care. These things are emotionally crippling and no other career has to put up with this nonsense. Every semester, you get your evaluations back and 99 of them are glowing, but that one immature, soon-to-drop-out-anyway leaves you profane and false feedback, and your week is ruined. It's wrong, but it isn't going to change. So the only thing you can do is work on your reaction to it. What I have done over the years is to force myself to think about the 99 every time I start dwelling on the 1. It sort of works. And alcohol helps too.

Having said that, your situation points up a deep problem in academia. With sites like Rate-a-Prof and Reddit and GroupMe, the students have a ready venue for their shark-feeds. The University should exert itself to fight these things. Student grades (which no one cares about) are somehow protected by FERPA, while faculty ratings are "public record." And somehow, it's OK with your employer that these teenagers can slander you and your work with impunity.

If someone started up a website called Rate-A-Dean, and let faculty treat the deans like the students treat faculty, you can bet our collective TIAA-Cref accounts that the University would send in armies of lawyers and get the thing shut down with extreme prejudice.

(I just looked at Obu's answer and I'm shocked. I've never run into an administrator who would take action in such a case. I'm glad to hear of it, but I think this is rare. If your admins take up your case, then I think you're very lucky indeed.)

Well, here's another practical thing you can do: Give informal evaluations early and frequently. If the students are allowed to vent early on, it tempers their immature behavior when the formal evaluations roll around. Since they get to vent, there is less urgency to start a Reddit thread for a shark feed. Since they've already ranted once, they don't feel so much like ranting again. You can pitch the informal evaluations whether you read them or not. Their still immature and still unfair, but now you control the channel.

Answer 6

There are three issues here:

• Student comments on feedback forms

• Abusive language in direct communication

• Comments on a facebook group.

There is little last on of these unless the language would meet some definition of Hate Speech: i.e. comments were based on your race, gender, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic. In which case it would be a police matter.

On the first of these - student feedback is useful where it comments on the teaching it self in a constructive way that can be used to change the teaching. Thus our office filters out purely person feedback before it is pass on to us: comments on dress sense, personal manner, appearance, sex, race etc are not constructive and cause only harm. The filtering was felt necessary because such comments disproportionately affected women and lecturers from minority groups. However, comments that do address teaching in an actionable way, even if they do so with potentially offensive language, are left in.

For the direct communications I would start by giving the student a warning - tell them that such impolite communication is unprofessional and potentially harassing and that you will address their concerns if they phrase them in a polite and constructive manner. Point our that if they did this to their boss at work, they'd find themselves in trouble very quickly. If they ignore this report them to the HoD/Head tutor with evidence. If you receive no response, particularly if this happens repeatedly I'd talk to your union rep (you are in the union right?).

Answer 7

I moved to the UK from a different country and got some really harsh evaluations in my first year, even though I also had quite some teaching experience before that. The level of students (especially at a teaching-oriented university) is unfortunately not very high.

I am disappointed about the management though. Did you mean professors or people outside your department? In my experience, nothing good comes from outside the department... One thing I would recommend is to discuss this with your colleagues (at the same level as you). They might have similar experiences and might even have suggestions for how to handle this. I think it is not unusual to get bad evaluations in your first year.

I assume that your teaching evaluations go onto your record and that you are therefore worried about them, especially as you may still be on probation. The good thing is that you have time to recover, and you will be able to show a positive trend over the years. Anyway, the most important thing to realize is that it is not you - it is the students. If you adapt (dumb things down enough where possible) your evaluations WILL improve. It is sad that this is necessary, but given the level of students that are accepted to many universities, it seems to be the only way.

Also, these students will move on soon enough and you will be able to make a better impression on the next batch. Having said this, the behaviour of this batch really is unacceptable. Do the students have personal tutors that you could contact?

Answer 8

One of the silver linings of these cases is that you can be confident that, over time, these students will rotate out of the university and you will still be there. For that reason, I wouldn't concern yourself too much with whether or not the nasty comments you received on your teaching constitute "bullying", and I wouldn't bother pursuing a complaint within the department. Just treat it as a learning experience and bear in mind that some university students act in ways that are immature and unprofessional. When they are older and are experiencing the difficulties of the workforce themselves, I would expect that they will look back on this and feel ashamed of their behaviour.

If it were me, I would just ignore the sniping --- students like this are immature adolescents, and grown-up professionals don't concern ourselves with the catty social media sniping of adolescents. To any mature reader, social media posts like this will reflect poorly on them, but not on you. I suspect that your department probably did nothing because they understand this reality, and they figure they can let this one slide. Unless you have seen indications to the contrary, I wouldn't take this to mean that they don't support you; assume that they have confidence in your teaching unless they tell you otherwise.

Most importantly, don't let this bad experience shatter your confidence in your teaching. It sounds like you probably didn't calibrate the course to quite the right level of difficulty, and students got the shits with that and lashed out in an immature way --- it happens. Over time you will learn to pitch your course at a level that is challenging enough, but with adequate support so that the students do not feel lost and angry. Departments expect that lecturers may sometimes have a bad semester where teaching doesn't go as planned, especially if they are new to a course. Over time you will gain the experience to command a classroom well, engage your students at a correct level, and have better teaching experiences.

Answer 9

If you are working in an institution where you are assessed based on your student feedback, you have two choices.

1. You can leave and get a job where you will be supported and developed by your employer.
2. You can make your course so easy that even the dumbest students get B's and spend way over your paid time to hold their hands (when they want it, rather than in office hours). But over time the students will get dumber and you will lose the will to live.

So, I would recommend looking for a new job, probably outside of academia.