Professor did something creepy

[Kassia]

Dd has a very active discord group for one of her engineering classes.  They discovered yesterday that the professor has been participating on the class discord, but posing as a student.  The students feel violated (for good reason) - especially now when no gatherings are allowed, so the only way they can meet is online.  Dd sent me some screenshots where the professor was almost baiting them to talk about him or the assignments.  Someone asked him about it yesterday during virtual office hours and he said he would not confirm or deny it was him, but later his discord user name changed to Prof(name)Troll.  

I could maybe see if he was on the discord to monitor for cheating or even just lurking, but to participate and pretend he was a student is really disturbing, IMO.  

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Kassia

[RootAnn]

Baiting seems wrong, but I know there are profs that are secretly part of student -run GroupMes & Discords on other campuses. Some are open about it. At least a few others join without saying they are on there to monitor cheating. But, yeah, baiting to get kids to talk about him sounds like he has issues...

[Not_a_Number]

Ooof. Gross and inappropriate. 

[Hannah]

Is there an ethics officer where this can be reported?

[OH_Homeschooler]

OK in a way that is very brave because I would not want to hear the things students say about me behind my back. (I used to teach and even the polite student feedback comments freaked me out). 

But I would be tempted to report the behavior to a department head or something. Things are rough right now and having to take classes online sucks as it is. But now having to worry that your professor is spying on you on top of that? Nope.

[regentrude]

Absolutely inappropriate. It undermines any trust the students have in the professor. As a college instructor, I am deeply appalled. 

It seems to me as if this professor has deep insecurities. Baiting them to talk about him? Any instructor who is interested in honest feedback can set up an anonymous poll with an open ended question through the LMS to give his students the opportunity to comment freely without fear of retaliation. 

ETA: actually "just lurking" would be equally creepy.
 

Edited October 23, 2020 by regentrude

[regentrude]

11 minutes ago, Hannah said:

Is there an ethics officer where this can be reported?

I do not believe the professor violated any actual ethic rules. He did nothing against the law, did not violate FERPA, did not commit an offense under title IX - so I doubt any ethics office would even consider this case. 
He just demonstrated a lapse of judgment for which the school cannot impose any actionable consequences.

Students can put that on his evals.

[Farrar]

Wow. That's super creepy. Was it an informal Discord they set up? And he just joined as if he was a student? In non-pandemic times, it probably would have been some sort of study group and this couldn't have happened.

The department sees the evals, right? I'd absolutely put that on the eval along with the fact that it seemed like a betrayal of trust, particularly the baiting.

[Hannah]

15 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I do not believe the professor violated any actual ethic rules. He did nothing against the law, did not violate FERPA, did not commit an offense under title IX - so I doubt any ethics office would even consider this case. 
He just demonstrated a lapse of judgment for which the school cannot impose any actionable consequences.

Students can put that on his evals.

If he is misrepresenting himself and pretending to be a student, is that not unethical behaviour?  

[mathnerd]

I find it hard to believe that a professor would behave this way, but there are all kinds of professors ... are they sure that it is not one of the kids pretending to be the prof and trolling the other kids? That is definitely something they should look into. Going forward, ask them to make the discord server secure: admin verifies accounts before approval to participate.

[regentrude]

2 minutes ago, Hannah said:

If he is misrepresenting himself and pretending to be a student, is that not unethical behaviour?  

Yes - but I doubt you'll find that written into any ethics code of a college. 

[Kassia]

I do feel really bad about the situation.  Especially for the students.  I have had mixed feelings about this professor all along and really want to like him.  He's a good instructor - very engaged (obviously!  :p) and thorough.  On the other hand, even before the class, I thought he was very arrogant (he posts as himself on Reddit) and his assignments are filled with errors that are time-consuming and frustrating for students to get through.  To be fair, he has a lot of students and teaches several different courses.  But instead of pretending he's a student on discord, maybe he could be fixing all the errors he consistently has.  Dd wanted to take him for the next course in spring - his class is difficult, but she feels like he's the best instructor as far as preparation for the future - but now she's really upset with him.

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Kassia

[Hannah]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

Yes - but I doubt you'll find that written into any ethics code of a college. 

I think I might not fully understand the role of the ethics officer in the US and what their mandate is.  Here they would definitely investigate and it could lead to a disciplinary hearing for 'conduct unbecoming of a lecturer' or some such allegation, pending on what is written in the employee code of conduct. 

[Kassia]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

I do feel really bad about the situation.  Especially for the students.  I have had mixed feelings about this professor all along and really want to like him.  He's a good instructor - very engaged (obviously!  :p) and thorough.  On the other hand, even before the class, I thought he was very arrogant (he posts as himself on Reddit) and his assignments are filled with errors that are time-consuming and frustrating for students to get through.  To be fair, he has a lot of students and teaches several different courses.  But instead of pretending he's a student on discord, maybe he could be fixing all the errors he consistently has.  Dd wanted to take him for the next course in spring - his class is difficult, but she feels like he's the best instructor as far as preparation for the future - but now she's really upset with him.

 

 

5 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Wow. That's super creepy. Was it an informal Discord they set up? And he just joined as if he was a student?

 

I'm not familiar with Discord at all.  It is a class discord - that's all I know.  And he interacted as if he were one of the students.  I think someone got suspicious when he consistently defended the professor and the assignments and did some investigating and it was pretty clear that it was him.  

 

3 minutes ago, mathnerd said:

 are they sure that it is not one of the kids pretending to be the prof and trolling the other kids? 

They are 99% positive that it's him.  

[Farrar]

I guess if he set up the class Discord for them to use, then that's slightly less shocking to me and they should have expected he might be on there... still really unethical to pose as a student though - even if it doesn't violate any specific college policy, it's just creepy.

[Kassia]

3 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I guess if he set up the class Discord for them to use, then that's slightly less shocking to me and they should have expected he might be on there... still really unethical to pose as a student though - even if it doesn't violate any specific college policy, it's just creepy.

No, he definitely didn't set it up.  I thought the same thing as you wrote here - unethical, but doesn't violate any college policy.  

[gardenmom5]

Has he been reported to the school?  That sounds like it would be a policy violation.  And if there isn't a policy against that - there should be.

[regentrude]

5 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

Has he been reported to the school?  That sounds like it would be a policy violation.  And if there isn't a policy against that - there should be.

What school policy would there be? 

"If students set up a group for communicating on electronic media that is not sanctioned by, or affiliated with, the college, professors are not permitted to join unless they fully disclose their identity"?

Sounds ridiculous even typing it here.

Edited October 23, 2020 by regentrude

[City Mouse]

I don’t think it rises to the level of “creepy” or “gross”. It isn’t like he was hitting on any of the students-I hope, but it would cause me to loose respect and trust and avoid taking his courses in the future.

I wouldn’t report what he did in attempt to have his employer give out punishment, but I think mentioning the situation on his eval would be appropriate. 
I don’t used discord, but I would hope that there some way for the person who starts the group to screen the members. If not, I would find a different means of communication. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by City Mouse

[gardenmom5]

53 minutes ago, mathnerd said:

I find it hard to believe that a professor would behave this way, but there are all kinds of professors ... are they sure that it is not one of the kids pretending to be the prof and trolling the other kids? That is definitely something they should look into. Going forward, ask them to make the discord server secure: admin verifies accounts before approval to participate.

My daughter had a math teacher that would have done something like that.  NO ONE would tell him what they really thought of him, because he would engage in retaliation without even trying to hide it was retaliation.  That was the end of his term at that school.

 She also had a professor who would do something like this.

[gardenmom5]

51 minutes ago, Kassia said:

 

 

I'm not familiar with Discord at all.  I 

It's "a flexible voice chat program that is designed with gamers in mind".  So says dudeling, who uses it on a regular basis and prefers it to zoom/skype/other platforms he's forced to use for online classes.

[gardenmom5]

7 minutes ago, regentrude said:

What school policy would there be? 

"If students set up a group for communicating on electronic media that is not sanctioned by, or affiliated with, the college, professors are not permitted to join unless they fully disclose their identity"?

Sounds ridiculous even typing it here.

he's misrepresenting himself - in some areas, that would constitute fraud.

[regentrude]

4 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

he's misrepresenting himself - in some areas, that would constitute fraud.

yeah, but usually that works the other way around - you can't pose as somebody with a qualification you do not possess. It's fraud to claim to have a PhD or MD. Pretending you don't have one when you do? Not so much.

Misrepresenting yourself online as a student in an informal group? I doubt there's any leverage against that. Or any institution that would waste resources on prosecuting such less than ideal conduct. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by regentrude

[G5052]

The college where I teach is a bit nit-picky in general and actually has a policy about off-college site discussions on Discord, Slack, etc. They are completely hands off unless you have a student under 18 in there. Then you CANNOT use the off-college sites at all. Because I almost always have dual enrollment students in one or more sections, so I just don't do that. I'm also familiar with this because I used to volunteer at the twice-yearly cybersecurity conferences, and we always used Slack to organize it. The professor running it always made sure that everyone volunteering was over 18. There were some student volunteers, and apparently there were restrictions on that as well for an on-campus event.  

I don't like the ethics of the professor, but I can't imagine my college doing anything about that unless a minor, drugs, or sexual harassment was involved. 

[regentrude]

2 minutes ago, G5052 said:

The college where I teach is a bit nit-picky in general and actually has a policy about off-college site discussions on Discord, Slack, etc. They are completely hands off unless you have a student under 18 in there. Then you CANNOT use the off-college sites at all.

How do they enforce that? I was under the impression this is a student organized group and not set up by the faculty at all. How would the college be able to regulate by which means the students communicate with one another, even if they were underage? Wouldn't that be gravely overstepping the college's authority if they were to regulate private communication channels?

[OH_Homeschooler]

13 minutes ago, regentrude said:

What school policy would there be? 

"If students set up a group for communicating on electronic media that is not sanctioned by, or affiliated with, the college, professors are not permitted to join unless they fully disclose their identity"?

Sounds ridiculous even typing it here.

One thing that comes to mind is that course evaluations are anonymous (or at least they were 15 years ago when I left academia). Why is this? So students don't have to worry that sharing their opinion will result in a lower grade, or at least that's what I always thought. Or even in the case where the professor won't see the evals until after the course is over, the student may show up again in another class.

So at the very least, I wonder if the professor would punish any student (for example, with a lower grade) who said something negative. And then to consider that the prof is actively seeking the negative feedback, that just seems really bad.

[Bootsie]

I had never heard of Discord.   I thought of discord being a lack of agreement--not a place for discussion.  

While I would agree that it would be a lack of ethical judgment on the part of a professor to engage in a student-created discussion group, posing as a student, I do not think it would be a violation of any university policy.  I am sure that there are a number of students who participate in discussion groups and online forums where they are not 100% honest about who they are.  One of the important lessons is to be careful in any online forum in that you really do not know who the other people are.  

I know that the principal at DDs high school had a online presence as a high school student

Edited October 23, 2020 by Bootsie

[regentrude]

2 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

So at the very least, I wonder if the professor would punish any student (for example, with a lower grade) who said something negative. And then to consider that the prof is actively seeking the negative feedback, that just seems really bad.

In which case, the ethics committee (or whatever entity deals with it at the college) would have a case. The offense is called "capricious grading".

[Kassia]

19 minutes ago, City Mouse said:

I don’t think it rises to the level of “creepy” or “gross”. It isn’t like he was hitting on any of the students-I hope, but it would cause me to loose respect and trust and avoid taking his courses in the future.

 

I was very relieved that he wasn't hitting on any of the students!  Dd still wants to take his class next semester since she feels like she'd be better prepared than if she were in a different class, but this has definitely changed her opinion of him.  

Edited October 23, 2020 by Kassia

[G5052]

11 minutes ago, regentrude said:

How do they enforce that? I was under the impression this is a student organized group and not set up by the faculty at all. How would the college be able to regulate by which means the students communicate with one another, even if they were underage? Wouldn't that be gravely overstepping the college's authority if they were to regulate private communication channels?

They only have that policy for professors, If it is organized off-site by the professor or by a student where a professor participates, the professor is supposed to withdraw if there are any minors involved and report any sexual harrassment/drug/alcohol violations as they would on a school trip. Their behavior is also supposed to be above board on those types of issues. 

I live in a sue-happy area of the country. My adjunct contract and related documents run many pages and include issues where they will not back you legally. I actually carry my own professional liability insurance because their coverage only goes so far. At times it drives me batty, but I love the work. 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by G5052

[mathnerd]

6 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

One of the important lessons is to be careful in any online forum in that you really do not know who the other people are.  

This is the important lesson - that there is no online forum that ensures privacy. As for discord, the students should abandon the existing one and start a new one which accepts members by invitation only in order to ensure privacy. OP, I have been using the "Slack" app for group communications and it has worked out very well for the group that I am on. Maybe your daughter could install it and check out the features and if it works out, they can migrate all the students to it: it requires the group creator to send out invitations in order to join a group.

I would lose trust that this professor would be fair or unbiased after this incident.

[Ditto]

I think the real lesson here is that you never know who anyone truly is online and you always need to be aware of what you say and how you behave.  For some odd reason it just doesn't surprise me that a professor would do this and I have a feeling it is done a lot, but other professors are better at keeping their identity a secret.  As a student I would always assume that my professors were a part of anything done online.   Obviously this is all my opinion only and just the view I take of the situation.  I also not saying it right....just saying that it doesn't surprise me.

[regentrude]

3 minutes ago, Ditto said:

.  For some odd reason it just doesn't surprise me that a professor would do this and I have a feeling it is done a lot, but other professors are better at keeping their identity a secret.  As a student I would always assume that my professors were a part of anything done online.   

LOL. What puzzles me most about this is that this prof has so much time to waste on stalking his students' discussion forum. Most of my colleagues have too much work for that. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by regentrude

[Ditto]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

LOL. What puzzles me most about this is that this prof has so much time to waste on stalking his students' discussion forum. Most of my colleagues have too much work for that. 

I agree with you.   But I think there are a decent number that are either curious enough or nosy enough or even arrogant enough that they find the time to get involved.  By the posts here it sounds like this professor should be way too busy to hang out on discord, yet he managed to find time to.  It doesn't make any kind of sense if he is truly as busy as the op has stated he is.  Which is what my point is.    

[regentrude]

4 minutes ago, Ditto said:

I agree with you.   But I think there are a decent number that are either curious enough or nosy enough or even arrogant enough that they find the time to get involved.  By the posts here it sounds like this professor should be way too busy to hang out on discord, yet he managed to find time to.  It doesn't make any kind of sense if he is truly as busy as the op has stated he is.  Which is what my point is.    

This is why I said he seems to be deeply insecure. I would suspect he did this because he is anxious to know what the students think of him. Which is understandable, because it goes to the heart of his professional occupation.
But in his anxiety he has chosen an inappropriate way to do that. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by regentrude

[Ditto]

Just now, regentrude said:

This is why I said he seems to be deeply insecure. I would suspect he did this because he is anxious to know what the students think of him.
And in his anxiety he has chosen an inappropriate way to do that. 

To me that is just very sad, not creepy (i know you didn't say it was creepy, op did).   I had not read all the replies when I responded.    As a professor, do you guys get any kind of guidance on what is appropriate and inappropriate with online behavior (like doing something like this)?

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, Ditto said:

To me that is just very sad, not creepy (i know you didn't say it was creepy, op did).   I had not read all the replies when I responded.    As a professor, do you guys get any kind of guidance on what is appropriate and inappropriate with online behavior (like doing something like this)?

I think it is mainly sad, but I would also perceive it as creepy if I were a student.

Professors get guidelines about behavior in the context of Title IX and equity behavior: harassment, hostile work environment, discrimination, etc. Have to do annual training (ugggh). This particular scenario has never come up in any context and would, as I stated before, not rise to the level that the institution would intervene, since no actual rules have been violated.
This is more an area where personal intuition about appropriate behavior comes in; these things are difficult to legislate.

[OH_Homeschooler]

16 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I think it is mainly sad, but I would also perceive it as creepy if I were a student.

Professors get guidelines about behavior in the context of Title IX and equity behavior: harassment, hostile work environment, discrimination, etc. Have to do annual training (ugggh). This particular scenario has never come up in any context and would, as I stated before, not rise to the level that the institution would intervene, since no actual rules have been violated.
This is more an area where personal intuition about appropriate behavior comes in; these things are difficult to legislate.

This seems like something that would make for an interesting ethics discussion at a university training/workshop. Present the scenario, have people discuss in small groups. I know that online learning isn't new but I would imagine a lot more profs are being forced into it who never imagined it would be part of their lives. Situations like this should be discussed and general expectations should be shared with faculty, even if it cannot be enforced as policy. Just to bring a general awareness that this is frowned upon. Because sadly, some people need to be explicitly told that this is not okay. 

[Bootsie]

16 minutes ago, Ditto said:

To me that is just very sad, not creepy (i know you didn't say it was creepy, op did).   I had not read all the replies when I responded.    As a professor, do you guys get any kind of guidance on what is appropriate and inappropriate with online behavior (like doing something like this)?

I am not clear exactly what the professor did in this situation.  Was this something that the professor set up?  Was it something students set up on their own?  If so, how did the professor know about it?  Were any university resources used?  Those are some of the questions that would come into play to determine whether there was any type of guidance given for the behavior.  But, generally there would not be specific guidance regarding a professor participating in a discussion group that is not officially part of the course without full disclosure of who that person is.  If professors were not allowed to participate without fully disclosing everything about who they are if there is the potential of one of their own students participating online, then some of us would not be able to participate in this discussion board.  It would be the behavior--harassment, capricious grading, retaliation, misuse of computer resources, etc.--that could be a violation of policy.

There have been instances of professors posing as students to post reviews on rate-my-professor (or having family members do it).  While it would be seen as unethical by peers, I do not know of an instance where a school has found it in violation of a policy.   I also know of instances where book reviews have been written by authors or family members on Amazon (and negative reviews being written by competitors using pseudonyms).  

[gardenmom5]

3 hours ago, regentrude said:

yeah, but usually that works the other way around - you can't pose as somebody with a qualification you do not possess. It's fraud to claim to have a PhD or MD. Pretending you don't have one when you do? Not so much.

Misrepresenting yourself online as a student in an informal group? I doubt there's any leverage against that. Or any institution that would waste resources on prosecuting such less than ideal conduct. 

Technically - he's spying on his students when they have an expectation of privacy from their professor.  After all  it's supposed to be a *specific* group of students and he lied in order to join.

 His baiting them is really low, but I will assume is because the guy has serious issues that would be better dealt with by a mental health counselor.

[stephanier.1765]

Your poor kid is having a rough first year with creepy professors and lazy students. 😥 I wonder if it's the online component to college that's causing things to be out of whack? Before this post, I had never heard of Discord so I'm of no help but I did want to say I'm sorry she's having a rough freshman year and that I hope things start looking better soon. 💗

[Kassia]

8 minutes ago, stephanier.1765 said:

Your poor kid is having a rough first year with creepy professors and lazy students. 😥 I wonder if it's the online component to college that's causing things to be out of whack? Before this post, I had never heard of Discord so I'm of no help but I did want to say I'm sorry she's having a rough freshman year and that I hope things start looking better soon. 💗

She is really happy, though!  We are thrilled with how well things are going for her (in general).  She's really benefitted from being on campus and has grown/matured so much in the short time she's been gone.  🙂  Sure, things haven't been perfect, but they wouldn't be in a regular semester.  And she's such an introvert that the covid restrictions have really helped with her transition.

[Hunter]

Was the baiting to the level of entrapment? If students were prodded to do things that they would not otherwise have done, is that an issue? It is for the police, right?

Can grading be objective by a professor that would do something like this?

Even if there is not an easy rule to actively take action, do the colleges still choose the best professors possible, if they have enough professors to choose?

I had some wacky professors that demonstrated diagnosable mental health issues. They tended to teach the early morning and late night classes and were very consistent in showing up. Seven a.m. in the morning was asking for crazy. And after 6 p.m. was a crap shoot.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Hunter said:

Even if there is not an easy rule to actively take action, do the colleges still choose the best professors possible, if they have enough professors to choose?

I had some wacky professors that demonstrated diagnosable mental health issues. They tended to teach the early morning and late night classes and were very consistent in showing up. Seven a.m. in the morning was asking for crazy. And after 6 p.m. was a crap shoot.

Well.... professors are often picked for research and not teaching reasons. That has ups and downs. Overall, professors are on average much more excited about their subjects than, say, high school teachers, so that method of selection has some good qualities. 

[Hunter]

12 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Well.... professors are often picked for research and not teaching reasons. That has ups and downs. Overall, professors are on average much more excited about their subjects than, say, high school teachers, so that method of selection has some good qualities. 

I went to a community college. I don't know how different they are in general, but .., that was not the issue with all professors hired at my school. LOL.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Hunter said:

I went to a community college. I don't know how different they are in general, but .., that was not the issue with all professors hired at my school. LOL.

Ah, yeah, community colleges aren't the same. I was thinking more research universities. 

[Kassia]

21 minutes ago, Hunter said:

Was the baiting to the level of entrapment? If students were prodded to do things that they would not otherwise have done, is that an issue? It is for the police, right?

Even if there is not an easy rule to actively take action, do the colleges still choose the best professors possible, if they have enough professors to choose?

 

I think the baiting was about getting the students to complain about certain things in the class.  Dd sent me a couple of screenshots with examples of that.  

The department is understaffed and I don't see them adding more faculty now with the financial issues from covid.  The university (like most, if not all universities) has lost a lot of money.  I just hope they don't have to let people go.  

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Kassia

[Hunter]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

I think the baiting was about getting the students to complain about certain things in the class.  Dd sent me a couple of screenshots with examples of that.  

The department is understaffed and I don't see them adding more faculty now with the financial issues from covid.  The university (like most, if not all universities) has lost a lot of money.  I just hope they don't have to let people go.  

 

Maybe letting go of this guy would be a good idea.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Hunter said:

Maybe letting go of this guy would be a good idea.

If he's tenured, there's no way this incident would do it. 

[katilac]

I vote creepy and weird. 

5 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

It's "a flexible voice chat program that is designed with gamers in mind".   

It's also text chat, which is how most non-gamers use it and likely how this group was set up.