Job Discussion Forums

[stoth1972]

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/08/09/10145233.html
From The Gulf News

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10456922&pnum=0
From the NZ Herald

[helmsman]

It is quite shocking that the University of Auckland sacked Prof Buchanan over a single inappropriate e-mail to a student, especially since he later sent an e-mail to apologize. His sacking probably has a lot to do with the administration's misguided wish to reassure foreign governments such as the UAE's which act as cash cows for universities by sponsoring their nationals abroad. I hope that he is sucessful in his bid to sue the university and that, additionally, he receives financial compensation for damage to his reputation. The university should have simply given him a warning. Turning to the Emirati student, I do have sympathy for her since it would have been unpleasant to have the death of her father doubted, and I hope that she stays put and proves that she really is capable of graduate level studies. Asma and the professor should shake hands and get on with their work. For us, as teachers in the UAE, this case is a potent reminder that we should re-read what we have written to students before clicking the send button because it could easily happen to any of us too.

[zaylahis]

I was surprised that the letter by Dr Buchanan, a professor, was very badly written. Admittedly students use all sorts of excuses to get extensions but wouldn't it have been more prudent to call the student in? If a written letter is necessary that one should be cautious about the tone and the content of letters. Maybe a one-liner would have sufficed. As for the student's performance, surely that should have been handled progressively..she is after all a graduate student. However, I am not sure that I agree the Professor should have been dismissed.

[helenl]

What I found interesting were the excuses the professor cited for writing such a poor missive. Sounded vaguely like this particular student's type of excuses for her being late or asking for extensions.

[veiledsentiments]

I felt like a lot of pieces of the story are missing... and probably poorly reported in what we do have.

VS

[kiefer]

The infamous Email was indeed inappropriate in both tone and language.

However, does anyone doubt that the Emirati student arrived on the door steps of a graduate program ill prepared to write a thesis-driven, properly cited research paper?

As an educator in the UAE, I try to constantly reconcile my US experience bias as a composition instructor responsible for igniting a spark of critical thinking with a Gulf Arab culture of education which seems to be only now struggling to free itself from the shell of "repeat after me" and "do as I do" educational process.

Perhaps GCC students abroad need a foundation year program for graduate studies where they can comfortably adjust to being in an environment that embraces the concept of free speech, without giving thought to an array of mechanisms in place to suppress such heresy (especially for females--father, brother, imam, husband, etc).

Do such re-education programs exist?

[helmsman]

That is an unexpected but valid direction to take this discussion. From my own experience as a graduate student many non-native speaker classmates, especially East Asians struggled with all of their essays. At the time I doubled how much they were really getting out of their lectures. I felt that such classmates could have benefited from, as you call them, �re-education programs� where they would learn critical thinking, research and report writing techniques, not to mention advanced vocabulary and grammar. I could not help feeling that the administration and the instructors were both being extremely generous to such students. Why? Perhaps because of the fees these students paid and perhaps for the ability to claim they had students from X number of countries thus making the institution appear more globalized and prestigious. Furthermore, I know that most universities do offer intensive English programs for foreign students, but it may be a case of too little too late.

[veiledsentiments]

It begs the question of whether these skills can be taught to an adult who has been taught so differently for their K-12 education. From my own years trying to teach this in comp classes to first year university students, I'd have to sadly say that I rather doubt it. It seemed to me that my students spent most of their time trying to memorize the procedure of how to "think critically" rather than actually do it. If and when they ever actually 'got it' was long after they left foundations or first year studies.

In this situation, the question from the student to the teacher sounded like she was not at all prepared for this course and that is why she had not done the assignment, which should have been nearly completed by the time she claimed to have learned about her family death.

It is certainly all about tuition now...

VS

[zaylahis]

My daughter had an A star for her IGCSE English language and English literature. She enrolled in an American Degree program and was told her English was bad.

She subsequently went to (and graduated from ) the University of Western Australia but in her first year the English lecturer told her to go back to learning grammar. It took her a while to get used to writing the aussie way.

An Englishman I know who is a Cambridge graduate submitted a paper to one of the Universities in Australia and was told that his English is bad.

Similarly, when I was enrolled for my second Masters program with an American University I discovered that the University did not recognize the past perfect or present perfect tenses and all papers had to be written either in the past tense or present tense. My first Masters was from another U.S University but in the good old days, I had no problems with writing the way I had been taught...the British way. Nowadays, however, American universities have a unit to where graduate students can submit their papers for editorial purposes....grammar, style are corrected by this unit.

[veiledsentiments]

This is a natural reflection of the various English dialects as refers to grammar usage or rhetorical style. Most university composition teachers in the English speaking world are not happy with the language skills of their entering native speakers. But I don't think the problem in this article is referring to only language limitations.

VS

[kiefer]