As a current student of Professor Helton, I have decided to come forward and discuss his unstructured grading system. 

Professor Helton is a Writing Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. On RateMyProfessors.com, a significant amount of reviews from his former students are negative and have stated some very serious concerns such as: 

1. "Professor Helton is a good professor in his field, but his interactions with students are subpar. His instructions are unclear, yet he expects his students to understand these vague instructions for risk of losing major points on assignments. He can also be short with his students. The workload/ expectations for a REQUIRED class was ridiculous." - 12/10/2023
2. "FORGET ALL THE OTHER COMMENTS AND JUST READ MINE. DO NOT TAKE PROFESSOR HELTON! Save yourself the trouble and find yourself another writing professor. The man is rude and racist, and no matter how hard you try in that class, he is an extremely tough grader for no reason, and the only way you would be able to pass his class is if youre white." - 12/07/2023
3. "Awful. If your papers, which he picks the topics for, don't agree with his viewpoint, it's obvious in your grade. His comments on the papers were rude, unhelpful, and sassy. If you want to keep your sanity and happiness, take literally anyone else. He has no respect for anyone but himself." - 12/02/2023
4. "worst professor ive had to date i doubt he cares much for his students and he is very biased towards liberal/democratic beliefs. Curses a lot in class and will ridicule students for asking questions. if you arent already a good writer you'll fail." - 04/27/2022
5. "If you want to not hate writing, do not take Professor Helton's class. He barely teaches anything, and going to class is a waste of time. However, attendance is mandatory. His grading is not that bad, but considering he doesn't teach what he expects on papers, it's really hard to know when he will take points off. He made my semester miserable." - 04/30/2023

These are just a few of the MANY negative reviews over the last couple of years on Professor Helton. 

He is a knowledgeable man and knows what he is teaching, but grades very unjustly. His comments on his student's papers are very unhelpful, sassy, and rude. He provided some good notes, but also left unnecessary ones. Professor Helton has removed students from his class for not presenting physically printed pages of their paper. He sets unrealistic expectations for his students and I believe that sometimes he forgets we are only students, not illustrators. He takes off heaps of points on papers for having minor errors and encourages his students to ask questions, but gets frustrated when they do. 

Professor Helton talks down on his students and speaking for myself, makes me feel like I am not capable of doing well in his class. He consistently threatens to remove points from current and future papers, but says he is cutting us a lot of slack. Two students were marked off for the same error, but one got more points taken off than the other. This has led me to believe that he is giving unfair treatment.

Overall, the purpose of this petition is not to shame Professor Helton as an instructor, but to raise awareness to the Writing Department Board that behavior like this from a professor is unacceptable and wrong. I believe all students deserve to excel and should not be tied down by one class, as majority of his students have other classes to worry about in addition to this one.