Dear Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the Health Sciences at BMCC ,

In our class, Anatomy and Physiology II (BIO 426 LAB - Section 111B), David Krauss, the lab instructor has neglected our students and deprived us from our education. Since the semester began, he has not helped any students in class. One student asked if he can go over the histology portion, and he says "Figure it out yourself." Other students ask if he can go over the concept, and he says, "It's in your textbook you should've come prepared." In his class, he briefly goes over the lab in 10 minutes and we as students are responsible for teaching ourselves for the next 2 hours as he sits there quietly, editing bird pictures and working on his own personal research. When there was a substitute professor that came in on an atypical day to cover for his class, our students finally understood what a good and bad professor was, and we demand more from Dr. Krauss. We have a practical coming up and most of the students are stressed out, lost, and not showing up to class because there is no guidance in learning and applying the material in lab.  We asked if he can provide us a review, and kept the answer vague to say "It's going to be on everything we went over in class." We asked if he can let us look at the histology portion, because that is what we are struggling with and he denied our request. The lab is where we apply our knowledge from lecture into a practical scenario, given hands on sight.

His course is worth 30% of our total grade and we are not happy with the material we've been exposed to thus far.  Denying our review, we asked Dr. Elise Beaupierre, our substitute professor, if she can help us and had agreed to meet us on her off days just to tutor us. She met us on a Monday, at 3PM where she provided us 1 hour of her own free time to provide us what to look out for when it comes to histology slides, anatomy and physiology interpretation, and mnemonics to help with studying an already tough class.

Dr. Beaupierre has been teaching this course for over 20 years and her experience shows with the love and care, attended to her students, providing a fair chance for every student to do well in the lab.

In addition to our professor's lack of empathy, solitude demeanor, and disregard for the student's learning process, he does not have his name/email/office hours listed on the syllabus. He personally informed me that he only took this class because it fit his schedule, but has no ambition to teach BIO 426 LAB Sec. 111B. This is an anonymous complaint, and goes without saying that he is not looking out for our best interest. Today we are writing a petition to switch our professor as he is not doing anything in our class to teach our students fundamental basics of looking at a microscope, identifying key cellular features of histology, or explaining the physiology and anatomy of our lab. This is the bulk of what the lab is and we are missing out on our own education to further our careers outside of academia. We enrolled as students, not full-time employees. We need to be taught, to engage, and to work with our professors who are experts in teaching. However, Dr. Krauss is only concerned with his own personal wellbeing and neglecting and depriving our students of knowledge, guidance, and growth.   

UPDATE: 11/2/2022
We have taken our first practical, and our professor yelled in front of the whole class to one of our students during the practical. 

Scenario: Our professor misspoke and our classmate had "Something to write on", and he screamed at her that it wasn't allowed. He meant to say "Something to write with."  Not only did this disrupt our entire class and caused a scene, our affected classmate felt embarrassed, traumatized, and scattered to continue on with her examination. She went to therapy soon afterwards.   

In terms of performance, more students failed than passed the first practical.    Here is his information: 

Dr. David Krauss
Email dkrauss@bmcc.cuny.edu
Work Phone 1325
Office Location N698F
Office Hours M 07:00 - 07:50 Tu 10:00 - 10:50 W 07:50 - 07:50

We demand to replace Dr. Krauss to save our grades, not for the sake of his paycheck. We are tired and have had enough with his "style of teaching." I personally dealt with this in other institutions and this pretentious outlook is the worst method of teaching. I was really looking for a different perspective for further education, and it is traumatizing which does not build resilience to continue onwards.