To whom this may concern:
We hope this finds you well in these challenging times. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, classes have moved to online instruction for all of our safety. We understand this is an unprecedented situation and ask that we all work together to make sure that all students get the same opportunities and equal grading for the course. The students of PHYS 11000-02 with professor Yelena Zelenova have raised our concerns multiple times with both the professor and the department but have not seen any changes or had our concerns addressed. We as a collective have compiled a list of our grievances and ask that you take a moment to read them:
Professor has changed the syllabus multiple times during the course of the semester (i.e. lowest exam grade getting dropped, weight of factors for final grade). According to the Hunter College Student Rights and Responsibilities Section 2 Part 3, “[s]tudents have the right to know, at the start of each course of study, the basis to be used by the instructor in determining grades.” Our instructor should have used the transition period to adjust before we resumed classes and students should not have to worry every week that our grading scale for the course will change.
Professor has made it clear she will be grading students case by case. She has offered to drop the lowest exam grade for students who missed the first exam - punishing everyone else for actually going in and attempting the exam rather than skipping it. This gives certain students advantages and does not make the grading equal for all of us, which is a violation of our student rights.
Most students have more than just this class, but the instructor has made the course load a lot more rigorous. It is challenging to keep up with and the instructor wants us to join the class early, most times runs the class after the time allotted, and administers quizzes/polls even after class time has ended. The instructor has created this dual online/offline lecture dynamic requiring us to watch a pre-recorded lecture as well as attend Zoom meetings and then complain about how much time she dedicates to this course. This is a disservice to both of our time.
Professor constantly tells students she does not care and she will continue to do what she wants unless we want to teach the class.
We hope we can find a way to work through these issues as seamlessly as possible. We would like to offer a Zoom meeting with all the students who have questions and concerns to try and come up with a solution that is fair for everyone. We appreciate you taking you time to read this email and hope to hear from you soon!
-Kind regards,
Students of PHYS 11000-02
