An organic chemistry professor at New York University was fired after 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him over their low grades and his instruction methods. The professor, Maitland Jones, is 84 and has taught organic chemistry for decades, first at Princeton University and then at NYU. He also wrote a textbook called “Organic Chemistry” that’s now in its fifth edition. According to a Monday New York Times report, the petition read in part, “We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class.”
“We urge you to realize that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole,” the petition continued. See also: Elon Musk wants to move forward with his purchase of Twitter. Here’s how some Twitter users reacted. The letter also complained that Jones did not accommodate students who missed class time while sick with COVID, something that Jones denies — Jones said he spent $5,000 of his own money to make videos of his lectures for students, according to the NYT
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report. “They weren’t coming to class,” Jones said about classroom attendance in the report. “That’s for sure because I can count the house.” Elizabeth Spiers, a NYT opinion writer and journalism professor at NYU, reacted to the situation on Twitter
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“One of many problems with insanely expensive private education is that institutions have an incentive to treat the student as c …