NYU fires chemistry professor following pupils sign petition complaining that his course is way too difficult

Maitland Jones Jr., a chemistry professor at New York College who also taught for 4 many years at Princeton, was fired in August following undergraduate students circulated a petition complaining that his system was also hard. 

Dozens of the college students, a lot of of them aspiring health professionals, signed on to the petition in the spring. 

"We are pretty anxious about our scores, and come across that they are not an correct reflection of the time and exertion place into this course," the petition study, in accordance to the New York Periods. 

"We urge you to realize… that a class with such a substantial percentage of withdrawals and small grades has unsuccessful to make students’ mastering and well-being a priority and displays badly on the chemistry department as perfectly as the establishment as a full."

New York University campus on Macdougal Avenue at 37 Washington Square West.  (iStock)

Jones, 84, explained to the New York Periods that he started off viewing a reduction of concentration amongst students about a ten years back, but the dilemma was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. 

"They weren’t coming to course, that is for sure, for the reason that I can rely the dwelling," Jones told the newspaper. "They weren’t seeing the videos, and they weren’t in a position to solution the queries."

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A spokesperson for New York College disagreed with the way Jones' dismissal has been framed, expressing that in addition to the petition, Jones' course also experienced a "extremely superior amount of scholar withdrawals" and "evaluations scores that ended up by far the worst" throughout the school's undergraduate science programs. 

"In short, he was hired to train, and was not effective," an NYU spokesperson instructed G3 Box News Digital. "NYU has a lot of hard courses and plenty of hard graders amongst the faculty – they do not conclusion up with results that increase issues about the top quality and usefulness of the educating, as this class did."

Purple and white NYU flags cling from a New York University making on West 4th Road in Manhattan.  ( )

Right before lecturing at NYU, Jones pioneered a new way of teaching that emphasised dilemma-centered learning around a "lecture-memorize-regurgitate info" model, Princeton University's Dean of Faculty wrote. 

"Our aim is to train the most effective study course in organic and natural chemistry any place," the course description for his organic and natural chemistry class go through. 

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Jones advised the New York Periods that he is concerned about the precedent his firing could set. 

"I really don't want my job back again," he explained to the newspaper. "I just want to make confident this doesn’t come about to anybody else."