The following students have not yet paid their fees. University regulations stipulate that all students are to have paid by the first day of class.Office of the Registrar
We strongly discourage allowing students to attend courses when they have not paid their fees. If you allow them to continue attending your class, they often come to believe that it is acceptable to attend class and earn a grade without paying in a timely manner (or at all).
If a student tells you that he or she has paid you can verify this by accessing your class roster at the registrar's website, http://registrar.lsu.edu/rosters.html. If a student claims to have paid his or her fees but your roster indicates that he or she has not, please refer them to the registrar's office.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Dear Registrar,
Are you kidding me? Your accounting sucks, and so it becomes my responsibility to collect student fees? You expect me to pull students A, B, C, D, ... out of my classes and play debt collector?Angry Professor
If students A, B, C, D, ... come to class and fulfill my course requirements, I will grade them accordingly. Every serious student is welcome in my class, even if he happens to be one of the homeless guys sleeping in the McDonald's parking lot.
Please. Go fuck yourself. Seriously.
10 comments:
Rock on! If the university wants students to pay their fees, it should just put a hold on their fucking records.
As a new lurker (few months) I love your blog. Great answer to the registrar, although part of me doubts you actually sent it. Then again, I'd love to see what you did send. Check out my contest for classy versions of "fuck you" so elegant they're not even sure that's what you've said. About the prize: you may not give a shit about my identity, but the book is funny, if you happen to be a medical type. And it not, it makes a great gift for some medical type in your life. And the other contest entries should be amusing.
Dino - here was the real response:
To whom it may concern in the registrar's office:
I refuse to act as a bill collector. This is not my responsibility. Please do not imply that it is, nor ask me to do this again.
I got a nice snippy response hinting that there was a regulation somewhere that obligated me to do their dirty work for them. I asked for a reference to that regulation. I have yet to receive one.
Bastards.
Is there anything in those regulations about confidentiality of student records (including account status)?
Why not just print the whole list of overdue students in the campus newspaper?
My sympathies, AP. LOVE your reply!
I hate it when I get e-mails such as the one you got from Accounting. I think, though, that schools who are in financial hot water are more likely to do it. At Division II University, I've never gotten a message such as this. But at Tiny Technical College, which was on the verge of closing before it got SACS accreditation, the Financial Aid office does this ALL the time.
One of my students last quarter had paid his tuition in full, yet was still dropped from all his courses. He even provided the cancelled checks as proof of his payment. I don't know what became of the situation, but if I were him, I'd raise holy hell.
I was an undergrad at the institution where I now work. I felt first hand there financial incompetence, so I'm glad to see you feel the way I would had I received a similar letter. This is what happened to me:
My last semester, I qualified for a Pell Grant. The University was supposed to fill out some section on some financial aid form to confirm my enrollment and the tuition costs. Financial aid sits on form, misses deadline, I lose out on something like $1.5k. Then, they tell me that I haven't paid my bill and won't get my diploma if I don't come up with the money. I never did get that grant, had to borrow money to pay my bill, and on graduation day got a letter instead of my diploma that read "due to outstanding financial obligations, you are not receiving your diploma at this time."
Talk about rubbing salt...
At my univeristy, if fees are not paid (or pending financial aid assured) by the end of the first week of classes, students are dropped from my roles.
I give grades to whomever is on my roll -- the university and accountants have control over that. What is so hard about having the bean counters in the registrar and accounting offices keep their records straight? That is what they do for a living.
If I received an email such as yours, my normally all-too-civil self might have actually pressed the "send" button on your reply ...
"If students A, B, C, D, ... come to class and fulfill my course requirements, I will grade them accordingly. Every serious student is welcome in my class, even if he happens to be one of the homeless guys sleeping in the McDonald's parking lot.
Please. Go fuck yourself. Seriously."
Very Good.
-kisses
"Thank you for your attention to this matter."
I love using this phrase. This semester I am registered in a junior level course in the College of the Arts. This means I get e-mails from the registrar, telling me various things. It is revealing.
I must admit, I believe not being "teacher trained" as a university prof is a good thing. As an expert in your field, you should be sharing your understanding of the art, and it should be up to the students to acquire what additional information they will or would need to understand the lecture. This is how it is in the real world; no one coddles employees, they either show innitiative or are shown the door. I don't believe we help them much making material student-friendly or too easily digestable...but that't just this old codger
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