Belmont Lay

A National University of Singapore assistant professor has apparently taken to an anonymous platform to air some grievances as a matter of last resort, regarding the lack of respect accorded to lecturers by some students. This occurred after the assistant professor has had it up to here with students being mean in their feedback evaluation forms and deemed to give criticisms that are not constructive. The post was published on NUSWhispers, a page that originally aggregated crush confessions but has evolved into a sh*t-posting, saga-filled platform amplifying the minutiae of NUS students' lives.

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Putting all credulity aside to appreciate this scenario of an assistant professor posting anonymously on a platform read and shared by students, the assistant professor claims to be a foreigner who has been with NUS for three years.

This is the full post:

I know that this is a students' portal for anonymous confessions, but I don't know anywhere else to express my thoughts with the mask of anonymity too. I'm actually an assistant professor, and I've been with NUS over 3 years. This is my first university after I obtained my PhD, and so far things are good - especially the university's focus on research. Besides research, new faculty are expected to teach foundation courses. Honestly I'm not a very good lecturer; so are some of my newer colleagues, but we try our best. When I first arrived, I took students' feedback seriously. There was some improvement in my evaluation score over the new few semesters. However, in every course I teach, there is a significant minority of students who gave comments which are neither constructive nor civilized. I've learnt to ignore them, as my more senior colleagues have advised me. However, I decided to post here because a breaking point has been reached. I knew a colleague who cried after reading students' comments about her - and some of them are very nasty and even xenophobic. "Can't understand your accent - pls go back to ****** (country); "Wear heels so you can look taller"; "For the sake of your health, lose some weight". The majority of NUS students are actually genuinely nice and hospitable to faculty from abroad, but I hope those who made such comments can reflect. Is it right to attack a person instead of her teaching? Students have also called me "obese" in their comments before, and I've brushed them away. But do you know that these comments are read by people with feelings? We do feel hurt, even though we try our best to improve our teaching with students' feedback. I implore NUS students to consider their professors' feelings. Thank you.

It is not revealed if the assistant professor is male or female from the post.

Perhaps the NUS prof can take the lead from this Nanyang Technological University lecturer, who showed the art of doing PhD level mental jiu jitsu by turning things around.

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This video is about 10 years old and it showed the NTU lecturer rolling with the students' punches by having a field day with their feedback.

Rattles on and on like a shotgun. Slowdown. Actually don't be disappointed that you're a bit bald but you still can wear a wig provided it doesn't fall off! Anyway, still handsome with or without hair. But anyway, I'm not interested.

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