Madeline George (she/her) Sophomore

Q: What class did the professor change, when did you find out that the professor for the class changed? Can you describe the emotions felt with this change?
“I had three classes change professors over the summer, so 75% of them. I had my forms and elements got the professor, I would say like, mid July to early August is when that showed up. Then I had two classes with Richard [Pelster-Wiebe] from the Creative Writing department. He had to take a sabbatical from teaching for personal reasons. That was for Digital Video I and Special Topics: Writing Screenwriting. I found out about both of those switches two weeks before school started, one got filled right away and the other maybe a week before school started.”

“I was super, super sad and disappointed because I just love [Pelster-Wiebe]. He is the sweetest person ever. I was really scared for my fiction and digital video class because they were by adjunct professors. I think in general Hamline has a bad problem of professors leaving and them not replacing them, and only replacing them with adjunct professors so they don’t have to pay them as much. And that just in general has been a problem for the last couple of years.”

Q: How has this sudden change affected the learning environment? Are you struggling with the change in teaching styles, or are you experiencing a better understanding of the material than you would’ve with the previous professor?
“I would say the teaching styles are awful, I’m specifically talking about my digital video class. At the beginning I was trying to give them grace, since they accepted the job two weeks before school started. But it’s a six hour class, so we meet twice a week for three hours each time, but they leave halfway through which doesn’t really work in a video class where it’s considered a lab class, where we’re learning how Premiere Pro works. If you’re not there to teach me, no one will stay, so then everyone leaves. On top of that, that class had a TA who didn’t find out till that day, and [the professor] didn’t find out till that day that they had a TA. It was kind of a disaster from the beginning. Even though they work in Adobe, as they are an artist, not like a teacher or a professor, they’re just a normal, everyday artist.”

“But on contrast, I think there is a way to do that well, because the professor that replaced the screenwriting professor, [Matt Goldman] does not teach either and he’s a normal, everyday writer and di thirty years of writing experience. He went into it saying he had never done this before and ‘I’m not even going to have a syllabus, we’re going to take this week by week’. So I think you can do it well, but to have the expectation that everyone just automatically knows what’s happening at all times is [not good].”

Q: Do you know any others who’ve had similar experiences? Whether that be the changing of professors, or the changing of professors with an impact on the learning environment?
“I do know people who’ve had them change and change from professors they’ve had great relationships with, to professors they purposely avoid taking classes with because they just don’t vibe. I know they’ve dropped the class because of it and they will just wait until it’s offered again with someone else.”

Lindsay Fulton (she/they) Sophomore

Q: What class did the professor change, when did you find out that the professor for the class changed? Can you describe the emotions felt with this change?
“Intro to Technical Theatre, which I was registered to TA for. I found out on July first. There was definitely a lot of stress and uncertainty involved because a new professor was not hired until very close to the beginning of the semester which was going to have impacts on the class obviously, and on a personal level my position as a TA, the LEAP credit I was planning to obtain by TA-ing and my plan for my intended minor in technical theater.”

Q: How has this sudden change affected the learning environment? Are you struggling with the change in teaching styles, or are you experiencing a better understanding of the material than you would’ve with the previous professor?
“Because the change was so last minute there has definitely been an adjustment period as the new professor gets acclimated to the Hamline programs and systems. I don’t believe this has negatively impacted students in our class specifically, but I can definitely see how it could. Through no fault of the professors involved, it just feels like one more point of disorganization and poor management from the university.”

Q: Do you know any others who’ve had similar experiences? Whether that be the changing of professors, or the changing of professors with an impact on the learning environment?
“Nothing specific that I can think of, but I’m sure I’m not the only one as Hamline seems to struggle to keep staff with the majority of professors being adjuncts and not faculty.”

“This whole experience was particularly distressing for me as I have a lot of respect and appreciation for this particular professor. I’m rather disappointed in Hamline’s management of the situation and hope that in the future Hamline can work to do a better job of recognizing and supporting the fantastic staff they do have even those who are not faculty.”