Students as Customers

A professor at Syracuse U walked out of the class, when a student in the front row started texting during the class....Of course a big issue, articles were written, comments were made, so on and so forth. Basically the professor (a highly respectable, tenured faculty) thought it was disrespectful and was clearly stated in class policies as not allowed. One of the students who commented on this said that he pays $30k to go to school and he has a right to decide whether to pay attention or not and blah blah blah.... I would have been mortified as a student to even think in that direction. While a lot can be said about whether what the professor did was right or wrong, there is no doubt that what the student did was wrong. What I found more shocking was the other student's audacity.... Well, yes you are paying a lot of money to go to school, but you are forgetting that the so called product/service that you are buying is "learning", which you are buying because you don't know what you need to know. So if you decide to come to me for gaining that knowledge then you got to follow my rules. Just like when you buy a product, you can return it if you don't like it, but there is a refund policy which you need to follow.... You can't ride your bike on it and then return it......

The other point that I noticed was that this professor is a tenured professor. That may not be the reason why he did this, but tenure does give you a lot more freedom. I have heard many professors say how disappointed they are in students who are always on facebook in the class and the administration seems to be more student centric than faculty centric. And so many of them wait till they get their tenure to actually teach the way they like to, which means expecting students to be disciplined....... How sad and disappointing!!!