Dr. Vic Maconachy Dr. Helen Barker Vice President for Academic Affairs Dean of Students Capitol Technology University Capitol Technology University wvmaconachy@captechu.edu hgbarker@captechu.edu

Dear. Dr. Maconachy and Dr. Barker,

We, the members of the Students Against Dr. Sabbah committee, would like to submit a formal complaint against Dr. Eric Sabbah, who has previously taught CS-150 (Introduction to Programming using C), currently teaching CS-310 (Computer Algorithms), and is signed up to teach CS-418 (Operating Systems) for the Fall 2016 semester.

This is not the first complaint submitted against Dr. Sabbah. Many students feel that they are not able to learn class material to the best of their abilities because of his sloppy presentation, negative attitude towards change, and rejection of constructive criticism. Students who are on Honor Societies and on the Dean’s List have received the lowest grades they have ever received at Capitol because of Dr. Sabbah’s inability to articulate crucial concepts and inability to properly prepare students for midterms and finals. His professor evaluations will reflect these concerns and disappointments many students had during this academic year.

Even after a first complaint was filed back in February, Dr. Sabbah was still signed up to teach CS-418 in the fall. This class is commonly referred to as the hardest Computer Science course offered at Capitol. Based on the complaints with his previous classes, we do not feel that a teacher with hs teaching style should be signed up to teach CS-418, especially as an online class. Unfortunately, there was little action taken against Dr. Sabbah when the first complaint was filed against him. He made little changes like adding quizzes and shorten the homework assignments, but still failed to accurately convey concepts and procedures in class. Many students joined a student group to make up for his hard to follow teaching style. Without the help of the one student who could truly understand the material and helped reteach it in a clear and concise way, many students would not have gotten anything out of his CS-310 class.

In addition to Dr. Sabbah’s teaching style, the assigned book was also a hard to follow. When a student proposes an alternative method (in some cases, one that is clearly an improvement to the one introduced by Dr.Sabbah) he often needs to time to understand what a student is suggesting or why it does or does not work, which leads many to believe that he doesn’t fully understand the material that he is teaching. The only way that students were able to understand what was going on in his class was through the study group.

Students pay tuition to be taught the class material from a professor, not other students. This is why we believe that the students who took his classes (both CS-150 and CS-310) should be offered each free of charge because students did not learn in accordance with the Capitol’s course description, and are being subjected to a violation of Capitol’s mission to “...educate individuals for professional opportunities in engineering, computer and information sciences, and business.” and to “... provide relevant learning experiences that lead to success in the evolving global community”, as well as violating Capitol’s core values: “Quality – always striving for continuous improvement. Growth – expanding and changing to meet new needs of society. Teamwork – exercising collective effort to support students and staff. Communications –providing timely and useful information. Flexibility – discovering and seizing opportunities.” as stated in the Capitol catalog.

It is the responsibility of the University to provide adequate instruction for these core courses. By allowing Dr. Sabbah to teach, we are being deprived of the education we need to succeed in our college – and future – careers. Continuing with these courses as they are would be detrimental to the student body as a whole.

Respectfully,

The Students Against Dr. Sabbah Committee.

By signing my name on this petition, as a Capitol Technology University student, I have either witnessed, have been affected, or can guarantee that I know someone who has been affected by Professor Eric Sabbah’s teaching standards. By signing my name, I agree that there should be action taken against Professor Eric Sabbah because I agree that we are being subject to a violation of Capitol’s mission and values.