Dr. Vic Maconachy Dr. Helen Barker Vice President for Academic Affairs Dean of Students Capitol Technology University Capitol Technology University [email protected] [email protected]
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.
Updates
May 3, 2016
im still getting emails every day from students sharing their own nightmare stories about this class. its becoming clear that this is a much bigger pattern than any of us originally thought and the administration has to acknowledge that eventually.
May 3, 2016
the support has been wild and its super clear that so many of you are feeling this same frustration in class. thanks for showing up and making sure the university cant just ignore how we feel anymore.
24 Comments
I have taken 3 classes overall with this professor CS150, CS310, SE 458. Ive barely been able to follow and understand him. When it comes to exam and quizzes they are complete curve balls because some questions are vague. Some times I don't know whats being asked in them.
I did not understand the requirements or objective of all the mid-semester papers in Senior Design due to there being only 3 or 4 times the class met the entire semester. Even with speaking with the teacher almost every week and at least once asking what work was missing, some assignments were never even mentioned. Because of this, not everything was submitted.
As a former student and known member in the info sec community, I was horrified by this professor's teaching methods and lack of effort with the students. This professor reflects negatively on Capitol and its values.
I was struggling in CS-310 due to lack of teaching experience and because of this course , my overall GPA is lowered. Also because of this class, I probably am not going to receive the cum laude status at graduation. I hope the school can turn this to a pass/fail grade as it is unfair to student to suffer the penalty.
I had no previous experience with programming before his CS-150 course, and he refused to answer questions we had as a class because we "should know that by now as CS majors." I am an EE major.
I have a very recent harrassment from what call himself sabbah. He is absolutely not professional when it comes for him to deal with also potential employees and he acts against the rule and call and email in inappropriate times not limited to his attitude and behavior when it comes to leadership and a mentor he absolutely just a show off. I SIGN THIS PETITON. AGAINST ERIC SABBAH IN UNIONITY
A close friend of mine whom I regard as beyond brilliant (the guy is a very gifted writer and a savant when it comes to computers) has been acing all of his senior classes (just like every year before the current one) only to have nothing but issue after issue with this "professor". I'm no doctor, but when a person is sick, you can only treat the symptoms for so long before you need to focus on curing the illness that's causing them. In this particular case, there is a VERY long laundry list of symptoms caused by Dr. Sabbah (the illness). HELP these students! Cure the Illness that is Dr. Sabbah's pride and lack of understanding or compassion. He is exactly the WRONG kind of professor for Capitol. I considered myself a proud graduate of this school, but if the hiring of professors of Dr. Sabbah's ilk continues, it'll be hard to maintain school pride in a University I no longer love nor recognize. PLEASE do something about this!!
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Dr. Vic Maconachy Dr. Helen Barker Vice President for Academic Affairs Dean of Students Capitol Technology University Capitol Technology University [email protected] [email protected]
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.
Updates
May 3, 2016
im still getting emails every day from students sharing their own nightmare stories about this class. its becoming clear that this is a much bigger pattern than any of us originally thought and the administration has to acknowledge that eventually.
May 3, 2016
the support has been wild and its super clear that so many of you are feeling this same frustration in class. thanks for showing up and making sure the university cant just ignore how we feel anymore.
24 Comments
What's more frightening is the horrible reviews from students expressing the exact same concerns at two New York universities professor sabbah instructed at in the past; obviously, he does not learn from his mistakes.
I have taken 3 classes overall with this professor CS150, CS310, SE 458. Ive barely been able to follow and understand him. When it comes to exam and quizzes they are complete curve balls because some questions are vague. Some times I don't know whats being asked in them.
I did not understand the requirements or objective of all the mid-semester papers in Senior Design due to there being only 3 or 4 times the class met the entire semester. Even with speaking with the teacher almost every week and at least once asking what work was missing, some assignments were never even mentioned. Because of this, not everything was submitted.
As a former student and known member in the info sec community, I was horrified by this professor's teaching methods and lack of effort with the students. This professor reflects negatively on Capitol and its values.
I was struggling in CS-310 due to lack of teaching experience and because of this course , my overall GPA is lowered. Also because of this class, I probably am not going to receive the cum laude status at graduation. I hope the school can turn this to a pass/fail grade as it is unfair to student to suffer the penalty.
I had no previous experience with programming before his CS-150 course, and he refused to answer questions we had as a class because we "should know that by now as CS majors." I am an EE major.
I have a very recent harrassment from what call himself sabbah. He is absolutely not professional when it comes for him to deal with also potential employees and he acts against the rule and call and email in inappropriate times not limited to his attitude and behavior when it comes to leadership and a mentor he absolutely just a show off. I SIGN THIS PETITON. AGAINST ERIC SABBAH IN UNIONITY
A close friend of mine whom I regard as beyond brilliant (the guy is a very gifted writer and a savant when it comes to computers) has been acing all of his senior classes (just like every year before the current one) only to have nothing but issue after issue with this "professor". I'm no doctor, but when a person is sick, you can only treat the symptoms for so long before you need to focus on curing the illness that's causing them. In this particular case, there is a VERY long laundry list of symptoms caused by Dr. Sabbah (the illness). HELP these students! Cure the Illness that is Dr. Sabbah's pride and lack of understanding or compassion. He is exactly the WRONG kind of professor for Capitol. I considered myself a proud graduate of this school, but if the hiring of professors of Dr. Sabbah's ilk continues, it'll be hard to maintain school pride in a University I no longer love nor recognize. PLEASE do something about this!!
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What's more frightening is the horrible reviews from students expressing the exact same concerns at two New York universities professor sabbah instructed at in the past; obviously, he does not learn from his mistakes.