February 25, 2018

This semester, we found out that the professor that was originally supposed to teach our Principles of Economics 2 class left Howard University. This was more than likely a last minute decision, and so initially we were left without a professor. Consequently, we were assigned a doctoral student as our professor - Amira Alghumgham. In the beginning, we really tried to give her chance. We understood the situation that she was in, so we were patient with her in the beginning. Yet as the semester progressed, we discovered that our grade might truly be in jeopardy, for multiple reasons:

1. Ms. Alghumgham consistently arrives to class late. Whether it’s five minutes or ten minutes late, she is not punctual and still determined to squeeze in a module every class. This leads to us not understanding the material due to the fast pace that she lectures at, and because we are always short on time, she rushes through answering our questions.

2. She does not make sure that we understand the material. She has been doing a very poor job at teaching, and instead, reads from the PowerPoint slides. We understand that we must do our part and read through the textbook online, which we do. Yet every class period when someone has a question, her responses (which are snappy) are usually “We have to move on,” or “You guys do not pay attention, which is not my fault.” We do not pay $40,000+ just to come to class and watch our professor read from PowerPoint slides.

3. She did not prepare us for our upcoming midterm. She provided us with a “study guide” that consisted of nearly 150 questions this past Thursday night, and expected us to come to class the next day with questions regarding the study guide. Not only that, but nearly 1/3 of the questions on the “study guide” were on a section that we are not being tested on for this midterm. Additionally, we are not provided with the answers for this “study guide.” How is this supposed to help us study for our midterm and ace it?

4. Her communication skills are poor. She responds to emails late, and if she does respond, it’s usually vague. An example of her poor communication skills is how she told us only one week prior to our midterm that it will not be online as stated in the beginning of the semester, but in class.

5. The grading scale is unclear, and she doesn’t post grades. For instance, the syllabus states that attendance is 20% of our grade…yet she doesn’t take attendance. We also have had one quiz, which she stated would be a part of our attendance grade, but what about the quiz category grade that is listed on the syllabus?

6. She is not accessible. One student tried reaching out to Ms. Alghumgham about going to her office hours to go over practice problems. Ms. Alghumgham’s response: “Please e-mail me your questions instead so that we can go over them in class at our review session.”

We strongly believe that something needs to be done about Ms. Alghumgham being our professor. It’s barely the middle of the semester, and we strongly sense that things are going down the wrong path. Ms. Alghumgham was unable to prepare us for our midterm; how would she be able to prepare us for our final, which is 30% of our grade? Many of us desire to pass this class, but this would be nearly impossible with Ms. Alghumgham as our professor. We do not believe that Ms. Alghumgham is a good fit for her position as our professor. We ask that some changes take place, so that we can all succeed in this class.

Sincerely,

Principles of Economics 2 - Section 1

1:10pm - 2:00pm, MWF