The High Cost of the Failure of Excellence

We, the undersigned would like to formally acknowledge some actions being demonstrated on a daily basis by a member of the University of New England’s faculty, Dr. David Grimm, which we strongly believe the school has not addressed. We believe Dr. David Grimm is not representing himself as a professor that looks out for the best learning interests of his students by:

1. Creating exams that do not adequately and fairly test the grasp of the material being taught in class. “I expected the class average to be a 73 when I created the first exam” - Dr. David Grimm following Exam #1. We assert that if you expect your students to fail and create an exam that sets your students up to fail, many will fail.

2. Writing inaccurate directions on exams and not letting the entire class know about it while students are taking the exam. Example: The first exam had several matching questions that had directions offering the following: “An answer may only be used once,” when in fact, answers could be used multiple times. Some students came up to the professor during the exam and brought this to his attention. However, he failed to address his mistake to the entire class, preventing the other students from answering the questions correctly on the exam.

3. Lashing out at students in front of the entire class and becoming defensive when they ask questions, instead of trying to understand the student’s point of view and needs.

4. Refusal to listen to students’ perspectives on exam questions, quiz questions, and clicker questions. Refusing to consider students’ justifications of answers on exams, quizzes, and clicker questions that were demonstratively correct. Instead of trying to listen and help the students, Dr. Grimm simply argues and becomes openly defensive.

5. Failure to respond to student emails in regards to all of the concerns listed above.