The case
Several years into my career, one comment from a student evaluation of my teaching stopped me cold. “I didn’t learn a thing. The professor was stingy with help and arrogant.”
I was devastated. To run this particular course, I had spent late nights answering e-mails, working extra hours in the office and redesigning assignments to prepare students for a competitive job market. But that comment forced me to confront a painful truth: the more I pushed students out of their comfort zone, the more some disliked me.
In a culture that equates popularity with success, early-career academics often treat being liked as a key metric. I’ve learnt that chasing approval ratings can undermine teaching. So I stopped worrying about student evaluations entirely.
I care about students’ happiness, but I also want to be the kind of professor who pairs care with a push for excellence. What matters is that I challenge them — not whether they like me or not.
Am I wrong? — Lan Nguyen Chaplin, specialist in integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Nature reached out to other scientists to review your behaviour. Are you insensitive to the needs of your students or are you right to focus on challenging them?
Comments from the jury
“A teaching style that doesn’t seek universal popularity is usually manageable, because you work with students only for a limited time. However, leadership roles often also come with power, and with great power comes great responsibility. It is not wrong to use that authority when necessary, as long as it is exercised with fairness and care.” — Monalisa Mallick, quantum engineer at Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany.
“The prof makes a fair point. But in their situation, I’d be sure to collect evidence of learning because if the students hate their professor and also don’t learn anything, it's not a good deal for anyone.” — Russ Altman, researcher in bioengineering, genetics, medicine and biomedical data science at Stanford University, California.
“It’s inevitable that you cannot be universally liked, but good leaders and teachers should still reflect on why people might feel negatively about them. A bit of self-criticism can go a long way. Dismissing criticism, instead of learning from it, I find worrying.” — Juliana Sanchez Alponti Millar, biologist at the University of York, UK.
“I strongly agree. Academic leadership should not be measured only by popularity, but also by fairness, clarity and the ability to help people grow beyond their comfort zones.” — Jay Jesús Molino Cornejo, physicist at UDELAS, Panama City.
“Totally fair! I also started out giving far too much of myself to students. Now I have firm boundaries on how much time I will spend on e-mails and preparation. It’s helped my workload and means that I don’t make my students’ feelings my own.” — Maggie Swift, conservation scientist at the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health in Ithaca, New York.
The verdict
Feedback can be a valuable tool for self-reflection, but it’s a truth universally acknowledged — both in science and in life — that you really can’t please everyone. Most respondents seem to back Nguyen Chaplin’s conviction that she was better off putting her energy into teaching in line with her values.
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