An Online College Professor Forgot Australia Was A Country, And So Do I If You Don’t Remind Me

ItalianStallion8 years ago

There are always a lot of commercials for Southern New Hampshire University. Don’t know why, and to be honest I don’t even think I know where New Hampshire is. All of New England kind of blends together for me after Massachusetts. Is New Hampshire the state with the lobsters, or with Bernie Sanders? Asking for a friend. Either way, SNHU is primarily an online college so I guess it’s kinda a non-issue.

The fact that they have current students from all around, though, is why it’s kinda surprising geography isn’t the strong suit of Southern New Hampshire University.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Southern New Hampshire University has apologized to a student who failed an assignment because her professor insisted Australia was a continent, not a country.

Ashley Arnold, who is completing a sociology degree online, filed a report with the university when she received a failing grade on a project outline that was supposed to compare a social norm in the United States with that of another country, BuzzFeed News reported.

Her grading rubric was filled with multiple zeros because, according to the professor, “Australia is a continent; not a country.” She told Arnold that the “error made it nearly impossible” for her to have accurately completed the assignment.

Outrageous! Steve Irwin did not get unceremoniously killed by a stingray for this shit! This kind of thing would never happen at Northern New Hampshire University!

Honestly, maybe I should cut this professor some slack. I barely know anything about Australia. Australia always seemed like some far off, fictional land like Narnia or North Dakota. I’ve never been there, but I imagine if I went you’d pretty much get off the plane and find nothing but a vast outback of kangaroos, koalas, and Hugh Jackman. My friends who were lucky (read: rich) enough to study abroad there have told me it’s a great, exciting place with an exciting culture. So if anyone wants to donate a vacation to Australia to me for “research,” drop me an email (to clarify: it’s not tax deductible).

Hopefully we all learned/already knew a valuable lesson here and can make National Geographic proud. And let this be the last time we disrespect the nation that blessed us with Margot Robbie..

[via The Chronicle of Higher Education]

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