Things I didn't realize that I should have made clear at the beginning of the semester

To my students:

Just because my email address is lmkolbas@uncg.edu, please do not send me an email that begins “Dear Professor lmkolbas”. My name is not lmkolbas. If you don’t know what it is, please look at your syllabus to find out.

Please don’t include me on your mass email asking everyone to sign an online petition to keep the TV show “The Game” on the air.

When you come to office hours, do not read and respond to your text messages as I’m trying to answer your questions.

When I’m going over a multiple choice question in class and spend five minutes discussing why choices a, b, and c are all incorrect and therefore, d must be correct, don’t respond by asking “How did you get choice d?”.

Don’t email me to ask me how to calculate your grade. That information is on the syllabus and if you can’t figure out how to multiply various grades by their respective weights, you should not be taking an accounting course.

Don’t tell me that you copied your friend’s homework assignment but would like to understand why those answers were correct. And when I respond by saying “I have office hours on Friday from 11-2”, don’t respond by asking if you can just email me instead.

Because there are 125 students in the class, do not email me to tell me you missed class and to ask when the homework is due. Here are some other ways to find out: look at the notes that are posted online which include the homework due date, look at your syllabus, look at the online homework assignment which indicates the due date, or ask another student in the class.

When the first line of exam says “Exam 1 Version 2”, your exam version is 2. Please don’t tell me that you read “Exam 1” and figured that meant version 1.

Do not ask me to print out the notes for you because you are having a problem doing so.

When your exam grade is a 22 because you put down the wrong version number on your answer sheet, don’t say to me “You graded my test wrong” as if it was my mistake.

As proud as you are that you’ve been “washed by the blood of Jesus Christ”, the two full pages about your religious beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with the essay assignment asking you to discuss the impact of fraudulent accounting information on WorldCom’s bankruptcy.

Don’t email me to ask me “Are you going to post the answers to the practice exam like you did last time?” Remember where those answers were last time? They were at the end of the practice exam. Why don’t you check that same location before emailing me.

When you send me the following email after an exam:

“I am sorry to bother you! But I just realized that I did not see the last two pages of the exam, I had all the questions I did right! I do not think there is anything you can do, but I just wanted to let you know just in case.”.

I’m not sure whether I’m more bothered by your missing TWO pages of the exam or by the fact that you thought there was even a remote possibility that I would give you credit for the questions you forgot to do but, as you say, answered correctly.