Reviews for SPHL602

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Typhanye Dyer SPHL602 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/11/2023	Extremely unprofessional and disorganized. Dr. Dyer is knowledgeable in her field, however, when interacting with graduate students she does not know how to behave in a professional manner. After having years of experience in academia, one would think she would treat students with respect; instead, she lashes out at students and angrily sends emails (a hate email that you write but should never send). In our class, she created a hostile environment after sending an email calling out students' character. Regarding the material taught in SPHL602, it was basic epidemiology but taught in such a confusing and disorganized manner that it made it more complicated than it is.
Typhanye Dyer SPHL602 Anonymous 01/18/2023	Reiterating the review below re: Dr. Dyer's unprofessional and abusive behaviors. In my 17+ years of academia, I have never been spoken to so unprofessionally and harshly by a professor as we were in Dr. Dyer's email that was sent to a class of 90+ students. A handful of students asked questions that were appropriate to ask regarding the exam, and Dr. Dyer blew up on the whole class and took away the partial credit she had promised leading up to the exam. This behavior was not merited nor expected of a senior faculty member. Months later, I am still appalled. The course is passable, and obviously required for MPH students, but I hope for everyone's sake that she no longer teaches it. I heard from so many of my peers that they were considering dropping out of their MPH program because of Dr. Dyer's treatment -- she should not have the power to impact aspiring public health professionals that way in the first semester of their graduate program. As mentioned below, exams are no longer open note and are in-person using lockdown browser. There are 3 exams (1 for epi and 2 for biostats) and roughly bi-weekly homework. We were permitted to have an index card to write notes on for the epi exam and a sheet of paper for the biostats exams, but the professors changed their mind about it every week throughout the semester, so there's a chance this won't be allowed in the future. Good luck out there, y'all.
Typhanye Dyer SPHL602 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2022	Dr. Dyer is not only unbelievably disorganized, she is beyond unprofessional. Her energy is all over the place and when she lectures you don’t actually know what’s going on in her class. I thought it was just me until I started asking other people in the class if they knew what was going on and everyone else was just as flustered by her teaching mechanisms. She talks down on younger students, particularly those in the accelerated program, and will suddenly flip a switch despite attempting to be the “cool” teacher all semester. She just reads straight from her slides with no added information so if you can read, you can skip class. I also didn’t appreciate her saying “things” and “stuff” rather than using the actual terminology needed to learn this material. She loves to talk about herself and thinks she’s funny. I can tell you more about her than about epidemiology. She sends lengthy emails with no relevant content to the class, solely about her personal life. I wouldn’t mind this if I was actually learning anything relevant to the course from her. When you take this course, it’s in an old classroom in the SPH building set up like a small auditorium. I need to point out the classroom is outdated because there’s not enough outlets in the class to make test taking efficient. The desks are also smaller than a MacBook Air so having a sheet of paper and a laptop is just uncomfortable (and not possible with one desk) when test taking. Someone pointed this out and asked if our exam could be taken in another large classroom so that we could have enough room to write and use our laptops or if we could just do paper exams. This question angered her and she took away partial credit for our math on her exam. I think professors and faculty need to do a mock exam in that classroom and determine if it’s fair for students to test in that room in its current state. It’s due for an upgrade and having partial credit taken away for such a fair question was absurd. The following morning at 7AM we received a scathing email from her following the exam review. As quoted below and relevant to this review of her: “Hello Everyone: Hope you rested well. Me...not so much!” “We WILL have a few paper exams...not 95 of them. ..because...well...paper. Some of us care about the environment” “you can have your scratch paper. ONE sheet...because it will not be graded with the exam, so use front and back. You can bring it up and hand it in if you'd like but it is not necessary. In other words...there is no partial credit.” “those of you with empathy know that last night was unnecessarily cruel, childish, unacceptable and an embarrassment to the SPH. You are OUR students...whether you are in my department or not...we take pride in admitting you to the various programs...and I see some of the accelerated students have forgotten they're in graduate school (kinda).” “The behavior exhibited last night was deplorable.” “I am hearing from your TA's that there was chatter in one class and they suggested if you need to have a conversation you could do so outside...and someone actually left? This is unacceptable.” “This is not cute behavior...would your parents be proud of said behavior? I doubt it. It was embarrassing. We were having fun...I was being light and accommodating...but I see that some don't know when to stop.” “this is MY CLASS! Mine! When you teach yours then you can have all the paper you want and allow your students to take exams in a separate classroom so they can spread out as needed and kill as many trees as you want” “I don't care if you lay on the floor to have enough room to write. Stand in the back and write on the wall and have your computer on the floor next to you for all I care.” “I'm from the mess around and find out generation (X)...and YOU done messed around...and thus...YOU done found out.” “I am sorry that a few of your classmates' behavior has resulted in the ENTIRE class being thrown under the bus. My Zen vibes were mistaken for something I can't even put a name to. So if you're upset...thank your little friends.” Little friends = accelerated students The level of unprofessionalism she displayed during her half of the course wasn’t very “cute behavior” or “zen” of her. Thankfully, this is my only course with her. Her email had me in a state of shock for weeks and had me questioning this program entirely. I couldn’t believe the university allows this kind of behavior from professors. I never experienced anything like it at the community college I started at nor at my undergrad university. Just simply unkind and felt like a power trip.
Jamie Trevitt SPHL602 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2022	Trevitt was pretty disorganized. She would make her PowerPoints right before class so her math was often off and then she’d have to revise her PowerPoints multiple times. HOWEVER, she was extremely generous with partial credit. So much so that most of the people I talked to in class actually did much better in her portion of the class than in Epi. Overall, she seems like a very nice person and seems to care about what students think and if they’re understanding her; it’s just the lack of organization that’s extremely frustrating. But I was much happier with her half of the class because at least she was nice and had zen energy.
Typhanye Dyer SPHL602 Anonymous 09/26/2022	She is one of the best professors I've had at UMD. She knows how to teach, provides plenty of relatable and in-person examples, and really shows her personality throughout lectures. I never would have expected to enjoy my 4:15-6:15 epi lecture so much :) Her tests and homeworks are completely reasonable.