The school year got off to a strange start in one University of Victoria classroom when a professor told his own students he wasn’t qualified to teach them.
On the first day of school last week, Professor Jianping Pan went so far as to recommend to his computer science students that they take the course with a better instructor next year.
Things only got more bizarre from there.
After the University replaced Pan with another instructor, he showed up two days later and started giving a lecture – despite efforts by faculty to stop him.
“Why don’t you guys just take off and let him finish, and then it won’t be any more embarrassing?” a student is overheard saying in a video of the incident.
“I’m not trying to make this embarrassing for anybody,” replies a faculty member.
Ultimately police were called and Pan was escorted off campus by security.
Pan told CTV News he informed the students that he proposed switching courses with another professor, but the school rejected the idea.
He said he told the students because he didn’t want to lie to them.
Meanwhile, UVic said Pan was perfectly suitable for the course, telling CTV in a statement: “Faculty members are often asked to teach foundational courses that are not directly in their areas of research as a service to the department and to students. This is a normal part of a faculty member’s job and does not mean they are not competent to deliver the course.”
Online, students have weighed in on Pan on the website RateMyProfessor, calling him a solid instructor with comments like “Lectures are well organized, he makes a good effort to encourage discussion and participation.”
The school newspaper The Martlet first broke the story and said the controversy created a buzz on campus.
“It’s such a bizarre thing to happen in a classroom, especially on the first day of class,” said Comack O’Brien
Pan isn’t listed as teaching any more courses at the university this fall.
