James Horvath, a master lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, is no longer teaching General Chemistry 2, or CHM2046, this semester.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences decided to restrict the multi-decade instructor to only working in Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2 labs.
“It is not unusual for someone’s teaching assignments to change at UF,” UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes wrote in an email. “In this case, the Chemistry Department decided it does not need Dr. Horvath as a lecturer in the year ahead. As a result, he will be able to focus on his laboratory duties.”
Collin Zeng, a 19-year-old UF biology sophomore and one of Horvath’s teaching assistants, said he thinks Horvath should at least be available to those students who wish to truly learn chemistry in-depth, so he created a petition on change.org addressed to the Department of Chemistry asking for Horvath to regain lecturing privileges.
Students have had mixed reactions: Some vehemently support Horvath, and some think the department made the right decision.
Grant Sinnott, a 19-year-old UF economics and mathematics sophomore, said that as an executive secretary in Student Government, he heard complaints about the class and conducted an in-depth review of the class. Based on the research, the decision made sense, he said.
“The problem wasn’t the difficulty but the standardization,” he said. “We felt like in a general educational class, you should receive the same education. It’s not fair for one professor to teach certain chapters and others to teach something different.”
Sinnott examined the syllabuses for the chemistry classes and noticed some outliers and discrepancies in what is taught in the class. Horvath’s class was an outlier.
Horvath wrote in an email, “The real issue is about all students studying in American institutions of higher learning — not me.”
Chemical engineering sophomore Jacob Cottrell had Horvath in the Spring for Chem 2 and chose him purposefully even though he heard Horvath was more difficult.
“(Horvath) said, ‘People find my class difficult because I want you guys to learn chemistry. Chemistry is not easy, so I’m not going to make it any easier than it is,’ and he stuck true to that,” the 19-year-old said.
“He would explain a really weird concept, and at the end, he would laugh about it and ask, ‘Isn’t that really amazing, guys?’”
As of press time, the petition had 378 supporters.
“On the first day of class he always tells the stories about himself, and he concludes the class with a review,” Zeng said. “The review actually said, ‘When bad people die and go to hell, they go to Horvath’s lecture.’”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 8/26/2014 under the headline "Master Lecturer Horvath no longer teaching Chemistry 2"]
