"About a decade ago... he noticed a loss of focus among the students, even as more of them enrolled in his class, hoping to pursue medical careers."

"'Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,' he wrote.... Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams. The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. 'In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,' he wrote. 'We now see single digit scores and even zeros.' After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said. To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.... By spring 2022, the university was returning with fewer Covid restrictions, but the anxiety continued and students seemed disengaged. 'They weren’t coming to class, that’s for sure, because I can count the house,' Dr. Jones said in an interview. 'They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.'... James W. Canary, chairman of the department until about a year ago, said he admired Dr. Jones’s course content and pedagogy, but felt that his communication with students was skeletal and sometimes perceived as harsh. 'He hasn’t changed his style or methods in a good many years,' Dr. Canary said. 'The students have changed, though, and they were asking for and expecting more support from the faculty when they’re struggling.'"

From "At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame? Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him" (NYT).