Cynthia Prescott, Department of History, University of North Dakota
While I appreciate Bill Caraher‘s passion for creating learning communities any way that we can (see The New Future of Teaching: Social Networks and the 24/7 Professor), I wonder whether we risk reinforcing an assumption that seems to exist among some students that faculty exist only to meet their individual needs (and perhaps cease to exist outside of class time, unless such needs present themselves). Millennial students prefer professors they perceive as “informal” and accessible (see Christy Price, “Why Don’t My Students Think I’m Groovy?” The Teaching Professor Vol. 23, no. 7, 7-8). While I sincerely desire to engage with my students as individuals, I sometimes wonder whether my efforts at informality and accessibility discourage students from recognizing that (a) I am an authority figure (after all, I do control their grades, and need some degree of control over what happens in the classroom), and (b) I have other responsibilities beyond meeting their individual needs. How can we be accessible and even “groovy” without introducing chaos into our classrooms or our daily lives?
As summer turns to fall, my dreams of engaging classroom activities and heart-to-heart chats with each of my individual students are replaced with a yearning for some golden age when students had manners and respected boundaries between themselves and their professors. Should we develop some basic guidelines for these interactions? Aside from my distaste for devoting class time to preaching a list of rules for behavior, I wonder whether we as faculty could ever agree on what those rules should be.
Were I to create a list of rules, here are some things I’d want to include:
1) I will respond to emails and other special requests as soon as time permits. (I, like Bret Weber, find that it is sometimes convenient for me to respond quickly, but this is not always the case.)
2) Any email to me should begin with a courteous greeting (call me Doctor or Professor, if that’s what I have requested), and should provide your first and last name and the course and class meeting time (or section number) in which you are enrolled.
3) If you email me a question or concern (particularly overnight or on weekends), check your email account for my response before approaching me at the beginning of class to ask whether I received your email. Do not assume that I will remember the topic of your email, particularly in large classes where I do not know everyone’s name.
4) The purpose of office hours is for me to be accessible. If you are not available during my posted office hours, please make a separate appointment. Whether or not you arrive during office hours, knock and wait for permission before entering.
What “rules” (if any) would you include? Would students (and faculty) benefit from having these expectations clearly defined? Or would this stifle student-faculty interaction? Would distributing a set of behavioral guidelines prevent me from being a “groovy” professor? Should I even be striving to have my students like me?
Dr. Prescott,
I stumbled on this post via Dr. Caraher’s blog. I find that your post raises good points as well as some questions regarding how students relate to their instructors and manners in general society. One thing I sometimes observe that concerns me is students referring to professors by first name in private company, but on campus. Obviously, we can not control a student’s speech for the most part, but it seems that some expectations need to be laid out. Maybe I was raised differently, but, to me, it is inappropriate to refer to a professor by first name even when they are not around, as it indirectly gives an impression of an erosion of their authority. I am curious as to your thoughts on students, even graduate students referring to professors by first name in conversation.
Overall, I feel that some of what you discuss raises the issue of general respect and interpersonal relationships on college campuses to a prominent place. I sometimes feel that, especially with undergraduate classes, resorting to tactics used in high schools is needed. I have seen how students shuffle about, creating disturbance, even when there are two to three minutes remaining in the class period. There are numerous times that I have wanted to stand up in a class I was a TA in and tell the students that class is not finished yet and to show respect, but do not do so because I know my place. How faculty handle students engaging in unproductive activities during class time is a delicate subject, but I wonder what can be done to increase respect for faculty by students. My apologies for the long comment, but I wanted to share my thoughts and get yours on these items. Have a great day.
Daniel,
You bring up a nice point (which as you observe is a really a minor issue standing in for more significant ones).
So, of course, the entire thing is more complex, but I think that thinking about titles in academia is interesting.
For example, many members of the faculty gravitated to academic careers to avoid the hierarchies and status games that we associate with worst elements in western society. So titles and the like are incredibly grating. For example, my advisor, a Michigan Ph.D. from the very early 1970s, was never Professor or Doctor Gregory. He was always Tim.
As another more confusing example, there is a tradition of referring to faculty as Mr./Mrs./Miss on the East Coast.
A particularly well known archaeologist with a Ph.D. is always known as Mr. W_____ even to colleagues. A friend of mine once asked him what his mother called him. He replied Mr. W_____.
I remember a prestigious faculty member rebuking a grad school buddy of mine for calling him Dr. T____. He quipped impatiently and a Dr. was a Professor without a job.
In any event, my point is that particularly at the graduate level the relationship between advisor/professor/colleagues is contextual. The best sign of respect is acknowledging the diverse conditions that shape the way that faculty want to be addressed.
As a little conclusion, I strongly dislike being called Dr. (which I associate exclusively with the medical profession) or Professor (which makes me want to call students “Student so-and-so”. If one must, call me Mr. Caraher, but anything other than Bill seems somewhat disrespectful to my values.
And that’s the real crux of the situation. Student-faculty relationships are negotiated and titles stand in for more complicated processes that develop over the course of a class, semester, or career.
Bill
Good points Bill. I guess part of my concerns regarding such informality come from being raised around the military, where rank and position are important and adhered to in order to maintain a necessary hierarchy essential to the success of the unit. It seems then that the key is for students to be aware that despite such informality, the professor still retains an authoritative position, which I think most do anyway.
One thing that I hope you all will write about (if you have and I missed it in a search, please let me know) is the issue of handling antsy students in class. As I mentioned in my first comment, I get frustrated when I see almost an entire class begin shuffling about, creating unnecessary noise when there are still three minutes left in the period. In addition are those who chit chat with each other during the lecture, and/or text. How should faculty handle something like these situations, and, what are the views by professors on such occurrences?
Daniel,
I should add to Bill’s comments that this varies by discipline as well as by institution. For example, I believe that it is common in the Sociology department at UND for students to call faculty by their first names. (No wonder our students are unsure how to address us if we can’t even agree amongst ourselves!)
I guess in my ideal world, I would know all of my students well, and would happily be on a 1st-name basis with all of them. In that sense, I share Bill’s discomfort with the type of hierarchy that is typical of the military. However, I have found that using a more formal title can be useful in reminding students of a power differential that will always exist (for better or worse) in the classroom. For me personally, the fact that I am a petite female who appears to be of the same age or even younger than many of my undergraduate students, I have come to rely on a few crude props, including the honorific title and wearing somewhat more formal business attire, to try to create a degree of differentiation and distance that I find that I need in order to maintain control over a class of 100 students.
I invite greater informality (such as using my first name) with graduate students, whom I view as apprentices and potentially future colleagues. I also am for informal in the way that I run smaller classes, particularly with graduate students. I find I don’t need to maintain the same level of stage presence in order to for the class to run smoothly, and for students to respect my role as their instructor and grader. I therefore feel free to interact with graduate students in a way that is closer to my ideal for all of my students.