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February 21, 2006
To: Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me
By
JONATHAN D. GLATER
One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail
message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like
her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another
explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was
recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party.
Jennifer Schultens, an associate professor of mathematics at the
University of California, Davis, received this e-mail message last
September from a student in her calculus course: "Should I buy a binder
or a subject notebook? Since I'm a freshman, I'm not sure how to shop
for school supplies. Would you let me know your recommendations? Thank
you!"
At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much
more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing
boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.
These days, they say, students seem to view them as available around the
clock, sending a steady stream of e-mail messages — from 10 a week to 10
after every class — that are too informal or downright inappropriate.
"The tone that they would take in e-mail was pretty astounding," said
Michael J. Kessler, an assistant dean and a lecturer in theology at
Georgetown University. " 'I need to know this and you need to tell me
right now,' with a familiarity that can sometimes border on imperative."
He added: "It's a real fine balance to accommodate what they need and at
the same time maintain a level of legitimacy as an instructor and
someone who is institutionally authorized to make demands on them, and
not the other way round."
While once professors may have expected deference, their expertise seems
to have become just another service that students, as consumers, are
buying. So students may have no fear of giving offense, imposing on the
professor's time or even of asking a question that may reflect badly on
their own judgment.
For junior faculty members, the barrage of e-mail has brought new
tension into their work lives, some say, as they struggle with how to
respond. Their tenure prospects, they realize, may rest in part on
student evaluations of their accessibility.
The stakes are different for professors today than they were even a
decade ago, said Patricia Ewick, chairwoman of the sociology department
at Clark University in Massachusetts, explaining that "students are
constantly asked to fill out evaluations of individual faculty."
Students also frequently post their own evaluations on Web sites like
ratemyprofessors.com and describe their impressions of their professors
on blogs.
Last fall, undergraduate students at Syracuse University set up a group
in Facebook.com, an online network for students, and dedicated it to
maligning one particular instructor. The students were reprimanded.
Professor Ewick said 10 students in one class e-mailed her drafts of
their papers days before they were due, seeking comments. "It's all
different levels of presumption," she said. "One is that I'll be able to
drop everything and read 250 pages two days before I'm going to get 50
of these."
Kathleen E. Jenkins, a sociology professor at the College of William and
Mary in Virginia, said she had even received e-mail requests from
students who missed class and wanted copies of her teaching notes.
Alexandra Lahav, an associate professor of law at the University of
Connecticut, said she felt pressured by the e-mail messages. "I feel
sort of responsible, as if I ought to be on call all the time," she
said.
Many professors said they were often uncertain how to react. Professor
Schultens, who was asked about buying the notebook, said she debated
whether to tell the student that this was not a query that should be
directed to her, but worried that "such a message could be pretty
scary." "I decided not to respond at all," she said.
Christopher J. Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education who has studied technology in education, said these e-mail
messages showed how students no longer deferred to their professors,
perhaps because they realized that professors' expertise could rapidly
become outdated.
"The deference was probably driven more by the notion that professors
were infallible sources of deep knowledge," Professor Dede said, and
that notion has weakened.
Meanwhile, students seem unaware that what they write in e-mail could
adversely affect them, Professor Lahav said. She recalled an e-mail
message from a student saying that he planned to miss class so he could
play with his son. Professor Lahav did not respond. "It's graduate
school, he's an adult human being, he's obviously a parent, and it's not
my place to tell him how to run his life," she said. But such e-mail
messages can have consequences, she added. "Students don't understand
that what they say in e-mail can make them seem very unprofessional, and
could result in a bad recommendation."
Still, every professor interviewed emphasized that instant feedback
could be invaluable. A question about a lecture or discussion "is for me
an indication of a blind spot, that the student didn't get it," said
Austin D. Sarat, a professor of political science at Amherst College.
College students say that e-mail makes it easier to ask questions and
helps them to learn. "If the only way I could communicate with my
professors was by going to their office or calling them, there would be
some sort of ranking or prioritization taking place," said Cory Merrill,
19, a sophomore at Amherst. "Is this question worth going over to the
office?"
But student e-mail can go too far, said Robert B. Ahdieh, an associate
professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta. He paraphrased some of the
comments he had received: "I think you're covering the material too
fast, or I don't think we're using the reading as much as we could in
class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we've
covered at the end of class in case we missed anything."
Students also use e-mail to criticize one another, Professor Ahdieh
said. He paraphrased this comment: "You're spending too much time with
my moron classmates and you ought to be focusing on those of us who are
getting the material."
Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, said he once received an e-mail message late
one evening from a student who had recently come to the realization that
he was gay and was struggling to cope.
Professor Greenstone said he eventually helped the student get an
appointment with a counselor. "I don't think we would have had the
opportunity to discuss his realization and accompanying feelings without
e-mail as an icebreaker," he said.
A few professors said they had rules for e-mail and told their students
how quickly they would respond, how messages should be drafted and what
types of messages they would answer.
Meg Worley, an assistant professor of English at Pomona College in
California, said she told students that they must say thank you after
receiving a professor's response to an e-mail message.
"One of the rules that I teach my students is, the less powerful person
always has to write back," Professor Worley said.
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