Wow...that has to be one of the funniest things I have read in a long time! I am currently working on my MA and this doesn't surprise me at all. It never ceases to amaze me how unprofessional students can be toward their professors in and out of class, even at the graduate level. I was always taught to treat my professors as a sort of "employer" and maintain a strict employer/employee relationship. I don't know what some of these kids were thinking. I would never dream of emailing a professor with a personal problem.

I respectfully disagree with Professor Dede's conclusion - that professors are no longer looked up to as "infallible sources of deep knowledge." Students still think of professors as wise, but the instant communication factor makes them also seem like approachable, peer-like sources of all knowledge, no matter how trivial. It's easy to fire off an e-mail, and there is response equivalent to a cold stare or raised eyebrow. Except, perhaps, a lack of response altogether.

Professors, too, must adapt to this new technology, and let students know what's appropriate and what's not. It's comparable to student citing Wikipedia - they'll only stop when they're told it's not acceptable.

Last year I received an email from a student on a Friday at 8.30pm with a trivial question about lecture handouts. On Sunday at 5pm the student sent another email, asking why I had not replied.

I did reply, eventually, on Monday morning at 7.30am, asking the student to come to my office hour at 8.30am to collect the handouts. The student never showed up.

Of course, I could have tried IM'ing my student...

See http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2006/02/2006020701c/careers.html

Ms. Schultens missed a teachable moment. The right thing to do would have been to politely inform the student that in college, these types of decisions are left to the judgment of the students, who are presumed to be adults. Of course, instant reply is not required, just because somebody sends you an e-mail, does not mean that it must be replied to ASAP. You can always wait until business hours tomorrow.

Like ab, I've had to set boundaries. I tell my students that I check my email once a day, at 7 p.m. . . . and that I don't check it on the weekend. That way they have to plan their schedule around mine, and I don't have to feel guilty if I don't email them back immediately. Otherwise, as Wymer indicates, my train of thought would be derailed every ten minutes. Every day. (Of course, I do sometimes check it more frequently, and do sometimes respond outside the designated period, but they can't count on it; and because I've made my schedule clear to them, they aren't annoyed. Many an email sent a 9 p.m. begins "if you happen to look at this before tomorrow . . .)

When I was a t.a. in the eighties, I heard the same type of excuses and questions (I couldn't come to class. I had to go shopping for clothes) orally -- now they just email them.

Dan -- any comment on Lawrence Summers' resignation ?

Why doesn't IM work for communicating with faculty? For all the reasons that Professor Wymer lists, but i think she misses the biggest reason of all: IM's are an instant hit sort of application. You can make a date to see someone at a restaurant but it's very hard to conduct a serious discussion using IM.

Email also has serious problems compared with an office visit but at least one can formulate a serious argument (assuming that one is capable of making an argument). So IM can be said to have all of email's drawbacks without it's advantages.

When I was in school I visited professors during their office hours. Sometimes over a beer afterward. It was an underutilized resource then (I rarely had to wait more than 5 minutes) and it's a superb way to get a little personal tutoring. There is nothing like a face to face session with all the nonverbal and verbal cues for picking up information.

Not bad for your grades - if you can perform. Funny thing is that if you visit the professor, she gets to know who you are! Do good work and I found that most profs will bend over backward to treat you well.

Larry Summers resigned - it's true. Harvard's loss. It's a crying shame....

I suspect part of the problem is kids who have always overrelied on their parents to help them with their homework, find books in the library for them, google up online resources for them, and buy their school supplies for them. They probably just transfer their dependency onto their professors in loco parentis.

I'm not a professor. I work at a publisher, and I'm surprised by the occasional spoiled kids who email me to ask whether we've ever published something about subject X, or ask if I could supply them with a "document" whose title matches the title of a book recently published by another press. Too lazy to google, even! Maybe they got through school writing too many personal reaction papers and never learning the mechanics of research.

The Chronicle's take is on the mark. E-mail as a communication platform is in great need of a major upgrade. It's slow, clumsy, difficult to sort search or store and above all, its filtering capabilities are next to non-existent, thereby giving all emails the exact same status. This will change when social networking and other trust mechanisms are integrated into the application, but Outlook, yahoo, gmail etc are a long way off from that. IM is far more convenient for such filtering and also allows storage and retrieval of threads.

Let me play devil's advocate for a second here:

I am enrolled in a 600 student Economics 101 class. In this class (as in many large classes) the "face time" with students is done by PhD teacher assistants. While the professor will give the lecture, the tests will be given by PhD T.A., the discussion section will be run by PhD T.A., and the tests will be graded by PhD T.A..

Considering this (1) I will never talk with the professor and (2) he will never grade my test, and (3) he will never know me well enough to write a recommendation.

Now if I miss a class, what is the incentive to NOT email the professor an email asking for the teaching notes?

The possible outcome is either she is annoyed at some student she will never meet (me) but does not care enough to go out of her way to ruin my grade (unless the email is truely offensive) or she emails me the notes. Sounds like the students might know more economics than everyone is giving them credit for.

Incentives make the world go round.

Let me play devil's advocate for you, Chris.

First what are you doing in a 600 student Econ 101 section? Those things are factory style education. My experience is that a class like that was so easy to game it was like falling off a log. Usually pretty much worthless as education unless you luck into a good TA. I'll admit I had choices which perhaps you don't because I started at a medium sized Jesuit School (Marquette) which didn't have many factories and by the time I transferred to a larger school I was a junior taking mostly 300 level courses or above.

Why don't you try some tricks? I'm not sure how the system works at your school, but I got out of the second semeseter of my first factory class (History of Western Civ) by enrolling in an honors section. Lot's of work and a lower grade were the cost, but I easily learned 3X as much by working with a real prof with 20 other students.

Later on (at the factory school) I had to make up science requirements. Instead of taking the 100-level lecture classes I simply skipped and took 200 level lab courses. Borrowed an old copy of the level 100 text from the library and read the chapter summaries, digging in where it looked important. For the cost of about 20 hours of preparation for each course I learned enough to get through the 200 levels. It was harder but worth it. Asked the professor first in a few cases, and they were usually more than willing to give advice about what was important and what was not.

There can be big advantages to knowing the professors. I was a working student self-financing from work, and my profs usually knew the score. Once I overslept a final exam (after a night shift) and arrived with 15 minutes left in the exam period. The prof sent me off in 'disgrace' to his office to await his august presence. When he arrived he handed me the exam and sat me in the secretaries office 'You have an hour'. No penalty.

Just to be clear, the situation was hypothetical. I attend Uni. of Miami and most of my classes are 5-20 people, but having attended Boston U. I am familiar with the dynamics of large classes.

But the point of the situation I presented is still stands, that students are simply weighing the incentives and in large class sizes the incentives for not emailing are minimal.

Make each email sent to the professor a graded assignment and you'd see far more students coming to see the professor face to face simply because the incentives have shifted.

I wrote my prof asking him a reference for my graduate studies in the States. Since it was he himself to suggest me to study in the States, it seemed to me pretty logical.

No response.

I wrote again, after a few weeks saying "probably the mail did not arrive". His whole response was: "Sure."

I graduated (he was co-advisor: I did not even notice it) and after a few days I wrote him again. Response: it seems obvious to me as well to you that I have to decline your answer. Ask someone else.

greetings, aa (from Italy)

Chris,

The risk (and incentive) is that the prof might just decide to make a special case of you, look you up in the class roster, and send an acerbic email to your TA. In which case something or nothing might happen. Surely nothing favorable.

I've seen the same kind of reasoning applied to the job search, with poeople sending illiterate text message style communications to employers. No it probably does no harm because you had no chance anyway. But if you did have a chance, wave it goodbye. So why do it?

About the job search, the comparison doesn't hold. I am not talking about sending illiterate text message style communications but rather emailing professors annoying/frustrating questions because the reward outweighs the risk.

A better comparison would be job searchers spamming 1000 companies with your resume and a decently written letter.

If they reply negatively there is infact no loss to you because you didn't lose anything (except the time to send the emails). BUT if even less than 1% of the companies say yes then you win.

Best student email ever:

evileyeretard@

HOnest -- I told her to change it!

I got a good laugh out of that, thanks Ann.

A better comparison would be job searchers spamming 1000 companies with your resume and a decently written letter.

Pardon me, Chris but you just hit a bit of a peeve with me. There is no such thing as a mass-produced properly written cover letter!

The resume is normally a generic document (although I will customize even the resume). The cover letter's purpose is particular to the intended target and cannot be generalized over even 5 companies much less 1000. The notion that one can 'spam' a job search (and be successful) is beyond words....

Good point Don, my mistake.

Just to be clear I am not suggesting this method and Don brings up some great points.

Hi ! Your site is very interesting. Thank you.

Update: Lately I have been getting many emails about my comments on this thread.

I want to be clear: (1) I am in no way suggesting the spamming of professors and/or companies, (2) I do not do it myself and never have, and (3) no I do not have any tips on how to do it!

My examples were HYPOTHETICAL! I apologize for not making this clear in my previous comments.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

It seems to me that professors could improve their own situations by responding with thoughtful emails. It seems silly to look at an email, laugh, and say "poor, silly, stupid student..." without using the opportunity to teach the student.

There seems to be at least some call for boundaries, such as weekends; however, I believe that an instructor who laughs at and ignores emails is also shirking his/her calling as a teacher. Why not reply with an email to encourage change and growth? As an instructor, be the adult in the relationship and guide the younger students. An attitude of "email degrades my status as instructor/employer/emperor" or "by emailing me, those filthy undergraduates bring me down to their level" shines poorly on the character of the instructor.