RateMyProfessors gave me two chili peppers and a rating of … horrible.
I’m passing along some ideas from Brian Matzke, a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at the University of Michigan. Making social rules and expectations explicit is a big part of contemporary classroom management, and this document is a good starting point for other instructors developing their own syllabi or cataloguing their own expectations. This version has been very lightly edited; you can see the original (with comic strip!) here.
Etiquette Guidelines for Students Interacting with Instructors
Success in any college course is determined by your performance on the graded material—the exams, the papers, the other assignments—but it is also determined by the relationship that you cultivate with your instructor. This might not seem intuitive, but making a good impression on your instructor and cultivating a positive relationship with them can lead to many tangible benefits. It can mean that the instructor will be more likely to excuse an absence or provide you with an extension on an assignment. It can make them more inclined to bump up a borderline final grade. It can turn them into a source for a letter of recommendation. And it can determine how harsh or lenient they are when they evaluate the more subjective components of your grade, like essays or participation. Cultivating a positive relationship with an instructor requires following certain etiquette rules. Some of these may seem obvious, but they are all important:
DISCUSSING COURSE POLICIES
- DO read the syllabus closely and consult it for answers to questions about course policies.
- DON’T ask your instructor questions about the course that are answered on the syllabus.
- DO ask for clarification about course policies or assignments as soon as possible.
- DON’T wait until right before the due date to ask questions about the assignment.
EMAIL
- DO begin emails with a salutation and end with a signoff.
- DON’T misspell your instructor’s name.
- DO give your instructors 24 hours to respond to email.
- DON’T expect an immediate response to a message, especially one sent late at night.
- DO be the last person to send an email during an email exchange. When arranging a meeting, it is your responsibility to send the last email confirming the meeting time. If you do not send the last email, your instructor might assume that the meeting isn’t on.
OFFICE HOURS
- DON’T ask questions via email that will require a long response and DON’T ask for feedback on written work via email.
- DO use email for short, direct questions. DO use office hours for any questions that require extensive feedback or a back-and-forth conversation.
- DO take notes during office hours. You likely won’t remember all of the instructor’s advice.
- If an instructor offers a block of time when they are available other than their regular office hours, DON’T assume that they will be in their office during that time. They are offering a block of time when they could be in their office if you make arrangements to meet with them.
- DON’T refer to a meeting outside of the regularly scheduled office hours as “office hours.”
- DON’T miss a meeting outside of regularly scheduled office hours, except in an emergency.
- DO email to explain why you missed an appointment as soon as possible.
ABSENCES
- DO email your instructor ahead of time when you know you’ll miss class.
- DON’T assume that by emailing ahead of time, your absence is automatically excused.
- DO ask a classmate what you missed in class when you were absent.
- DON’T ask your instructor what you missed—not in email or in office hours.
- DEFINITELY DON’T ask, “did I miss anything in class last week?” The answer is always yes.
- DON’T assume that an assignment can be turned in late because you were absent.
- DO turn in your assignment even if you are absent, or arrange for an extension.
PROFESSIONALISM
- DO maintain a professional tone with your instructor.
- DON’T share details from your personal life, unless they are affecting your performance in class.
- DON’T try to friend your instructor on Facebook (maybe after the class is over, if you had a positive relationship).
- DON’T lie to your instructor. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get caught. Don’t say you’re only available during a two hour window, only to arrange a meeting for a different hour of the day. Don’t tell an instructor you uploaded an assignment to the course website when you haven’t. Don’t kill the same grandmother twice when explaining your absences.
Generally speaking, these DOs and DON’Ts are all about empathizing with your instructors and understanding what they value in a relationship with a student. Many students assume that their instructors value “respect” in some abstract sense of the term. This isn’t exactly true. For example, many people who hold Ph.D.’s don’t particularly care if you call them “Doctor” or “Professor”; in fact, many will ask that you call them by their first name.
The top three things that most instructors value are:
1. Their time. Think about who is teaching your course. If it’s a full professor, they’re probably in the process of writing a book or an article, or they’re engaged in some research project. If it’s a graduate student, they’re probably taking courses or writing their dissertation, and might be applying for jobs. If it’s a lecturer or adjunct professor, they’re probably teaching many courses at once and applying for jobs. In any case, teaching you is not likely to be their first priority. This doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy teaching you or that they don’t work hard at it, it’s just the nature of the university. So if you’re going to respect anything, respect your teacher’s time, and don’t waste it.
2. Their students’ time. If an individual student isn’t paying attention during a lesson, many instructors won’t be offended, but if a student distracts other students during a lesson, they’re very likely to incur their instructor’s wrath.
3. Their work. Instructors love the thing that they’re teaching about, and they work really hard at it. So, the easiest way to make a bad impression is to give your instructor a sense that you are bored or lazy. If they sense that you don’t care about the material, then they won’t care about you. On the other hand, the easiest way to make a good impression is to show some passion for the material, or at least some genuine interest. Even if it’s a required course that you aren’t particularly excited about, finding a way to show enthusiasm will go a long way.
Sensible guidelines.
In The Olden Days [TM] — not to be confused with the mythical “good old days” — before computers, FB and e-mail, before the advent of a somewhat more pervasive informality, well before today’s undergrads (and some of their instructors) were even born, the social expectations usu. weren’t made explicit b.c they were pretty well understood by most or even all students. You didn’t waste the prof’s time, act noticeably bored (even if you were bored), turn in work late without first seeking an extension, etc. Today’s syllabi are full of statements making everything explicit; they have to be. I happened to have saved a few syllabi from several decades ago: usu. just the prof’s name and office hrs, *short* description of the course, readings, requirements (paper, exam, whatever), period.
Supposedly, in days gone by, professors just handed out a reading list. Rumor has it that Socrates himself didn’t even write lectures; he just winged it.
Touché
Less a riposte than an agreement :)
This is very well done. As LFC says, too bad it has to all be spelled out. My syllabi too have bloated up as I put more and more in there.
Same here. At the beginning of each semester I hand out my syllabus and a separate packet on expected classroom behaviors with examples of dos and don’ts.
I can put a name to every don’t.
Hmm, I don’t know. these kinds of lists seem to do two things: problematise the student and reify the professor. They become anchorpoints for narrating why the students are not good enough while making the professor a completely unproblematic neutral benchmark. They also tell students that what is ‘good’ is that which is pleasing to the professor and fits professorial norms. Scripting the interaction between student and professor is not going to produce authenticity of get us out of an instrumental approach towards higher education. While I see some value in ‘etiquette’ as a way of facilitating easier social interactions, they still are embued with power, restricting all kinds of creativity and non-standardised forms of engaging with students, I would strongly favour my students to meet me ‘as they are’, even while that might annoy me at times, than as fulfilling their role as ‘student’ in terms that have been handed to them from above.
I hear what you are saying, but I disagree. The idea to give students a list of etiquette guidelines was born out of frequent exchanges with instructors, during which they would express frustration that a student violated some social norm. I strongly suspect that these moments of frustration generates conscious or unconscious biases against students without the cultural capital to present themselves professionally. Many instructors tend to interpret violations of social norms as stemming from solipsism or entitlement, when I suspect that they often stem from simple ignorance. I would argue that keeping those norms opaque is what problematizes the student and reifies the professor. Making students aware of those norms empowers them to take greater control of their self-presentation.
The teaching of standard English provides a useful comparison. Any student of English or linguistics knows that nonstandard dialects of English are legitimate and useful ways of communicating, but we also know that standard English carries tremendous cultural capital. If I have a student whose home dialect is African American English, Appalachian English, or another nonstandard dialect, I don’t want to hobble their ability to speak or write creatively, but I also don’t want to hobble their ability to gain cultural capital through mastery of standard English. I see making students aware of the existence of norms and standards as empowering rather than limiting.
My frustration here comes mainly from the way in which we alienate students from themselves and turn them into ‘professionals’, while at the same time we say that originality, authenticity and creativity is so important. Sometimes people do not easily fit in the collective norm, but they may be tremendously authentic, inspiring and academically promising. These kinds of lists would label them as either ‘wrong’ or induce them to take some of their quality out of their own education. I sometimes have students that are regularly late for meetings, for instance. In some cases I find that annoying. In other cases it doesnt bother me one bit because I can see some real quality (and beauty) in the way that person is ‘out of touch’ with social norms. To put up a list of ‘dos’ and ‘donts’ would be resolving my annoyance at the cost of something that I hold valuable. I rather err at the other side. But probably thats because I’m slightly socially awkward myself :)
But to stay with your point: there is a difference between collectively thinking (and possibly rethinking) institutional norms, and encoding them in a list of do’s and donts. Particularly when it is a set of norms of those who wield power and which they put upon those that have very little power.
And again, I would say that NOT encoding those norms is what disempowers students. It’s wonderful that you are charmed by your perpetually late student, but what about his other instructors? It would be a real shame if he were unable to communicate his creativity and his insights because something as superficial as lateness biased an instructor against him.
If students–or students and instructors in collaboration–want to challenge or rethink the etiquette norms that govern the university environment, I’m all for that, but you can’t challenge or rethink something that you haven’t yet identified. It sounds like part of your frustration is with the specific language of “rules” or “do/don’t,” but many students need that degree of clarity and directness as a starting point. I would ask that you put yourself in the shoes of a student who is less privileged–a first generation college student, for example, or a student who isn’t neurotypical. For them, a very concrete primer on how to navigate the university can be a tremendously valuable tool.
” I would ask that you put yourself in the shoes of a student who is less privileged–a first generation college student, for example, or a student who isn’t neurotypical.”
This.
Also, international students.
wow–reading your responses to Gerard reminds me of this saying: “If you won’t change direction, you will end up where you are”–
altering one’s beliefs in favor of a more effective viewpoint is possibly, in my experience, the most onerous, courageous, and least likely outcome of civilized discourse like the one you have with Gerard. I agree with your observations about classroom discourse/attitudes/behavior, and have found that my creativity and uniqueness has never suffered as I have slowly– over much time–learned the rules of social norms and expectations. Fact is, the tighter the structure, the more creative my life becomes.
For me. Just sayin’,
I’m going to ape Andrew Gelman here and express my actual confusion at what “problematise the student” and “reify the professor” means. From the rest of your comment, I understand that you might think that overly scripted and formal interactions aren’t conducive to learning, but what I see in this list is just the elaboration of the assumptions that guide faculty-student interactions *even if the student doesn’t know them*. Academia is in some ways an informal culture, but that means that students who have endowments of cultural capital that allow them to parse unwritten rules are massively privileged compared to those who don’t know the expectations that we have of them. I actually don’t particularly want students to meet me “as they are” if “as they are” means that they treat me as someone who provides them a service in a one-way interaction. Instead, I’d much rather they understand why skipping an appointment that they’d scheduled with me is extremely rude, and why I can sometimes respond to emails within 60 seconds and sometimes need a few hours (or a day–or a weekend) to respond.
My ‘problemise the student’ remark comes from my observation that we professors tend to fall into an ‘authoritative reflex’ the moment something happens we don’t like. In this reflex, we become largely uncritical of ourselves and non-reflexively identify the students as the problem. So if they don’t read their course materials well, ‘they are lazy’. Or when they only work just before exams, ‘they are calculative’. My suspicion is that most student behaviour come actually out of the interaction we as professors have with the students, rather than from the students themselves, and that we are just as much part of that interaction as they are. It is usually us that reward them for being calculative, it is us who spoonfeed them boring texts- if we want to make them really engaged or motivated, we cannot take ourselves out the equasion.
Having said that- I completely agree: I hate it if students to use me as an ‘advice machine’ in a rude and non-thinking way. Putting up a list of rules may to some extent change their behaviour, but defintely will not address (and may even cover up) the deeper problem that they have a problem having a meaningful and inspiring relation with their professor. That problem is much more structural, and I feel it lies at the root of many of these mundane irritations.
Where I think we disagree is in characterizing this post as stemming out of a desire to be authoritative. I think Brian, and certainly I, see this much differently: as a way to set students’ expectations about reasonable behavior and standards when interacting with instructors (particularly, let me note, graduate student instructors). Those are standards that I would contend must be made explicit because they are unlike the standards to which most American and international students in America are used to from their interactions with other service professionals. (Painting with a very, very broad brush, I’d suggest that generally international students in the U.S. don’t make enough use of office hours and the like; U.S. students often try to make inappropriate use of them.)
Although I make a big allowance for the joke about spoonfeeding students boring texts–I’m teaching stats and I’m well aware that my students can’t possibly all be reading every page of every reading assignment–I don’t view my job as dictating behavior but managing standards and helping students follow through on their commitments. For instructors in courses like basic rhetoric and basic statistics, that implies a role less of wise advisor and colleague and often more a role of helping students master a body of specific (and, frankly, sometimes arbitrary) rules and conventions. In that process, having open discussions about what are the standards for appropriate behavior facilitates the learning process, because students don’t have to negotiate both a complex subject matter and an occasionally fraught social situation.
As for the question of how to have a meaningful and inspiring relationship with a professor, I both admit to some skepticism that we could–or even should–try to emulate the outcomes of Dead Poets Society and also to a more deeply held belief that my job as a professor is not to inspire but to faciliate inspiration. Like a tour guide or an art critic, in the classroom I try to show and explain how concepts and theories are constructed and how they relate; like an athletic coach, in the assignments I craft for completion outside the classroom I try to both challenge students and show them the benefit of challenging them. But throughout I don’t view the egoistic “I” as doing the inspiring; I try instead to let the material do that.
“my job as a professor is not to inspire but to facilitate inspiration.”
Agreed.
Really good common sense tips. I’ve only made it to masters, and am a high school teacher, but the same rules apply in a high school classroom.
Under your Professionalism DOs and DON’Ts I would add: “DON’T assume that your instructor is in a good mood when grading your work. You may have thought that your comments were funny when you wrote them, but during the grading your instructor is likely not in the same mood as you were.”
One objection from this 30-something professor: do NOT call your professor by his/her first name, and if they say it is okay do NOT do it. That is a legacy from an older generation and really frowned upon by a great many places. It also (according to students with whom I’ve spoken) comes across as a casual at best and creepy at worst. You ain’t friends, at least not yet.
If you ask “how should we address you” and you’re told “Jim” and you can’t for the life of you figure out if “Jim” is a “Mr.” a TA or a “Dr.” or “Professor” because it’s not even in the directory… it’s Jim’s fault, not yours. Calling him “Jim” is smarter than calling him by the wrong title.
Uh, no. Jim’s name is on the syllabus, and it is a teaching section, it probably isn’t professor, because he’s a graduate student. If Jim is teaching the entire class, the proper one is “professor” until corrected. If Jim says “call me Jim” then call Jim Jim but be suspect about why he’s so casual.
That might depend on the discipline being taught. While it’s understandable that not many students would be on a first-name basis with their English prof, it’s much more common in, say, the music department.
Also: Remember your teacher is your *employee*. You are paying them to provide a service, you should be very alert and willing to get your money’s worth from their work. Keep it polite at all times, but remember *you* are ultimately writing the check.
The Golden Rule is very important here: Treat them as you would want to be treated in their place.
A note on email. Your name is not enough, include the course title and hours i.e. Bob Smith Chem330 MWF 3:30-5:00, and for God’s sake, read it out loud before you push Send. No abbrev. slang, text shortcuts, and at least give the poor guy/gal an idea what you want as a desired result at the end as a summary if nothing else. i.e. “in summary, I need to retake the 1/14/2013 test as per your rules for the class. To that end, I was planning on dropping by your office during your hours this evening to set up a time, will that be acceptable?”
So true. Back in the day (over 30 years ago), I was busting my hump in one of the tougher courses in my Chem E curriculum – enough to have a solid “B” going into the final. The professor was the author of THE definitive textbook in the subject matter that was used in *every* university in the US.
Anyhoo, I was slaughtered by the final. Thought I had enough to escape with a “C”. Then the grades arrived home – a “D”. Figured it was some sort of mistake.
First day of the next term, I go to the professor’s office and asked if there might have been a transposition error in the grade report. He checked, and no there was not. I allowed that I had not done well on the final, and he retrieved the blue books from his storage cabinet, thumbed through them, and handed me the paper – with a bright red “39” (out of 100) on the cover.
I passed it back to him and apologized for wasting his time.
Two years later, the department was expanding their grad program and I applied, 2.7 GPA and all. My advisor told me afterward that while most of the faculty had reservations, this professor spoke up on my behalf and said that I was a hard worker and would do just fine. I got in on the strength of his vouching for me, who got a “D” in a core course.
“In any case, teaching you is not likely to be their first priority.”
And students acquire in the mid 5 figures of non-dischargeable debt to pay for teachers who have better things to do than teach, eh?
It does seem to be the case.
Employing service providers who have better things to do than deliver service is not what they call a sustainable business model. Academia could get by with this when a college degree pretty much guaranteed a middle class job for a reasonable investment by the student. Those days are gone.
You might be surprised to learn that professors at the most prestigious
RESEARCH universities are mostly promoted on the basis of their
published work, prestige, university service, and approbation by fellow members of their department and university administration. Teaching is typically not weighted highly in decisions of tenure and promotion. While teaching *is* more heavily valued at lower-tier “teaching” colleges and universities, it rarely is the majority criteria…although sometimes the most important plurality.
Yep, and that’s why the bricks and mortar schools will be few and far between soon. This attitude educators have about interactions with people who pay them is bizarre. You are employees, You are in a specialized service industry.
I think many of you would benefit by spending time educating and communicating in a corporate venue. Think college students are tough, try adult professionals. Many here seem like hot house flowers who wouldn’t last a week in an atmosphere where your performance is constantly judged.
I don’t know, this guy sounds like a dick. Either that or kids today have no clue how to interact on working basis. As far as explaining absences goes, perhaps a reminder of who is paying whom to do what is in order. I pay you to teach me. If I am not there, you still get paid right? So if I can master the material without being subjected to thrice weekly bloviations that’s my business isn’t it?
Students pay universities, not the instructors. Instructors are paid to uphold standards. Given that you misunderstand the fundamental structure of a university education, perhaps you should refrain from insulting the author.
I thought instructors were paid to instruct. The idea that the fundamental structure of a university education is learning to have a subordinate relationship when you don’t actually have one is sad.
You’re mechanic isn’t paid by you they’re paid by the garage owner… see how that works?
The fundamental structure of universities is crumbling. Tenured positions are going to go the way of the Dodo.
Additionally, I you didn’t want to deal with 18 to 20 somthings you shouldn’t have gone into higher education.
What pedantic twaddle! It appears that you have been in academia too long or perhaps exclusively. No matter, the whole higher education paradigm is collapsing. I hope the fish leaves you a poor tip when you’re waiting tables at Red Robin
You provided your own answer. Many college students, even non-traditionals who are supposedly adults, have no idea how to interact in a professional setting.
As far as attendance is concerned, any college that receives federal financial aid money is required to track student attendance. Reimbursement to the school is based on student attendance. If students don’t actually go to class, the college doesn’t get paid.
In short, in many cases if the student isn’t there the college (and eventually the instructor) does not get paid.
Don’t ask questions in lecture if you haven’t read the assigned material.
And if you’re going to walk into class late, don’t be holding a cup of Starbucks.
What a load of crap. You can follow the syllabus to the letter, ask repeatedly for instruction, get excellent grades for previous work in the same vein. and still get your ass thrown the hell out for turning in your homework: https://thefire.org/article/15552.html
Math professor here. I’d disagree with the statement “teaching you is not likely to be their first priority” — or at least I’d say this depends on the institution. At my place (large public university in Michigan) teaching students is absolutely my first priority, and part of me wishes that students everywhere would insist that this be the case with their professors. But the point — don’t waste the prof’s time — is still valid because in the process of teaching as well as I can, I have to do a lot of background work, writing and editing of exercises and computer activities, and so forth that consume a lot of non-classroom time. Good teachers make their classroom activities look easy and seamless, but in fact there’s a lot of effort and work put in behind the scenes to get to that point.
tl;dr – Be sensitive of the prof’s limited time even if teaching is the top priority.
BTW I shared this article with my academic advisees, and I hope other profs on here do the same.
” Be sensitive of the prof’s limited time even if teaching is the top priority.”
That’s a good formulation. I’ve had to limit office hours at some points during the semester because lecture prep ate up too much time. But that wasn’t a question of teaching-research priorities but of allocation.