Recent articles in The New York Times and the Emerald have illuminated a controversy surrounding students’ increased use of e-mail to communicate with teachers. In the Times article, “To: [email protected] Subject: Why It’s All About Me,” several professors from colleges around the country complained that their students’ e-mails were becoming increasingly informal, inane and sometimes impolite or inappropriate. In Monday’s “Etiquette for class e-mail in question,” the Emerald reported that some professors at the University have started to include e-mail policies on their syllabi, restricting certain topics from e-mail and instructing students on how to write e-mails.
University anthropology professor Lamia Karim summed up what she identified as the problem: “I think the Internet has erased this boundary between students and teachers.”
Erasing boundaries between teachers and students should be desirable. E-mail makes communication more convenient for both parties. Students should be able to take advantage of that. When professors print policies that prohibit some topics and “stupid questions” in e-mails, it demeans students and runs counter to an ideal goal: effectively reaching students. We need only point to the evaluations students complete every term that have a question about how well instructors communicate outside of class.
Teachers also complained that students’ e-mails reflect a lack of respect. On this issue, the best solution seems to be for both sides to give a little. Teachers need to understand that college students are adults, and there is no reason students should be required to pander to professors’ egos with overly polite e-mails. One professor in the Times article, Meg Worley of Pomona College in California, went so far as to tell her students that they must respond with a “thank you” after getting an e-mail from her.
“One of the rules I teach my students is, the less powerful person always has to write back,” Worley said.
Referring to a student as a “less powerful person” is certainly not the way to cultivate good communication; it reflects the “ivory tower” stereotype ascribed to some academics. True respect only exists when the feeling is mutual.
Nevertheless, being polite and respectful in e-mails does work in students’ favor. Teachers can provide letters of recommendation and important connections for careers, and students need to understand that teachers form judgments of them based on every type of interaction, including e-mails. Learning to use e-mail professionally will only become more important when students enter the work force.
E-mail should absolutely be used to make communication with teachers easier, but it should not be used as a substitute for finding the answers to every school-related question students come up with. Karim mentioned receiving an e-mail from a student asking where the library is. This is clearly a misuse of e-mail. Finding this information probably takes about the same amount of time as sending the e-mail.Students also need to put themselves in their professors’ shoes. They should consider how long it takes professors to respond to even half of their students, especially in large lecture classes.
The fact that teachers say they do not have time to respond to student e-mails is indicative of the much larger problem of escalating class sizes. This e-mail fiasco should alert administrators and policy makers of the situation everyone already knows about: some classes are just too big for students to form any relationships with professors and vice versa. If professors cannot make the time for e-mails, perhaps more instructors are needed to meet the demands of students who desire adequate attention from faculty.