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'U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This' (nytimes.com)
Millennial college students have become far too casual when they talk with their professors, reads an opinion piece on The New York Times. Addressing professors by their first names and sending misspelled, informal emails with text abbreviations have become common practices (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; here's a syndicated source) among many students than educators would like, Molly Worthen, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill adds. From the article: Over the past decade or two, college students have become far more casual in their interactions with faculty members. My colleagues around the country grumble about students' sloppy emails and blithe informality. "When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I've got to say something," Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston said. Sociologists who surveyed undergraduate syllabuses from 2004 and 2010 found that in 2004, 14 percent addressed issues related to classroom etiquette; six years later, that number had more than doubled, to 33 percent. This phenomenon crosses socio-economic lines. My colleagues at Stanford gripe as much as the ones who teach at state schools, and students from more privileged backgrounds are often the worst offenders. [...] Insisting on traditional etiquette is also simply good pedagogy. It's a teacher's job to correct sloppy prose, whether in an essay or an email. And I suspect that most of the time, students who call faculty members by their first names and send slangy messages are not seeking a more casual rapport. They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them. Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it's the first step in treating students like adults.
This is basic stuff, and they graduate high school without learning it. What did they put on their college application, a plagiarized form letter?
If you want to be taking just mildly serious, don't talk like that to anyone.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Y did u flunk mezzzzz?
That headline works if it's a University that can't talk to a professor who is an expert on the ancient city of Ur.
The community college I went to was pretty laid back with most instructors being called by their last name. The other community college in the district was more uptight with instructors insisting on being called "Instructor" before their last name. Never understood that stick-up-the-wazoo attitude, as they were teaching the same material and getting paid the same rate.
The only person I know who uses "U" and "ur" in serious correspondence is over 50 years old. It's not a millennial problem. It's an idiot problem.
No. It is not the job of college professors to correct students unable to communicate correctly. That was the job of the high school teachers. Students unable to communicate correctly should not have been admitted to college, because they shouldn't have received their high school diploma.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
But on the other hand, some students are starting to demand that professors address them according to the personal pronouns with which they personally identify.
I'd never have used a professor's first name unless the age gap was minimal, and they had explicitly said it was OK... BUT... we walked half-way across campus in 95-degree heat in 90% humidity, to a temporary/portable building that sat maybe 30 students... Then we get told that unlike just about every other class we'd been in, this philosophy teacher (a condescending hippy, ironically, enough) didn't allow drinks... I watched an argument get pretty heated once, and started wondering, hey, who's paying who to be here?
I had a sucky sig.
People have gotten much more informal with EVERYONE. They have no respect or perception of authority or seniority.
Hell, 10+ years ago, Scrubs even did an episode where the (older) Kelso was trying to get through to this overweight girl about the dangers of surgery and she basically talked over him and Google'd everything as he spoke and he went on about how back-in-the-day, being a doctor "meant something" and you got things like free hair cuts, not to mention RESPECT.
So if a comedy show noticed this 10+ years ago, it's been going on for a lot longer. I've gotten far in life simply by treating everyone with respect. People notice and appreciate it when you go out of your way to recognize their inherent human dignity.
Students addressing their professors by their first names isn't necessarily a sign of entitlement, poor manners, or bad judgement. On the contrary, it is sometimes a clumsy attempt at social engineering. You try to make the professor think of you as a friend or peer, and that makes it less likely that your "friend" will give you a bad grade.
As a means of manipulation, it doesn't cut much mustard in engineering. Very few of my colleagues would tolerate it, and very few students I have met attempted it. But I could certainly see how it might be more of a problem in the liberal arts, where grading rubrics are much more subjective.
qq moar.
Doesn't really matter that they talk to their professors....
The problem is that they are writing papers like this. And communicating to potential employers like this. There's an entire generation if kiddiespeaking illiterate sons of bitches that can't figure out why their attempts to get meaningful employment go unanswered.
When my grandparents were in college, they were addressed by their professors as Mr. and Ms. Now, professors address their students by first name. I'm all for insisting on correct spelling and grammar, and for respecting the use of Dr. or Professor, but perhaps the faculty could win support if they treated their students like the adults they are.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
nuf sed
Humor aside, your instructor was correct. Professional life requires the ability to effectively communicate to a large audience. Appeasing your friends and acquaintances is not the same thing. Sadly we have had educators claiming what "you" want is all that matters, to the detriment of millions of students.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Someone called me by my first name! I have first-name germs! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!
The summary contains a few grammatical errors. First, the word "more" is missing from the second sentence. It should be
Second, I'm not sure what Molly Worthen is adding. The grammar suggests that the first part of the sentence might be a direct quote from Worthen, but then the sentence should be in quotes. Alternatively, maybe the punctuation is incorrect. Perhaps it should be the following. (Note the period before "Molly" and the colon after "adds".)
"Students who call faculty members by their first names and send slangy messages are not seeking a more casual rapport. They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them."
Maybe we don't care about your power structures, or your cultural anachronisms. Maybe your desire for a title is self serving.
Our judges aren't wearing white wigs anymore, maybe my generation is tired of authoritarianism and people being treated like institutions to inform us of who our "betters" are. Maybe we don't care what you think we "should" do - because we'll be replacing you soon - and have a different approach.
Meanwhile outside the US university isn't just an extension of high school and students are treated as adults rather than as over-age kids.
University is an academic exercise. Treat your tutors with the respect they earn from being damn good (and if they're not damn good, they shouldn't be there teaching you), but not with deference.
the usa is ranked round 23rd in math and god knows what in literacy
*Around
your all doomed there ok , if you want to teach kids that might actually learn move to another nation
*You're
I'd also like to see proper sentence capitalization, and punctuation usage other than excessive exclamation marks. Really, do 13 exclamation marks somehow add more to a sentence than a single one?
Overall I give that post a D. While comprehensible, it needs a lot of work.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This is 2 different problems.
1) Not being able to write appropriately. "U" isn't a word, and using it as such is never appropriate. When you write a formal report, it should be using appropriate words and phrasing.
2) Calling an instructor by their first name. I'm not sure I can understand the problem here. If I hire a plumber, do I have to address him by some weird title, or can I simply call him by his first name? Why is it different if I hire a teacher? Does the teacher address the students as Master/Mistress? Why the double standard?
Now if they're being insulting in some other way, maybe there's a problem, but if they are being respectful I can't see the problem with using the instructor's first name. Pretentious titles don't do anything for me, if you want my respect, earn it, don't demand it, and I'll do the same in return.
Look to your left. Now look to your right. None of you are going to have jobs after you graduate, and you'll each be in debt for a couple of hundred grand. So it doesn't matter how you fucking address the fucking professor. You're still gonna be fucked.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think you missed the point. It appears AC was deliberately making as many mistakes as possible.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You taught them to do this though your actions as well as your words. Many of your number have been disrespectful to authority yourselves and most of you have accepted this behavior as acceptable, even defended such as "freedom of speech" and political activism. So now you find it unacceptable when your students don't respect you? How sad...
Actions speak louder than words. You asked for it, you demonstrated it, you didn't protest when disrespect for our political leaders, our police and our country was on full display on your campus. You didn't stand up and show your students how to respectfully dissent or educate them on our system if civil discourse, but participated in the systematic destruction of all respect, for authority, other people and this country....
Your chickens are coming home to roost....
Everyone makes the occasional mistake, but a common attribute I see in people who use "u" and "ur" is that almost all of their reading is comprised of internet forums where those constructs are ubiquitous. They do not spend time reading books as a form of entertainment. The misspellings have been deeply ingrained until they start to look correct, and there is no counterbalancing force from exposure to correct spelling and grammar.
> They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them.
Or, their parents have explained it to them, like, a bazillion times, and they just roll their eyes and do whatever the hell they were going to do anyway.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The professor in the summary seems to be confused about the power structure.
He thinks he is the boss and the students are subordinates.
The basic reality is quite the opposite
The students are the ones paying the professor's salary. So they can talk to him as appropriate to talk to "the help". In other words they can talk to the professor any way they damn please.
The professor on the other hand had better address his bosses AKA students as Mr. X or Ms. Y if he want to continue to be paid.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
I was talking with someone at the gym, and he was saying that they fired someone who insisted on using "text-talk" and could not or would not communicate like an adult.
Nearly all of my professors preferred being called by their first name. Makes me think these people are a bit too uptight.
Granted, abbreviations are irritating to me and have been since I was a teenager (20 years ago now). I can feel for that plight but let's not mix up abusing English and being lazy, with arcane formalities and power structures that the professor is also butt hurt over.
When I was in college, just 20 years ago, no student dared call an instructor anything other than Doctor or Professor. Now, I teach community college. I don't mind if I'm addressed by my first name outside of class, but I far prefer Mister and my last name, especially in the classroom. It's only been a noticeable problem for me in the last year or so. But honestly the students who want to be familiar are also generally the students who miss a lot of class, are tardy, don't take notes, don't follow directions, and then wonder why they don't get straight A grades.
All I want is for them to take college seriously, and do well.
In french, there is a formal and informal manner in which to address the second person singular ("tu", "toi"). You basically use the second person plural ("vous").
It's considered rude and impolite to use "tu/toi" in a formal discussion, or if you don't know the person. Of course, many people haven't been taught this properly and the abuse varies per french speaking regions (worse in Quebec Canada, less of an issue in France and other french speaking countries).
But employing the less formal "tu" implies you are familiar and or close with the person. It's easier in english, yet some don't even grasp this basic element of respect.
When you are dealing with someone you don't know, or in a position of stature or authority, you need to make the extra effort.
First name basis should only exist once both parties, particularly the one in a position of stature/authority clearly says its ok first.
I was in college in the mid-90's and forms of address were part of departmental culture. For one of my majors, we addressed professors by their first name. The other, "Professor." My students now call me either by my first name or Professor, and I don't particularly care which. Academics who need the social validation are not particularly charming (the worst are PhDs who insist on being called "Dr." in their off-campus lives).
I went to university more than 20 years ago and paid every dime myself (not my parents).
I never viewed professors as anything more than employees of mine. Very uppity employees that I couldn't fire.
Well blame boomers. They didn't want to raise their children. They didn't instill the bullshit Victorian upper class ass kissing. Now they can deal with it.
Do the professors and instructors address the students as Mr. or Ms. Student ? Show the respect you demand and you will often find the respect you deserve. My advisors always addressed me as Sir or Mr. except in the most informal of circumstances. In the later years we were on a first name basis outside of campus but always a formal basis in class, lecture or lab.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
sounds like insecurity of someone who can't accept that they are equals to all others... sure your job function is to be a professor, and yes, your students should respect the function - but as a person, you are no different than anyone else, and no matter what your job you should just be treated like any other person.
the "Respect" comes from students paying attention and doing work, not pandering to your wanting a title...
You're sure of that?
Sarcasm can be hard at times.
Verily and forsooth.
i have two bachelors degrees, from experience i can say that even from the 5 years between them the times have changed.
The problem isnt just the students, its the professors and the entire scholarly system as well.
Its rather simple respect is always earned and if post secondary schools keep treating students as cash flow then the students are not going to respect the professors or the school. meanwhile the school doesn't care if it is disrespected because it is the one getting all of the students money while squeezing the professors for more time and less money.
In the end the professors are getting the short end of the stick and are more willing to blame the students rather than take a hard look at the system they work in. Its easy to rag on those with less life experience than ones self and students are a great target but trying to blame the failings of the education system on the students is like trying to blame rape victims for being raped, especially when the faculty has exponentially more power to change the system than the students..Im not even talking about talking or striking either, its called education, teach the students tat there are better ways and work with them to change the mindset of the school administration if you want to actually see results.
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/s...
"We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding (often enough to bet on, anyway). Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding; we'd rather spend our time elsewhere."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I am a university professor. I prefer that my students address me as "Dr." or "Professor", BUT I address them as "Mr." or "Ms." (or "Mrs." in the case of a female married student who reveals that she is married.) It goes both ways. I find that the formality helps the students to take the class a little more seriously.
If you want respect you have to give it
How ironic...
I am aware of a professor who assigned a negative point total to an assignment.
The student had submitted an absolutely abysmal paper.
It was entirely written in text message speak, and did not contain a single capital letter nor a single punctuation mark of any kind.
This was enough to earn the student 0 points toward the assignment.
The instructions to hand in the assignment were to print and staple the pages and place them on the instructor's desk, with five points being deducted for papers that weren't stapled together.
The student thus earned -5 points for the assignment.
I earned my degree ~15 years ago now. I didn't even realize that earning negative points was possible.
I guess they've had to improvise the grading scale to make room on the low end.
And here's the thing. Years ago it DID go both ways, teachers addressed their students as Mr/Miss, and students addressed their teachers with titles as well. But many years ago teachers stopped using titles with their students, and now they are upset when the students do the same.
If you don't think it's respectful when a student uses your first name instead of a title, then don't call them by their first name either.
My teacher introduced himself as "Professor Blank", so I called him that. OTOH, I had no problem with him calling me by my first name. I never really thought of myself as a "Mr. Magnon" anyway.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Who would respect an unidentifiable anonymous troll do nothing "ne'er-do-well" like you? What have you ever done that merits respect from others? Nothing.
in fact they are better than students, otherwise the student would not be paying for the privilege to listen to them drone on
I would hope that this would be irony.
and tell me with a straight face that you're gainfully employed. Good job on actually using quotation marks, this time, you lazy twit.
I know it's fashionable to have flat, zero-hierarchy organizations and brief communications styles, but I can tell you from 20+ years of working, clear spoken and written communication is not some irrelevant concept from a bygone age. I'm not one of those people who demands respect simply because of a rank or power dynamic, but I will have a lot more respect for someone who addresses others politely, states their opinions like adults, listens to others' points of view, and can write clearly. It also works both ways -- in my experience I have been able to get much further in having people see things my way than colleagues with more abrupt communication styles.
I am firmly in the introvert crowd, and not a salesy type in the least. But, no matter how introverted you are, learning a few common social courtesies is critical to being successful in any setting. I'm not even talking about ladder-climbing brown-nosing style success -- I know part of the reason I'm kept around and allowed to do interesting technical work is that my bosses know I'll make them look good and be professional; in short, they don't have to worry I'll say something stupid.
The professors demanding more respect from their students feels backward. The students are the clients, they are paying money to the university for their education. Since the professors are paid by the university, they should be regarding the students as clients, not underlings.
I was in college about 20 years ago and it was considered fairly common practise to refer to the instructors by their first names. That's how they introduced themselves so that is how we addressed them. We still respected them, but the informal atmosphere kept things more comfortable.
Thankfully, I wasn't born in this country. I learned English starting from the 4th grade, and by watching a lot of television. This was back in the mid-1980s, in New York City. All this horseshit about English being malleable is just laziness. Where I come from, a Spanish-speaking, Caribbean country, we address elders with designated nouns, verbs, and adverbs. "Dime" and "digame" are used for people of different ages and familiarity, thus you are earn your way to how you are addressed. At my age, I detest being called "buddy" or "primo"; I am not your fucking friend or your cousin. I expect to be addressed as "mister". I thank God everyday that I grew reading Orwell and had awesome teachers starting all those many years ago. Teach your children to respect the rules of English and stop turning out lazy little fucks who can't listen or speak.
A 22-year-old college senior was about six years old for 9/11 and the new millennium and about five years old for Y2K. The generation that came of age around the new millennium is no longer in college. There might be a problem with college students today, but very few of them are millennials in any real sense of the word.
I liked the part where teachers think they they should exist on some level above a student. I dislike seeing U's and UR's personally, but to whine about first name interactions? Are professors so full of themselves that they can't cope with someone not slapping a Dr. in front of their names???
I'm in the same mindset when it comes to "Mr. President", "Justice\Your honor", and most other titles. THEY ARE ALL JUST PEOPLE IN BETTER PAYING GIGS THAN YOU.
Except when it comes to the "God Emporer". That guy gets props from me.....
BTW Who the fuck decided multiple racial groups must be referred to as "Asians"?
That white guy over there, from the steppes of Siberia? Asian.
That dark skinned guy guy from India? Asian.
Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Laotian/Combodian/Filipino/etc? Asian.
Asians aren't a race.
Any more than North Americans are.
Or South Americans.
Or Antarcticans.
Soon students might even correct him when he makes a mistake in class.
This behavior is actually the norm in the Netherlands for adults, but I hope it stays there. Financial institutions, insurance companies etc all communicate with you as if they are your 20-year-old BFF. Which is weird, considering the aging problem the country has. It seems that all PR jobs have been taken over by coke-snorting douchebags who have never talked to anyone over 30 in their life.
Growing up in the PNW, I was blown away when I spent a year in Louisiana. Everybody puts Mr. in front of even first names. If the name is unknown, it's Sir. I was really surprised at first. In my travels, I've found that the closer to the coast you get, the more words are abbreviated and dropped. Once you can see the ocean it becomes sms shorthand speak
"lol wut dood? u liek propr english? ROFL y u salty bro?"
Mass communication has its side effects.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
( probably borrowed ;-( ) to be entertained for a year in lieu of working, I'ld talk any damn way I pleased. If the profs don't like it they can either 1: implement an English language entrance exam, or 2: lower the price of tuition to match the quality of the students, or 3: get a real job themselves.
Replying to undo rating.
yo dawg that b phat n shit
ya feel me dawg
Words have two types of meaning, both connotation and denotation. Two words may have the exact same denotation, but quite different connotation.
The primary purpose of clothing is clothing is to cover the skin. Other purposes of clothing, such as "saggin" pants, dress shirts, and lab coats include communicating information about one's values, role in the current context, and standards of behavior. Certain clothing suggests that the wearer believes snitches get stiches, other clothing indicates the opposite.
Similarly, the tone of language communicates all of the above and much more. If you are unable to understand the difference between "yo dawg u b trippin" and "Sir, I believe your perspective may lack appropriate context", you may be lacking an essential skill. The two sentences convey quite different connotations, though the same denotation.
"When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I've got to say something," Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston said...."Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it's the first step in treating students like adults."
Except adults call one another by their first names, Mark.
They also don't broadcast their insecurities to the world: their fear that not everybody has placed them on an unshakeable pedestal; their abject terror that some people might realise they're just somebody who has never, ever been outside the cloistered confines of a school, who only has power within them, and who'd struggle to function outside them. They certainly don't abuse the limited scope of that piddling, largely administrative power to belittle those under their charge in a desperate attempt to restore a status quo that was out of date in the 1950s.
In short, grow up, Mark.
Would flat out delete emails that were not properly composed and I cannot blame them. It takes too much time to decipher someone's run on sentence. Take the time, be professional, and compose a good, will-written email.
I would posit that many if not most of the problems we see with recent generations is due to sparing the rod, so to speak, entirely.
Disagree. One can say and enforce "no" w/o physical punishment. (And children do sometimes have to be told no...)
Millennials are the lamest, most inept generation I've ever seen, heard, or read about. Not all of them, of course, but by and large what you hear about them is true. They suck.
Attention Span: They can't hold a 5-minute conversation to save their asses but they can text for hours over trivial shit.
Other People: They have no real understanding of social interaction unless it involves swiping left or right. How they'll reproduce is still in question.
Task Management: They have difficulty managing even slightly complex tasks. Honestly, they're like brain-damaged babies. Never trust them with a serious project or anything with moving parts.
The World: In general, they have very little awareness of the world at large. If their "news" doesn't come via Facebook, they're blissfully unaware of it.
Restaurants: Take them to a nice restaurant and they might as well have been dropped in the jungle. Their only hope is if there are pictures and the dishes can be ordered by number.
Food: Most of them couldn't cook a meal if their lives depended on it. And NO, microwaving a burrito does not count as "cooking a meal".
Work: They expect to be promoted just for showing up. When they do show up, a lot of their time is spent on Facebook, Facetime, Pinterest, Instagram, Line, Tinder, Grindr, etc etc etc etc etc etc.Take away their cellphone and they start to shake like a junkie in rehab.
And on and on and on....
Yes, some Millennials function just fine in society, but there's no avoiding the fact that many of them are socially illiterate and would starve to death in a supermarket if left to their own devices.
They are, in my humble opinion, "The Saddest Generation".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
As far as I can tell it starts in High School. I'm amazed at the stories I hear from my high schoolers about the things that are now permissible that never would have been allowed in the late 80s when I was in high school. Then again, the kids who go to their high school aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. One of my daughters was in an 11th grade science class and she was the only one who had ever heard of plate tectonics. Another time she had missed the previous English class and the teacher informed her that the other students had spent the entire previous class broken up into groups of 5 trying to list all the grammar rules they could think of (e.g., start a sentence with a capital letter) and he would give her 5 minutes to do the assignment on her own. She was able to come up with more rules in those five minutes than all the other groups combined.
Adulthood (as formerly known) used to involve kissing stone-encrusted rings. I, for one, do not miss these goober encrusted overlords.
Note that this summary doesn't defend formality as a useful custom (what does it accomplish, exactly?), but rather defends formality as a valued human tradition among fuddy-duddies known as The Gainfully Employed (soon hereafter known as The Recently Outsourced).
I am not a big fan of text speak term papers and the like, but throughout my undergrad years two decades ago, and during my MA program thereafter, both Ivy League, every single professor I had requested to be addressed by first name.
In fact, the only place I ever had professors who preferred to be addressed by title was law school, and even there it seemed as if it was merely part of training future lawyers in courtroom decorum.
When I was a TA for a CS course back in 2004-2005, one student handed in a three page paper without any capital letters, and virtually no punctuation. It was the first time that we'd run into the problem. Struggling through what he was trying to write I eventually gave him 70%. He complained saying that grammar and punctuations weren't listed as requirements in the assignment. The professor found me to be generous with the grade.
I call my students Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones. I regard this taking the initiative in establishing an environment of professionalism.
As far as what students call me, I don't insist upon Dr. or Professor -- I guess part of this was the influence of a research laboratory of a large national provider of telecommunications services that would not use such titles. All I ask of students that they address me by my properly assigned legal name, and if they call me by my first name, I am fine by that because that is who I am.
I very much agree with fighting against the massively lazy, semi-literate way of writing that most people under 30 seem to believe should be perfectly acceptable even in the most formal settings.
That said, it seems clear to me that anyone who enforces the use their title in order to garner faux respect necessarily has significant insecurity and/or ego problems. Real respect is always earned and cannot be demanded.
I suppose the women and men in uniform calling you "Chief" is assigning an equivalent military title to your role as an instructor-who-is-not-called-professor? Professors are like commissioned officers so they attribute to you a non-commissioned officer's rank?
The only thing is that persons in uniform calling me sir, (or ma'am in your case) puts me a little at unease because whatever my level of authority, I am not serving in the military and I have not served in the military.
Given the U.S. Constitution (you are, USian?), students serving in the military need to learn the proper etiquette for relating to civilians in positions of authority. Mr. and Ms. would be appropriate. Especially military personnel being trained as officer will have such interactions with civilians in positions of authority.
For what I have to shell out for tuition, books, labs, etc, and all the ridiculous hoops I have to jump through, I'll call that professor Johnny Fartpockets for all I care.
You cant call a glorified teacher by their first name?
The sheer arrogance displayed by university academics is disgusting.
They can go fuck themselves.
Cunts.
They're just people that fucked off in college longer than me, especially pieces of shit like art majors, they can't even fix paintings for fucks sakes.
As an instructor, I really don't care if you address me by my first name. Yes, I have a Ph.D., but I don't need students to address me in a formal manner to show respect. I don't even have a problem if emails have an informal tone, provided it meets reasonable standards. Reasonable text abbreviations aren't a big deal, as long as I can easily understand what's being said. Of course, I respond in a more formal manner, regardless.
I have an issue when students behave in a ridiculous manner and expect me to tolerate that behavior. The worst emails I receive from students are often written in a formal manner, but the content is the problem. Students annoy me when they don't read the syllabus and then complain because they're not aware of course policies. I don't like when students procrastinate, have technical issues when they're rushing to complete an assignment 30 minutes before it's due, and expect that I have to give them an extension. I've also seen some truly vitriolic emails written by students hiding behind a keyboard, while still managing to address me in a formal manner and use proper spelling and grammar. I had a student complain about an online quiz question this past semester. He wasn't happy that I didn't answer his email within under 30 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and proceeded to answer a quiz question wrong on all three attempts. While I suspect he intended it in a figurative manner, he literally wrote that he should get a trophy for his (wrong) answer on the quiz.
I had several students not turn in their take home final on time. Those who emailed me in a reasonably prompt manner got credit after I lectured them a bit about professional development. One student didn't email me but left a comment in the online learning management system. When I declined to grade his late exam because he didn't even bother to email me in a reasonably prompt manner, he went into lawyer mode, whining that I was unreasonable for expecting him to email me in a prompt manner and that I expected him to complete the exam on time when he had over two and a half weeks to do so. Another student claimed that the online learning management system was down for an entire week, and that it was to blame for not submitting the exam on time. Of course, I had evidence that the student accessed my course in the learning management system during that time period, meaning the student directly lied to me.
I also assigned a course project, which involved turning in a paper and recording a brief presentation. Students were expected to submit drafts of their paper, which I then provided feedback on. I told one student that they needed more figures after supplying them previously with lots of figures that I created for them and links to several websites online with more figures. Despite my feedback, they only added one figure to the final paper, and little more than that to the presentation. Of course I took points off because it didn't meet the expectations I gave them. The student then emailed me to contest the grade, claiming it was unfair and they couldn't find enough images and reference material, despite me having provided those to the student.
I don't care if students address me by my first name. I don't even care if the emails are a bit informal. I had one student address me in emails with "hey there," but was polite and reasonable with the content of the emails. I wasn't bothered by that at all, because I don't care about being addressed formally. I am okay if students contact me to criticize something I've done, provided the criticism is rooted in fact and written in a polite manner. I don't find informal interactions to be disrespectful. I find it highly disrespectful when students act entitled and try to demand that I make exceptions when they don't meet reasonable expectations. By the way, if students admit their mistakes and take responsibility, I'll usually write it off once or twice as professional development and not take off points for late assignments.
I don't think mill
Given the U.S. Constitution...
Given the level of pretentiousness in your post, I'd say you have to learn to not be a shit. What the fuck does the Constitution have to do with how a member of the military chooses to address anyone? You're a dipshit, and you deserve to be addressed as such.
Casual interaction and being unable to spell simple words in your native language correctly are two completely different things. You can be informal while still being correct in language, grammar and etiquette. Yes, there is an etiquette for casual interaction as well.
I don't work as a professor (though some people try to push me into that career). But if I were to receive somewhat official communication from a student with glaring language mistakes, I'd probably send it back pointing out that we are at an institute of higher learning and if you expect my time and attention, I can expect proper spelling and grammar.
One thing that education should teach you is that behaviour is context-sensitive. At a business meeting, at the bar, at the beach, at a job interview - every setting has its own rules and expectations. The better you can adapt to different roles while still staying authentic and true to yourself, the better for you.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The disrespect. They all misspell my name.
Prof. Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta
I suppose the women and men in uniform calling you "Chief" is assigning an equivalent military title to your role as an instructor-who-is-not-called-professor? Professors are like commissioned officers so they attribute to you a non-commissioned officer's rank?
Just FYI, Chief is also used to address Army & Marine Corp warrant officers. The warrant ranks sit between NCOs and commissioned officers.
The only thing is that persons in uniform calling me sir, (or ma'am in your case) puts me a little at unease because whatever my level of authority, I am not serving in the military and I have not served in the military.
If it eases your conscience a little, military personnel generally address civilians as "sir" or "ma'am". There's nothing authoritative about it, it's just how the military trains its personnel.
Can I ask where you were raised? I was brought up in the southern US and "sir" or "ma'am" was a fairly common form of address, particularly kids addressing adults or two adults who hadn't previously met addressing each other for the first time. Times have changed somewhat, I imagine.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
I will address any given person by what name I deem fit, based on my respect for them. There is a man who I knew in high school I will address with "Mr.", there are others I address by their first names, and another I call "That cunt".
I and I alone decide when I am professional, to whom, and to what degree, and as long as I'm paying you for my education in this era of studen loan dept, campus slacktivism, and open racism in higher education, you should be thank me for addressing you with anything but an obscenity.
You want me to unconditionally call you Mr? Then you better give me the same respect because I'm paying your salary.
I totally agree on proper spelling and sentence construction, but that "Professor" or "Sir" thing wouldn't last for 5 minutes over here in Norway.
Titles and formalism means jack all over here, and we have the flattest organisational structures around. You don't think twice about talking to the boss, and it isn't unheard of by the ground floor do-ers to sabotage decisions in larger organisations if they are considered bad.
This. A thousand times this.
It's uncanny how closely this post reflects my own experience & opinion. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether I have been sleep-posting on /. as an AC last night. And if yes, would that count as "sock puppeteering"? Oh noes! ;-)
In some countries/environments professors are called by their first names. It's considered self-important and frankly douchey to insist on being called otherwise. Heck, some would be called by their nicknames.
Source: I went to college/university in Israel.
I tell my students to address me by my first name, in particular with graduate students I find using the last name introduces an artificial barrier in discussions. Typically the only students who do address me by first name are Asian students (funnily enough they would often just use "Professor" without my last name, which I just find sounds weird). However, I was previously coordinating the final year projects at an Engineering department (>200 students per semester), so I was getting a lot of emails and phone calls (even though I specifically told students to always send an email, instead of calls) with issues about handing in reports, supervisors ...
Emails in txt speak were not uncommon. Often emails did not even start with a greeting, led alone a proper ending. Even worse were the phone calls, I would pick up the phone and literally the first thing the students say to me after I answered is "Hi, I can't see my mark, what's wrong?" (in fact I would be lucky to even get the "Hi"). As I said this was a class with over 200 students, so how they expected I know them by voice is beyond me. Unfortunately this was very common, really makes you wonder what is going to happen once they work.
Millennial college students have become far too casual when they talk with their professors
I remember in my college years almost 30 years ago of students being crass and too casual to professors, a never ending source of friction that always ended with students experiencing a rude awakening regarding Academic and professional etiquette.
This country has been churning HS graduates who can neither add fractions nor understand the difference between "you're" and "your" for decades. Yes, for decades. This has been noted since the late 70's, and is the reason why so many millions of people in their mid-40's and 50's are struggling (they are, in effect, illiterate.)
Don't pin this on Millennials. This shit has been going on for years.
Time...fucking...magazine!!!! He spelled it out for you!
"When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I've got to say something," Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston said....
Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it's the first step in treating students like adults.
Every single work supervisor I've ever had has introduced themselves by their first name and preferred to be addressed that way.
I look at this a bit differently then most folks. College students are paying to attend the university so from my perspective they have hired the school and the professors to perform a service. So I have absolutely no problem with referring to professors by their first name. When I'm paying for a service, I'm in charge.
The piece of the article that annoys me is the laziness in and lack of etiquette in communications. It isn't necessary to use abbreviations in emails which do not have character length limitations. But if you pay attention to pop culture or advertising you'll see continual attempts to introduce abbreviations as if that is something hip or cool.
Another problem you'll see is that the same thing is happening in posted articles on supposed main-stream news sites - use and overuse of abbreviations and regular grammar and or spelling errors. It doesn't appear that the web articles receive any form of editing or proof reading these days.
I'm one of those old timers that only went back to receive a college degree because the company I worked for flat out said, even with 7 years of history, without a college degree I couldn't be promoted any higher. That is one form of job place discrimination that is considered perfectly acceptable.
So in my late 30's I completed my degree, and one of the only classes that I felt I received any value from was a course on technical / business writing. The class showed that when you're writing either for presentations or training or documentation, the key was to focus the style and content for the intended audience. So the same document might be written in different ways if the audience was sales versus development, but don't use jargon or abbreviations for an audience that doesn't have the context to know what they mean.
That is the one text book I actually did not sell back after completing the class and I still have and sometimes refer back to it.
Professors insist you call them by their first name. I just finished my second degree and I have never had a professor want to be called anything but their first name.
45 years ago my German High School teacher retold a story where a student (in Germany) addressed the Professor with "Du" instead of "Sie".
It still goes on.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Protip: I call my professors by first name unless they tell me not to.
Besides, this is just another example of why the right complains about academia and the professors "in their ivory towers".
What exactly is wrong with addressing your college professors by their first name? You are both adults. He is not some kind of CEO or high-level executive. And I dare say professors that allow it foster a greater rapport with their students. Treating your students like children is not going to earn anyone brownie points.
If I can address my doctors by their first name I sure as shit should be able to address a college professor by theirs.
This man is unbelievably stuffy, who gives a shit how people send messages on the side? More than that, every single professor I had in a california state college where I was in the science department were not just okay with first names, they insisted on it. I think this guy's either a terrible professor making excuses for not wanting to engage with his students or hes lounging in some fantasy land where professors need to be held in the highest esteem and treated like gods. The fact that he's a math teacher probably has a lot to do with it as well. I can't think of a position that soukd isolate you more from everyday human life.
This article reminds me of a door-to-door sales person who stopped by my house last year.
Her pitch consisted of telling me, in a snotty tone reminiscent of an 80s valley girl, how disgusting my house was (the cause of the disgustingness was that I had spider webs on my front porch).
At first I thought this was just a sales tactic – that by publicly shaming me, I would feel compelled to buy the service she was selling.
After I said no thanks and closed the door, though, I could tell from the uncomprehending look on her face that she was just so self-absorbed that she was totally unaware of how arrogant and condescending she had just been. She was so out of touch with how she had just poisoned my attitude towards her and her company, that she actually left a flier with a hand written note on my door because, I can only assume, that she felt that eventually I’d come around to how stupid I was and give her a call.
Point is, arrogance, snobbery, condescension, narcissism, etc. – all these things that used to be considered negative qualities – are now in vogue.
Decency, normalcy, even-temperedness, fairness, courtesy, etc. are considered passé, or even a sign of weakness.
Just look at the tech industry. You can’t get hired unless you are a raging diva (sorry, I mean unless you are “passionate” and “disruptive”).
I say this as a military engineering scientist: remember motherfucker, you're always four trigger-pull pounds away from oblivion.
I only made corporal, but even I know that you should not have threatened to kill that civilian.
On the other hand, I do not believe your bullshit or that you have ever served.
I teach at an upper Midwestern public academic institution.
I seem to be getting a lot of shade thrown at me for saying whereas a classroom instructor being called "Chief" or even "sir" is cool, civilian instructors at civilian institutions are not in your chain-of-command, however much the grade in my class affects your career.
I am not asking to be called "Dr." or "Professor", simply "Mr. Familyname." Real doctors call me that, including one trying to get my attention after I had collapsed from a nurse jamming an IV line into a vein. Or you can call me by my first or given name because that is legally who I am.
If the military trains its personnel to address civilians by "sir" or "ma'am", I guess that is OK but as military, you are wearing a uniform conveying authority, and I am used to persons in authority from my instructors during my adult life to a doctor to whom I am a patient to police officers calling me "Mr. Familyname." In my role as a teacher at an academic institution, the military is "sending you" to my classroom to learn valuable skills in relation so your military career, if you are in my engineering classroom as part of becoming a military officer, your career very likely will involve interactions with civilian contractors and engineers, and in my role as an educator, I am trying to gently suggest that however cool it seems to us civilians to be given honorary military titles, we remain civilians.
One more thing: I think the President of the United States answering the salute of his Marine Guard is really lame, especially if the President never served. If I were President, I would ask the military commanders if it is really appropriate that I answer the salute, and if they say yes, I would get someone to teach me how to do it right rather than make a mockery of it. The Russian President never answers the salute of his honor guard, and they tell me he held a military rank in the KGB.
As to who has the pine cone stuck someplace, if military personnel coming into my classroom have such a 'tude on them regarding what I seek to teach, either math, science, engineering, or my expectations for professional conduct in the engineering workplace, Heaven help all of us. But as someone else here suggested, and AC or even someone under a handle can claim to be military.
I tell you that I feel that I do not merit, as an authority figure in an academic setting, being called "sir" because I do not have a military rank nor have held a military rank? That I state "whatever my level of authority" as a way of agreeing with you that I have "never experienced the crucible of military life"?
Do you call people who agree with you a "civilian piece of shit" or a "motherfucker" (I guess I thought that sobriquet was reserved by persons in the military to refer affectionately to fellow military personnel who have had special experience with that crucible).
"Four trigger-pull pounds" -- are you as either active duty or a military veteran threatening me? With a service weapon?
I'm certainly not trying to throw shade and if I pissed you off, that wasn't my intention. I really was just adding my two cents and making some general observations from my previous experiences. I'm guessing my tone was lost in translation.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
You are certainly not throwing shade on me -- I was responding to the collection of responses to my remarks to which I thought you were also addressing, of which your response was by far respectful and professional.
Thanks!