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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.
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. -
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)
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.
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.
It's almost as if both instructors and students prefer to be addressed in ways which make them comfortable and feel they deserve that basic level of respect.
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.
This is basic stuff, and they graduate high school without learning it. What did they put on their college application, a plagiarized form letter?
Are you kidding?
40% of American High School GRADUATES (yes, graduates) can't read or write. They get graduated anyway. Front cover of Time Magazine.
These little assfaces get participation trophies for showing up and told that everyone is a winner. They think that they're ahead of their peers for knowing how to plagiarize a form letter.
And sadly, they're mostly not wrong.
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.
To which all professors should respond with some variant of "You're welcome to your own self-image, but I am not required to participate in 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 don't mind if my students (Cambridge) call me by my first name. Formality can be polite, but it can also be a barrier to free exchange of ideas and that has no place in a university. I'd be very surprised if MPhil or PhD students didn't call me by my first name.
That said, if you write me an email and can't be bothered to write in grammatically correct sentences then you've obviously decided that your time writing the email is more valuable than mine reading it and I'll respond accordingly, if at all.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's so scary that university administration has so warped our students that they believe this crap.
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.
Do you have a source? I would expect at least a link to the issue of Time that had such an article.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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.
If you wanted to destroy a foreign nation without wasting money or your own people's lives on war, and were patient, this would be the way to go about it.
- Infiltrate and infect their education system, media, and a few key political appointments
- Reduce the standards in the education system so that "graduates" are incapable of competing with your country's people or realizing they are being manipulated
- Convince their people they don't need to work and that they should expect everything as a handout
- Make them dependent on authority figures for everything and convince them that they should never do things for themselves or handle their own problems. Lobby for laws that punish those that do
- Tell one half of the people that all of their problems is caused by the other half
- Lobby for laws that grant some groups of people more rights than others. Vilify the others if they complain
- Convince people to believe that their culture is worthless and that being proud of your heritage or country is abhorrent
- Encourage behavior that breaks apart the family unit, which is the cornerstone of society. Degenerate role models, infidelity, easy/beneficial divorces
- Divide, divide, divide
In short, weaken their society and watch it destroy itself from within.