Passive Aggressive Holiday Greetings

I'm not sure if it's because of the holidays or if it's just coincidence, but so far some of the students that I have had in the fall semester have decided to let me know that they're dissatisfied with their grades with passive aggressive holiday greetings.

Every semester, I have a few students who believe that they deserve a better grade. I generally offer those students to meet with them in person or to explain via email why they deserve the grade that they earned. At the end of the fall semester, there has been always one or two students who choose not to have me explain why they earned that grade and instead choose to send me a message along the lines of that it is not up to me (the professor) to judge, but that only God can judge the actions that we take in life. Then they tack on a line about wishing me a Merry Christmas.

If God would like to grade the exams and papers and judge these students, please Lord, go right ahead! Until I receive that sign from Him, I will continue to "judge" the students.

Dress for Success

In high school my classmates and I wondered why one of our teachers always dressed in a suit and tie. None of the other teachers dressed nearly as formally as he did (actually many of them dressed quite casually). Mr. M. answered that he was dressed for work. He responded, "School is my work and you dress in a suit and tie for work." That was that. He was very old-schooled that way. We all thought it was rather puzzling and eventually we got him to wear a t-shirt and jeans for Fridays, but every other day he wore a suit and tie.

I didn't realize how much his words affected me until I became a professor. When I was a college student, I didn't give much thought to how my professors dressed. Some of them were more formally dressed and others were very casual (one professor was famous for teaching in flip flops). But when I became a professor, I put in much thought to how *I* was going to dress.

Mr. M. explained to us that he dressed in a suit and tie as a sign of respect for us students. You dress up for important events and he dressed in a suit and tie because he believed that we deserved that type of respect. He took his job seriously and his clothes as a *symbol* of that respect.

It's not that I don't think professors who don't dress up don't take their jobs seriously nor do they not respect their students, but looks are symbolic. As much as we can say that we should "not judge a book by its cover," we do, whether it's looks or a just how a paper is turned in -- neat and crisp or sloppy and crinkled.

I don't wear a suit to class, but I do make sure that I am dressed neatly and professionally when I lecture. The students do appreciate it (enough to make comments on my student evaluations). I do think it makes a difference when a professor lectures in a neat outfit compared to when a professor lectures in a sweatsuit.

Professor or Personal Tutor

What is the professor's role in helping students? Obviously we're there to teach. Obviously this entails that I show up to class, lecture, ask questions, answer questions, and do other teaching activities (give and grade assignments, exams, and so forth).When you have a student who's seriously behind all the other students, just how much help and support are you expected to give?

My colleagues' policies range anywhere from "It's not my problem if it happens outside of these prescribed hours" to "Personal Tutor." I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't mind setting aside time for a specific appointment with a student to go over difficult material, but I don't set this up as a regular occurrence. When a student clearly has severe problems with completing the work, I refer them to other services, such as the writing and tutoring center. My personal feeling is that in those situations the problems in my class are symptomatic of a deeper underlying problem of poor preparation. The only way to fix it is with lots of additional work outside of the course material. While I'm happy to provide occasional help outside of class/office hour, I also don't believe that it's a part of my job description to be a personal tutor for the student.

On rare occasions, I feel slightly guilty about this. You hear those stories of the teacher who really cared and went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that the students succeeded, you know, meeting before and after school, on weekends, investing a lot their own personal money and time. Everything-including-the-kitchen-sink-to-ensure-that-the-student-succeeds work ethic that win praises and a TV-movie-of-the-week, maybe even a full length film if it involves poor ethnic minorities in a gritty part of a town or a bleak rural outpost. While I certainly do admire the dedication of those teachers and I certainly do care that my students succeed, the truth is I don't care enough to give up my weekends for it. I already find it painful enough to give up several lovely Saturday afternoons to grading and I get paid to do this. I certainly won't do it for something I don't get paid for.

Once in a while there's some discussion about the failing students and what we should do about them. Inevitably someone (another prof, admin, a student representative) brings up that the professor should tutor that student until he/she does better. Theoretically I might be okay with this idea if 1) the College provided me with additional support to do this work, and 2) if it were only one or even two students. If you consider that it's perfectly possible to have up to a 1/3 of the class failing and multiply by the number of classes I teach, it quickly becomes apparent that practically speaking this is not going to happen.

Regardless, I feel that my job is to be a professor. Not a tutor. This means I draw a line at how much outside help and support I provide students. Occasional appointments -- yes. Every week outside of office hours -- no. If this means that I am a bad professor, well, I can live with it. I can live with showing up to class on time, giving a really good lecture, grading assignments and exams, having office hours, making occasional appointments with students, and going home.

The State of Hellos

Last week I had a very pleasant moment, when a student poked his head in just to say hello. That was it. It was just a hello and I loved it. When I was an undergraduate, aside from my senior thesis advisor my senior year, there was absolutely no professor with whom I would have felt comfortable enough to say hello, unless I had some business at hand. I love that my students feel comfortable with me and that they do want to have contact with me for no other reason, other than to wish me a nice day -- that their need for me is not just based on "I NEED MAJOR HELP NOW!" panic that I usually see.

This is very different from a different type of hello that I'm getting from a colleague. I'm starting to dread seeing this colleague's presence in the hallway because a hello from this person is not just a simple hello, but the start of a long and overly-winded, pointless conversation on nothing. I like chitchat just fine, but when I'm usually quite busy when I'm on campus and I don't have time for idle chitchat. Also, I don't particularly care to talk about the issues that this colleague wants to talk about. I'm not in a position to cut off the chitchat because of the "issues" that came up for my reappointment file. One of my weaknesses, according to the committee, was that I needed to be more collegial and spend more time talking with my colleagues. It's not that I was being rude, but they noted that I did not spend enough time making small talk with my colleagues.

Now I need to add making chitchat on my list of things-to-do. Should it come before or after teaching, research, and service? So far, it's been coming after those three items, which means that often at the end of the day, I haven't gotten around to doing it. I guess I need to re-prioritize my duties.