
U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This - hvo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/u-cant-talk-to-ur-professor-like-this.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
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ThrustVectoring
The pedagogy point didn't get explained and harped on well enough.

How you interact with people, the words you use, the grammatical and dialect
choices you make, and the tone you take all influence how people see you.
Being able to put the "standard, professional English" face on your work and
interaction is an incredibly valuable skill. Various flavors of vernacular
English, casual address, and informal rapport isn't incorrect, wrong, or
inappropriate - it just doesn't have the same sort of effect on the people who
will later demand a particular sort of interaction with you.

In short, there's communication habits that will make it incredibly difficult
to maintain white-collar employment, and one of the things that college does
is teach students to use white-collar professional communication habits.

~~~
afarrell
> isn't incorrect

Agreed

> isn't inappropriate

I Disagree. "Inappropriate" is relative to the situation. Your entire point is
that students should learn to recognize the appropriate register for the
situation and switch into it.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Agreed, I didn't make my point quite as clearly as I'd like to. What's likely
clearer is saying that it isn't "inherently incorrect or inappropriate".
Certain registers have certain effects on people, and it's valuable to have
more interpersonal tools and better understand how they work.

>Your entire point is that students should learn to recognize the appropriate
register for the situation and switch into it.

I don't really want to coerce people into using particular registers for
situations. I do want them to better understand what the results of their
actions are - if they want to poke at upper-class sensibilities by
deliberately using a particular register, that's their prerogative. (I am,
however, a little confused by why they're spending the time and effort at
college)

~~~
afarrell
Right, "sould learn" is more perspective than you or I meant.

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typomatic
This is a really tone-deaf argument that doesn't recognize the context that
modern colleges exist in. Consider that most classes that freshmen and
sophomores attend are either taught solely by TAs, lecturers, or other non-
professors, or there is a class of 500 and the only personal contact the
student receives is with the same.

In this context, when students spend the _first half_ of their post-secondary
education learning a method of interacting with people who are excluded from
True Academia, understanding that yes, you can be quite a good instructor
without these norms (which, by the way, instructors can't or don't enforce
because they don't feel empowered to by their institutions), it is not
difficult to see why students resist the call for these norms once they start
to interact with "real professors".

Any professor who is calling for student respect in this way without
respecting that the institution of academia itself has been significantly
denigrated is only addressing a symptom of a much deeper problem.

~~~
analog31
Indeed, when I was an adjunct, I never interacted with a professor either.

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cyphunk
> Worse than the text abbreviations was the level of informality, with no
> address or signoff.

I some times avoid giving signoff or address so-as to avoid wasting a
professional contacts time. I assume my contacts may have information overload
and will appreciate a short, to the point, email rather than long run-on
emails where the point is hidden somewhere between all the syntax. Email isn't
an academic paper after all and brevity is typically welcome.

~~~
DanBC
"Yours, cyphunk" or "kind regards, cyphunk" add hardly any length to the
email, but indicate that you have in fact finished what you meant to say and
that you didn't mash [send] by mistake.

~~~
cyphunk
It's not hard to to write or read. They feel disingenuous though. The truth is
email's are not like letters. A letter of at least one half a page should be
the minimum, but an email longer than two paragraphs better be seriously
interesting. We've carried over the etiquette of letter writing into a medium
where using that etiquette feels much more manufactured.

------
valuearb
"In 1834, Harvard students rebelled when some of their classmates were
punished for refusing to memorize their Latin textbook. They broke the windows
of a teacher’s apartment and destroyed his furniture. When the president of
the college cracked down and suspended the entire sophomore class, the juniors
retaliated by hanging and burning him in effigy and setting off a rudimentary
explosive in the campus chapel."

What happened to the United States I love?

~~~
jbob2000
Sugar and TV happened.

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pmyteh
I'm all for people getting called what they want - and the staff in question
have earned the professional rank they're insisting on, so it's only polite to
follow their wishes.

The broader point that formal academic titles matter generally (outside the
particularly cultural environment these professors find themselves in) is much
less convincing, though. As a graduate student we referred to the most senior
faculty by first name without a moment's thought - and without loss of respect
for their professional skills. That was simply the cultural norm in our
department, and we conformed. As an undergraduate at a different university
staff preference varied, but our respect was generally conditioned on teaching
competence, not what title they'd chosen. I now have my own PhD and a
university research job, and frankly my status compared to undergraduate
students is high enough just with that, without insisting on them referring to
me as "Doctor".

Likewise, the value of being able to signal your understanding of formality
(and your lower position) by dressing formally for a job interview doesn't
mean that it's necessary for workplaces to insist on collar-and-tie every day.
Norms change.

~~~
hyperbovine
Graduate students are colleagues -- they write papers with, present alongside,
and publish in the same journals and conferences as professors. The
expectation of formality is rightfully less. Undergrads are a whole different
story; >90% of them have no future in academia and you are training them to
succeed in a the working world. A large part of that includes grovelling and
kissing ass. Despite not being a very formal person at all I found myself
strongly agreeing with this article.

~~~
pmyteh
Sorry - I should have been clearer. I'm in the UK, where there is a pretty
sharp distinction between the taught Masters, taken both by intending
academics and by others (but in neither case are you in any real sense a
colleague of the faculty) and the PhD programme proper (where you are, albeit
a very junior one).

Academics in my department were on first-name terms with both the MSc and PhD
students, though in other ways the nature of the relationship was as different
as you describe.

TBH, my experience of pre-academic workplaces was also that people would be
referred to by name rather than title. I know that varies a lot depending on
where you are.

------
Others
I feel like there is a big difference between the grammar/informality issue
and the first name issue. I think students using bad grammar or texting
language is unacceptable, it's just disrespectful. But I think students being
on a first name basis with teachers is — in some ways — actually a good thing.
The relationship between student and teacher should be one of collaboration in
pursuit of learning, not an authoritative one.

~~~
pyrale
> The relationship between student and teacher should be one of collaboration
> in pursuit of learning, not an authoritative one.

Collaborating and having an authoritative relation are not mutually exclusive.
Teaching is essentially an asymetric relation, and it is important for the
student to understand that he is not in a back-and-forth process, but in a
receiving position.

Of course, there may be situations where this is not true, but it makes sense
to optimize the communication protocol in spite of it, because the alternative
is more harmful.

~~~
Others
I respectfully disagree. Even if you don't think it is truly a symmetrical
relationship, introducing an arbitrary separation makes it harder for students
to develop relationships with their teachers. And learning is definitely
enhanced by relationships between students and teachers.

------
jancsika
> Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of
> condescension; it’s the first step in treating students like adults.

If you have to spend several paragraphs explaining how something isn't an act
of condescension, you may have just spent several paragraphs apologizing for
committing acts of condescension.

I suppose this article makes me crabby because it's written solely with the
needs/wants of the professor in mind. The author initially wanted to be the
"cool" teacher. It's a teacher's "job to correct sloppy prose". Formality
helps defend the _university 's values_ "at a time when they are under
continual assault." A professor has to "establish that I belong here" because
"I'm the first and only black teacher they've every had."

How about the students? What's the most effective way to get them
collaborating with each other and thinking critically about the material to
which you've introduced them? Especially given that lectures have been shown
to be one of the _least_ effective means of teaching?

You do remember the students, right? Those people taking on burdensome debt in
a desperate hope to gain permanent employment long after taking your class?
I'd say if "cutie_pie_98@hotmail.com" finds it worthwhile to send you a
question over email, you should put in the maximum possible effort your
professorial brain can muster to write helpful and meaningful response. If you
really think that response starts with, "it's time to retire that address," at
least consider that your priorities are so out of whack that it may be time to
for _u_ to retire _ur_ address.

------
ajmurmann
In the most recent episode of econtalk
([http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/tyler_cowen_on_1.ht...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/tyler_cowen_on_1.html))
Tyler Cowen had the very interesting thesis that less formal dress codes make
it harder for outsiders to fit in and makes it harder to climb there ladder.
Instead of just wearing what's prescribed for your role you now have to decide
yourself what might be seen as appropriate and maybe even decide how to stick
out or what clothing match your desired perception and ambitions. He pointed
out that as a immigrant from a foreign culture you'd be relieved to just get a
simple answer like "white shirt and black tie".

I wonder if the same principle might be true for language. Having formal rules
how to address someone might make it easier to do the right thing and not
having to waste brain power on something like that.

------
Mathnerd314
> Formal etiquette was not aimed at ensuring respect for all. It was, in part,
> a system to enforce boundaries of race, class and gender at a time when the
> growth of cities and mass transit forced Americans into close quarters with
> strangers. Codes of behavior served “as checks against a fully democratic
> order and in support of special interests, institutions of privilege and
> structures of domination”

Hence the argument for a uniform mode of address. Oh wait, we already have
that: the email address itself. Why does anyone need more than that?

> You will never offend or annoy someone by being overly formal and polite.

You'll offend all the anarchists, and libertarians, and hippies, and probably
some other people.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> You will never offend or annoy someone by being overly formal and polite.

I get that the average person in the English-speaking world might claim that,
but Europeans and many other peoples whose languages have a tu/vous
distinction are well aware that sometimes you can inadvertently offend or even
intentionally belittle someone by actually using the more formal way of
address. Context is everything.

~~~
maxerickson
Even without the distinction intentionally ignoring context can be used to be
offensive.

I guess not really for a student talking in a formal way to a professor. But
then you can just be formal in an overly mechanical way to imply that you are
merely going through the motions and don't actually intend to convey any
respect.

------
marsrover
What do college professors expect? Anyone can easily go to college now and
many kids receive absolutely no education during their former years.

I remember being in AP English in 11th grade. We had to grade papers for the
regular English class. I distinctly remember grading a paper that was using
"red" to mean "read". This was common and not unusual.

But, you know what? These kids went to public universities because apparently
we don't need garbage men anymore so if you have a 2.5 GPA and a 16 on the
ACT, you can get into college.

~~~
brogrammernot
The issue goes much deeper than "anyone" can go to college. Their is a huge
education disparity between wealthy zip codes and poor zip codes. So, yes you
were in an AP English class. How many of your fellow classmates do you think
were on free and/or reduced lunch? How many students in the regular English
classes were on free/reduced lunch?

The educational disparity is the real root of this problem. You add in that
the average salary of a teacher after 5 years of experience is less than
nearly any job after 5 years of experience.

This feeds into educational disparity even further as the good teachers want
to teach in a wealthier school district as it is a much easier position to be
in. More support from teachers, "smarter" kids, ability to get paid more as
the taxes from that area can afford better teachers.

Contrast that with poor school districts and you get the exact opposite. You
have a variety of kids from troubled homes, you don't know if they had or can
afford breakfast, you don't know if they have even a remotely okay home
environment to do homework in.

So sure, "anyone" with a pulse can get into college but the real issue is not
that. It starts much, much earlier in the education system.

It took me a long time to figure out how fortunate I was to grow up in a
wealthier school district, and the fact that I worked my ass off to get where
I am now but I'd be lying if because of white privilege + a wealthier zip code
I wasn't exposed to more opportunities that made busting my ass pay off more.

~~~
calcifer
> Their is a huge education disparity

I agree with your overall point, but given the "proper language" nature of
this thread I feel I must: _there_ , not _their_.

~~~
brogrammernot
Hahahaha. Damnit. Goes to show, even with a graduate degree(in progress)
there, their and they're still screwing with me

------
OliverJones
Prof. Worthen missed one thing that may be helpful. When a teacher or other
professional helps a student with something, it's always appropriate for the
student to say "thank you."

I think it's important to have an email client with a way to Undo the Send
button for half a minute or so. That way there's a second chance to get it
right.

I love the William Raspberry quote. I grew up reading his columns. He was a
rare voice of sanity in DC where I lived with my parents, during the Nixon /
Watergate train wreck.

------
kibwen
Regarding "blithe informality", are we also incensed that I'm allowed to go to
work in khakis rather than the classic suit-and-tie combo? On Fridays I even
wear jeans! :)

------
Macha
Maybe it's a culture gap, but certainly everyone called the lecturers by their
first name when I was in college recently (Ireland).

~~~
angrow
I went to a (very small, very odd) college which took the other route: all
participants in the class - teachers and students - addressed each other as
Mr. or Ms. <family name>.

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coding123
I was a lecturer at a community college. I was mostly referred to by my first
name. Sometimes I was referred to by Mr. LastName (sorry Dr. LastName in this
thread), and I quickly said, hey it's just FirstName.

------
rubatuga
What's common sense for one student may not be for another. My mother who
teaches at the local university, has seen emails that are very gracious, to
emails that start off with Hey Prof, ...

~~~
paublyrne
There's a great resignation letter featured in the Scottish papers this week
that is rudely polite.

[https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/weird-abrupt-
scottish-...](https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/weird-abrupt-scottish-
gran-writes-ill-no-back-resignation-letter/)

------
3zra
What I find fairly strange in American academia is that professors are
addressed by their last name, but students by their first name. In Austria,
for example, there is no situation in which you address someone differently
than they address you, except for addressing children. It would be very
disrespectful for an adult to address another adult by their first name, but
insist that they be addressed by their last name, as if you were a child.

~~~
wink
Same here in Germany (but I graduated a few years ago).

It's kind of the same as in any workplace (by default, with exclusion of the
IT sector and maybe some more, also construction sites) - you'll always use
Mr/Mrs (Ms not so much anymore, I think that went away in the 80s :P) until
you or someone else offers you the possibility to be on a first name basis [0]
(example link in case you've never heard of this particularity of German
speaking countries).

[0]: [http://www.dw.com/en/the-du-sie-dilemma-in-
german/a-16494631](http://www.dw.com/en/the-du-sie-dilemma-in-
german/a-16494631)

There are exceptions, of course, but in general (exceptions see above) I'd say
using the first name in a formal/business setting is totally more uncommon
than in the US.

In general I really do wonder about mentioning social media and text messages
as a possible reason. We had text messages in high school in early 00s. We
also had social media when I was still studying, I simply refuse to believe
that everything has deteriorated this much in just 10 years. (Oh wait, I'm
getting old and 'Get off my lawn', right?) :)

------
forgotpwtomain
Tl:dr Older form-culture losing significance for a newer generation, older
generation grumbles about young impetuous whippersnappers.

~~~
treehau5
Correct language usage is not a previous -> current generational issue. We are
witnessing the dumbing down of culture or in other words: _Idiocracy_ is
becoming a documentary.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
Contrived formalities for more egalitarianism? Sounds like a good trade.

~~~
icebraining
Tyler Cowen argues that the rule of casual is an impediment to upward
mobility: [http://www.businessinsider.com/wearing-casual-clothes-at-
wor...](http://www.businessinsider.com/wearing-casual-clothes-at-work-to-show-
wealth-2017-2)

------
lapsock
Really? Calling a professor by their first name is a faux pas in academia?
Here in Brazil if you call a professor by "Mr. Last Name" they'll think you're
a weirdo.

And you know what I think? Why does any random loser get to write an article
in the nytimes these days? Back in the good old days it used to be only
interesting stuff got written in there. Now I have to waste my time digging
through the trash to find an interesting article once a month.

~~~
TezlaKoil
"Mr. LastName was my father's name! Please, call me Dr. LastName."

------
kfkhalili
This article is a joke. The New York Times is a joke.

