U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This

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.

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.

> 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.

"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?

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.

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.

> 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.

In the most recent episode of econtalk (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/tyler_cowen_on_1.ht...) 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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! :)

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

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.

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, ...

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.

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

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.

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