"Shameless students put tutors in e-mail hell"

Too right, mate!

It does. (In particular, I see nothing wrong with the last message quoted, at all! And what is so bad about 'see you in class!'?)

Students communicate differently these days, is all. If there's a problem it's that they are not getting clear information about who can/should deal with their problems and when and where their tutors are available.

The word 'impertinent' shouldn't be used of anyone over eighteen. And they ARE paying customers. (Ones that can't construct proper English sentences maybe but that's not a crime.)

beside you'd think most tutors would be glad of the hugs'n'kisses

wot do u fink lol wtf
hugz'n'luvz
t33ch

If any of the academics I work with were having this problem, I'd tell them to set up an autoreply or something, saying what kinds of messages they can/will respond to and when they are available to answer questions.

XPOST - Archel OTM. It would be great if the Autoreply said "Undergraduates who do not show proper respect will receive no replies".

I like the guy who moaned about receiving a mail on Xmo day. What was he checking his mail for then? LOSER.

THIS IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE

The class system is alive and well, I see.

Yes it is. But if worded better, it's not unreasonable to ask for.

xpost with a name like F, that's just giving no expectation at all!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html?ex=1298178000&en=361f9efce267b517&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

From the TH3S:

"UK academics say e-mail is erasing the boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance."

From the NYT:

"At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance."

Could just be from the same press release, mind.

This makes no sense at all.

addressing their tutors by their first names only

I don't remember any lecturers who would have expected to be addressed any other way when I did my degree. I'd sometimes sit with them in the refectory and chat with them just as if they were people like me, and astonishingly they seemed to cope without complaining to The Times.

This is laughable nonsense. The idiot with 'what's tomorrow's essay about?' is nothing to with email or mode of address, it's a student not doing what is required, which has always happened.

astonishingly they seemed to cope without complaining to The Times.

The TAs I know complain about e-mails all the time, and it's a real problem for them. I think to just say they should keep a stiff upper lip is a bit silly.

when i read this story i thought i had read it before. they musyt have regurgitated the previous article then asked a bunch of people in the TH3S office what funny emails they had ever got.

And I'm not sure why speaking to reporters is suddenly a crime if you don't agree with what someone's saying.

That said, given the similarity to the NYT article, perhaps that word appeared in the original press release.

better than 100 phonecalls i say!

I hardly e-mail any of my lectures and if I do, it's a) done in a professional manner even through I am on friendly terms with my lecturers and b) if it's only totally needed to clarify something.

Yeah, we did:

Students who e-mail too much (and the professors that don't quite love them)

And, x-post, saying you won't respond to e-mail is the sort-of perfect world option, but not a realistically workable one, unless you're a Dean or something.

xpost are you people fucking serious? Do any of you know any teachers (besides the two upthread who already confessed to knowing such vile, lazy examples of humanity)? You all do realize that the fact that these students e-mailed then makes quite a few of them think they have the "right" to go complain when their last minute unreasonable "Whoops I was lazy LOL" demands weren't met? As in complain to the actual administration and higher ups and actually get teachers in trouble. My sister is a teacher, she's glad to answer students e-mails. But a 2am email from a frat boy who never attended class demanding lecture notes for the final exam at noon tomorrow is not the kind of thing she should be expected to be on call for, yet she has been, and has been reprimanded for not turning around the student's request!

Who said middle class internet users had an overdeveloped sense of entitlement? Not me.

I mean yeah I'm sure someone who is complaining "OMG my student expected me to explain the grade I gave them before they retook an exam" or "OMG my student signed off 'hugz'" is being a douche but you cannot convince me that almost every single one of you is lacking the critical skills to re-read the article and see where this actually IS a problem before you join the sides of morans.

obviously that's absurd; it's the tone of the article people are reacting to. students *are* customers (shouldn't be but are) so it's rank class hypocrisy for tutors to claim to be above that.

my experiences have varied widely; my current superviser is totally uncontactable; the missus' tutor *replies* to emails on saturday evenings.

surely if a teacher/lecturer gets in trouble for not answering to an email within a certain timescale, they get the right to defend themself? i cant imagine any reasonable head of department etc upholding a students complaint such as the situation you posited.

i dont see why this issue has to either swing one way or the other....students can be unreasonable, and can be dicks, teachers can be unreasonable, and can be dicks. on both sides, the majority are fine, i would presume.

as for a sense of entitlement, well everyone has that. someone can complain abouyt their bus being late, or building a bus stop outside their house, their complaint will be recorded and if its unreasonable, it wont be taken further, and they'll be informed. they might sent an email in at 2am, i cant see why with email it makes any difference when they send it. if they were phoning at 2am, that would be different. saem with xmas day etc.

For the students, university isn't just about doing the work, it's about learning how to manage your time and prioritize tasks. If you don't even know what the essay topics are and the work is due the next morning then you're basically fucked and no amount of friendly email banter will change that.

If any student threatened to take his/her fees elsewhere then I'd laugh in their face, for reasons which should be obvious (this is a required course for you, dumbass ... I'm sure your parents will be thrilled to hear that ... etc.)

2xpost

Enrique, both students and those who teach them come from a variety of backgrounds. Obviously becoming a lecturer moves you into a particular social strata, but are you seriously saying university students are the downtroden working classes?

!!! its a bit obvious what the analogue is;

"From: Mr Idiot
To: Me the opressed mass
Sent: 17:49 GMT

Subject: OMG report!

Hey X!

Oh dear I really ned that report for tomorrows board meeting! If i dont get it then we totally cant get any money to improve buses in the world! I know i never asked for it or told you about it until now, but i need 1000000 words by 9 am tomorrow about buses disguised as trasm and improving patronage.

Thanks

Idiot,

Demanding department"

1) Students thinking they can turn in their assignments via email, then saying "my email didn't go through! sorry this is late." Basically, I've made a "you can't email your assignments to me unless we discuss it first" policy.

2) There is a weird quality of rudeness to it at times. Emails that being: "Hey. I can't come to class today. Tell me what I missed?" feel a little weird because I go to the trouble of learning their names and they seem to not know mine. I usually just tell them to come by my office hours to find out what they missed.

3) Deserted office hours: It is RARE that someone comes by my office anymore to discuss their grade, ask a question, or seek out help. I don't really mind if they try to do this through email, really, but I think it's more effective to communicate in person. Again, though, it's simple to default to the "come to my office hours" reply.

As far as handouts, lecture notes, assignments sheets, etc., there's a very simple online system (blackboard) where I post all that stuff, and students are responsible for getting it themselves if they miss class. It's a good system, I think.

Might be me, but I remember this being the case back in the early nineties when I was a TA myself.

I've been a TA/lecturer of some variety since 1997 and seems like there's been a marked drop-off in the last 3-4 years, but I've never really had people pounding my door down.

on the first day of class you explain what the policy about email is along with explanations of the grading policy. That way there aren't as many hard feelings because you're not being arbitrary about it and everybody knows going into the situation what the rules are.

I'd say putting it all in the syllabus isn't a bad idea, either; that way it's all in writing and they've had it in their hot little hands from day one.

Yeah but Amst makes a good point on it:

honestly this stuff hasn't really become a problem, it's just a few students who seem to make unreasonable demands. and it's easy enough to deal with them, you just say that you can't help them with that. and you have to have a backbone and realize that even if they seem upset, they'll get over it, and they need to learn to fend for themselves.

Given that students, no matter their sense of entitlement, are in an inferior position, a few pissy emails should not bug a professor. "Email hell" my ass. There is no such thing. You outline what kind of emails you will and will not answer early on, and you do not answer the unreasonable or impertinent ones. Problem solved. The tone of this article bugs me, because it's like a bunch of professors going, "What's wrong with these kids that they don't even have enough respect to...!" etc. Who fucking cares? Control your class.

Please Sterling Don't Hurt 'Em

I wanna be in Prince's drama class!

"Darling fascist bully-boy, give me an A+ you bastard."

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Ha ha!

Hear hear! Along similar lines I would get so JACKED at students asking me a) if they could go to the toilet b) "Is this number right" [whilst pointing at a number in the middle of several hundred other numbers written in their lab book].

Bingo.

I didn't find any of these examples nearly as offensive as they were obviously meant to be. They varied from reasonable to mildly inconvenient. 'See you in class!' - For heaven's sake, what on earth is wrong with saying that?

i don't find the level of email unmanageable.... i just write replies that are appropriate to the maturity/reasonableness of the question(s). if the question is unutterably stupid then i just won't respond, and the student will in all likelihood figure it out on their own. it's a mild annoyance at times. i find that you can reduce the number of emails if you just make everything very very clear on the syllabus and don't switch stuff around after that. ta'ing for professors who are disorganized leads to many, many emails from confused students.

i do appreciate a certain degree of formality when students write to me (and vice versa), if only so they don't make the mistake of thinking i'm their friend more than their teacher, which can lead to "how dare you flunk me?" sorts of problems.

-- Anna (Fieldingann...), April 12th, 2006.

no, not at all, although erm, well, you know, they're students, they don't have much money--less than employed working-class people their age--and what money they have is borrowed, so no they aren't 'bourgeois' particularly. likewise, lecturers aren't bourgeois, they're poorly paid salary-earners.

but the lecturers are clinging deperately on to their cultural capital, and by complaining that students see themselves as customers they are trying to get the students to believe their myth. to their chagrin because they are service providers, not whatever romantic idea of the intellectual they themselves were inculcated into.

so that's why it's class hypocrisy, the refusal to face up to cold reality.

See, it's not the service, it's the conditions of service that are at issue here. Otherwise you'd get lecturers who have studied for 20 years asking the same salary as dick head wall st wanktards who get a starter of 80 k a year and bang up to 200 plus options.

-- Queen Get those fucking unwashed outta my class (pihil10...), April 13th, 2006.

but for capitalism... i mean, no, they wouldn't because unis don't make that kind of money.

some students have a lot of money. plus i don't really see what bearing the idea of students being customers has on whether or not it's acceptable for them to make the sort of demands the article describes.
-- Konal Doddz (stevem7...), April 13th, 2006.

well, no-one's saying these students are anything but idiots, but you don't get articles about idiot customers in other contexts, and that's because lecturers don't see themselves as workers like anyone else.

Ever worked for the NHS?

(I actually lost count the amount of times customers would have a go at me, personally, because Random House hadn't released a paperback of The Da Vinci Code yet.)

(Of course, none of this precludes me being a fuckwitt customer at times.)

yes, and... i didn't see articles saying 'omg the sense of entitlement of these taxpayers!' flag up their stupidity, sure -- that's not the issue here.

isnt that the point? i mean, customers are wankers, but customer is king so you have to grin and bear it, the world keeps turning, dog bites man etc etc

the only ones i think are unreasonable above are the asking for a handout 12 hrs before the work's due in, and the email in txt msg style is pretty dumb. but the last one seems completely reasonable to me.

wrt lecturers not wanting to be seen as 'service providers' - from my experience, its been more a question of colleges trying to shorten courses so they can run more within the same time-frame, at the expense of the course and what can be taught within it, as if the course were a product and they should ensure how to keep its costs down as low as possible, to ensure the highest return.

In my undergraduate experience it was usually because office hours were right during my other class, job, lab or sleep time (I *cannot* get to 8 am office hours!) People -- especially TAs -- need to have better office hours than "2 to 4 Tu Th". HINT: people with conflicts usually will have trouble attending at the same time a different day of the week

Any other non-yanks boggling at the grammatical impossibility of this phrase? You can't come to an hour, for heaven's sake!

Jon's not making a distinction between US and UK use of the term GRAMMAR, is he? Come on now....

The next time this happens hold up your hand in a quietening gesture, saying, "Leave this to me."

Then turn to some random person and command them, "Take a memo, Ms. Smith. To the CEO of Random House. My customers demand that you release The Da Vinci Code in paperback. Please see to it, ASAP. Yours, etc, etc. -- and, Ms. Smith, please send that post haste!"

Turn back to your customer, smile and say, "Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

Any other non-yanks boggling at the grammatical impossibility of this phrase? You can't come to an hour, for heaven's sake!

Everyone I know says it that way. Everrrryone. :D

One of my classmates emailed Ang3la McR0bb13 calling her by her first name and got a reply basically saying "that's DR McR0bb13".