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posted by on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the wassup-prof? dept.

At the start of my teaching career, when I was fresh out of graduate school, I briefly considered trying to pass myself off as a cool professor. Luckily, I soon came to my senses and embraced my true identity as a young fogey.

After one too many students called me by my first name and sent me email that resembled a drunken late-night Facebook post, I took a very fogeyish step. I began attaching a page on etiquette to every syllabus: basic rules for how to address teachers and write polite, grammatically correct emails.

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.

[...] 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.

-- submitted from IRC

Source: The New York Times


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:38PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:38PM (#510575)

    I have no idea how any of this relates to the article.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:44PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:44PM (#510581)

    I have no idea how any of this relates to the article.

    Someday when you go to uni, you'll have a java programmer consultant hired as an adjunct to teach your CS101 "how to use MS Excel" class and his preferred format of address is "dudes first name" not come to military posture of attention, salute, present arms, and say "honorable kind sir doctor professor dudes name". And after about 10 classes taught by consultants moonlighters and semi-drunken grad students in a very informal manner, a prof demanding some weird form of address will be too weird of an experience to handle.