I love this, Billie! You're so right. I get so annoyed when people complain about students texting in class on surfing Facebook because I see faculty do the same things in meetings. Just about every student behavior I have seen faculty complain about I have see faculty do. I think one reason I have become more lenient about things in my classes is because I don't feel right expecting things from them that I can't expect from my colleagues.

I appreciate this post...but I have mixed feelings about the question 'do we meet student expectations.' Sometimes what students expect isn't what I consider professional duty: e.g., answering email at 1 am on a Saturday. And I resist the notion that the professor/student relationship is a customer service relationship.

I also resist the notion that this is a customer service relationship. However, that doesn't stop students from having expectations of us, some of which we set up. This is a good reason for us to think about articulating for students (for example, in the syllabus) what our roles and responsibilities are as instructors, and possibly their limits. If we do everything that we expressly say that we will, we're sending the right message.

I deal with mostly first year students, and I think that half of what they are learning from us is how to behave "collegiately." We model ways that people can have respectful but clear discussions about difficult issues. I do not hesitate to tell I student "I'm not sure about that" if I'm not sure, or ask them about a technology or issue that I don't know about if it comes up in class discussion; I think it's good modeling to show that a person can be an authority and still be open to learning. Certainly, modeling respectful behavior invites respectful behavior. And, I think a slightly lenient attitude some benefits. I think the more we act like (stereotypical) high school teachers, the likely they are to act like high school students.

Customer service! Don't get me started. I do not work for students. Students pay for the privilege of working for me.

I agree, Nels. I had a student once who texted his way through most classes, but he was an active and thoughtful participant at the same time. My general rule is that it's ok as long as you can still answer questions when you're called on and you're not distracting others.

Beth and Leslie Jo, when I wrote this post, I thought a while about the question, "do we meet student expectations?" My intent wasn't to support the customer service model of education. Instead, I wanted to use that line to open the idea a bit . . . maybe students have the customer service expectations. Maybe they don't. Maybe they expect (define) professionalism differently than we do. What I meant to imply with that line-- and what I stand behind now-- is the notion that we must find out what they expect. We can then do one of two things: (1) meet those expectations, if we think they are appropriate or (2) teach those students that they need different expectations. Or, help them define notions of professionialism differently.

Thanks for this post, Billie. I'm really interested in ideas of professionalism, both for us as professors and instructors, and for our students. I try to make those expectations clear to my students in my course policy statements, but I also try to model those expectations of professionalism.

My phrase lately has been "dominant impression." What dominant impression am I sending to my students and my colleagues and what dominant impressions are my students sending me and to their peers? It's a phrase I keep coming back to.

I'm also interested in policies about texting, facebooking, etc. in class. In some ways, I agree that if students can multi-task and pay attention while texting, then it shouldn't much matter. But I, as the professor, find it distracting. I also think, again in terms of dominant impressions, that a student texting is sending me the message that he or she isn't completely engaged in what we're doing in class. Of course, students often aren't completely engaged -- texting or not -- but the texting seems like such a blatant signal.

When that happens (because my policy says it shouldn't happen in class), I remind the student about our classroom policies, but I also take it as a cue to take a look at myself. If this is a blatant signal of disengagement, that might just be about the student him or herself, but it might be about me, too. I try to use it as a moment to ask what I can do to maximize the possibility of all students feeling and being engaged as often as possible. But I also remind myself that, as I often teach universally required courses, not all students want to be there. I didn't want to take biology and as engaging as my professor was, there were simply days when I didn't want to be there. As an English major, there were days I didn't want to be in my lit. classes, either. But I had to learn, too, to find a way to not let my professor see that. Coming back to professionalism, I think there are professional ways to voice concerns about a class and less professional ways. Sometimes student resistance is done in a way that, to me, seems professional and also effective. Sometimes, not so much. And I'm still struggling with how to deal with the latter.

Billie - point taken. It's certainly true that there are expectations & boundaries and modeling of behaviors and all that, all part of teaching that goes beyond the mere subject matter we teach. I don't object at all to that. But that language of customer service makes me shudder, and I find it worrying that we are adopting that language in the academy.

I'm at a small liberal arts institution where there is already much emphasis placed on the student-as-customer, which makes sense as we have to retain students for our survival. At the same time, however, the student-as-customer has very real pedagogical limitations in the classroom. Or put another way, good pedagogy can be endangered by treating students as customers who must be kept happy. I am a bit old school however and don't believe that my classroom is a democracy, either- but that may be a subject for another post entirely!

I'm not sure how this became a discussion about customer service. I was reading the post differently. I think students should have some expectations of us. In fact, I have a place on each of my syllabi where I list the things students can expect from me, things like, "I will offer clear and detailed guidelines for each assignment" and "I will not show up for class unprepared and coast for the day." Part of the reason I list expectations they can have of me is because I have some for them, and I list those, too. If students have no expectations of us, why are they in college? How will they know what counts as learning and what does not? If they go through college not expecting graded work to be turned back in a timely fashion or ethical grading practices or that I will do the reading, what are they there for?

I admit, too, that one reason I'm explicit about what students can expect from me in my classes is because I think students should wake up to what they should expect from all faculty. I'm at a teaching institution now, so things are different, but I've heard faculty at other places talk about not doing the reading for class and just having the students work in groups or how they take over a month to return graded work and students just have to like it. I see a lot of un-professionalism in the academy, and we--students and faculty--need to confront it. And if students can't recognize whether something they expect is legitimate or comes from a sense of entitlement, we need to teach them the difference. When students ask me if I have papers graded the class meeting after they were turned in, I explain why they can't expect that. If they complain that I didn't answer email fast enough, I explain why they can't expect that (unless they are right that I went for a few days without answering, and then I do apologize because they deserve it).

My reading of this post is that I need to expect the same things from my colleagues that I expect from my students. After all, we're all adults supposedly engaging in a common endeavor. And I'm still often more shocked by the behavior of faculty at meetings or conferences than of students in my classes.

And I do want to reiterate that I'm not necessarily talking about my own departmental colleagues. I come from a department of three. If any of us were texting in a meeting or grading for a class or something, it'd be very obvious! I love our meetings because we always get work done, and we get along quite well.

Beth, like you, I don't like this model, and I work hard to step away from it whenever I can. Unfortunately, I have known people (professional educators, not just students) who function under this model and their negativity and fear infects everyone else around them: "Don't make [the students] angry or they'll complain, and you'll be fired!" "Don't use progressive pedagogy because students don't like it [then they'll complain and you'll be fired!]" "Don't do anything that will call attention to what you do in the classroom because you need to 'stay under the radar' or you could be fired!" For someone without tenure, these are threatening statements. But some professionals? abide by them. When we, as professional educators, support the customer-service model, there is no wonder that students do, too.

It's a chicken/egg dichotomy: what came first in the customer service model of education? The complaining student or the unprofessional professional?

All that to say, though, that I agree with you. This just might need to be another post. ;-)

Oh, Abby! I love the notion of "dominant impression." I have used the idea in my teaching, but never with that phrase. I'm stealing it from you. :-)

It all starts at home. Values, morals and behavior start at home. I often think what we see in the classroom is a direct result of the lack of positive role model/s in the students life. It is also a reflection of the student's upbringing. In todays world, too often parents give into their child's every whim - giving them everything they want. I've also seen parents take the attitude "no not my child".