When Student E-Mail Attacks

The e-mail deluge starts long before the semester — I receive dozens upon dozens of e-mails at registration time, from students trying to register after a class has filled, asking me to let them into the filled class. Just replying no doesn’t always work, then they come back with a litany reasons why they should be admitted. Then there’s the e-mails about the exam study guides — where I list the general topics they need to be familiar with (all the info on those topics is found in the lectures and/or textbook). There are always some students each semester who request that fill out for each study guide topic all specific information that will be on the test and send that back right away via return e-mail. After all, it’s too much work to expect them to look those things up in their notes or the book!

Many arguably absurd inquiries, such as the examples provided above, can be nipped in the proverbial bud by employing advice once given to me by the late Steve Nock, and which I paraphrase several times every day in telling students that I won’t do something for one student that I can’t do for everyone – such as ignore the syllabus, re-invent a grading schema, provide extensions after deadlines have already passed, or provide new opportunities when the semester is already over. (Nock also suggested that I write shorter sentences, lol.)

I disagree deeply. My students, in my view, are the individuals I have the privilege to work with, and, indeed, they are the reason I have this wonderful way to be in the world. I give my students first priority in answering emails, and if anyone writes inappropriately, it just takes a sentence to let them know that, and why. Set the parameters, and enjoy them. It’s a joy to teach.

Some email systems (like Google) have standard responses that you can choose from for common questions, so that saying the same thing doesn’t have to be so tedious. I’m with alan_kors — I like my students as individuals. College is about socialization as much as anything else. One needs to model what one expects.

Another idea: make it clear to the student services/advising/orientation personnel that learning how and when to contact faculty will have a huge effect on their success as students. This is a skill like any other which our simultaneously spoiled but ignored students have never been taught in their families. (Remember the old days when the young were expected to hang around with adults and learn their ways?)

When dealing with student email, I try to put myself in their place. How do I feel when I send an email to someone that is ignored? I would prefer to be told that they couldn’t answer my question or even that my inquiry is inappropriate than to send something off into the ether and never get a reply. I have no hesitation in telling students that their request is inappropriate, that the answer to their question is in the syllabus/on the webite/was dealt with in class (get someone’s notes) and that I will not answer it again. I try to do this in the kindest way possible since perhaps one of the things they will learn in my class are things like respecting the time of others. Why should I “punish” them by ignoring them or treating them like the enemy? I can’t tell you how many times a student has responded to me that they were astonished to get a reply from me because so many of my colleagues never answer email (including, I might add, email from their colleagues!!).The question then is how to keep email from taking over your life. As others here have commented, you set boundaries, be clear about what you will and won’t do — and then do it. I would say, though, that if you are not going to look at email on weekends (which I agree with), then maybe having a paper due or a test scheduled for a Monday morning isn’t the greatest idea. Honestly, with very few exceptions, students just wait for your answer, they don’t keep bugging you (“I sent you an email half an hour ago and still haven’t received a reply”) and for those who do, I merely let them know when I do answer them that their constant emails are unnecessary and should cease. If students trust you that they will get a reply, then most of that kind of activity will stop. Remember, you are not being unreasonable to tell students that you do not answer email after “X” time in the evening or that once you go home you are with your dog/cat/family and don’t do email. Email is a pretty passive form of communication and, honestly, you get to choose when you respond to it. To my colleagues who don’t come to work but 2 days a week because they are (supposedly) doing reseach, you lot might want to consider answering email for at least a while during the day on those days you refuse to show up on campus. And finally, thank you #9. I am so tired of faculty “mothers and fathers” who seem to think that whatever the issue is, they are uniquely and specially affected. I know the protesters will weigh in with reasons why they are sooooo special and their work lives are sooooo hard and why I am sooooo mean and why my work and my life are not only easy but really insignificant/unimportant/selfish in contrast to theirs and their chosen role as parents, but increasingly it seems like every single aspect of our jobs conflicts with their family life. In their heart of hearts, they seem to want the university to send them a check for 18 years in return for very little return effort at all.

I’ve been encouraging students to use email since the early eighties, and I am completely astonished that anybody feels persecuted by a flood of email. I don’t deal with email except during my normal work hours, and I feel no obligation to respond instantly (the whole point of email is that it’s asynchronic). I do know that I’ve regularly heard people complain about “floods” of email from listservs that actually produce a dozen messages a week. I guess different people have different ideas about what constitutes an inundation. Put a note in the syllabus about expectations regarding email, and be done with it.

Hey #13, your kids might be paying for my Social Security, but my taxes pay for loads of things (schools, parks, ballfields, etc) that I get very little personal benefit from but which you and your spawn use. I don’t get your tax benefits, esp. since in many areas of the country (even in recession) single faculty members have a hard time buying a house (there goes the mortgage deduction).Mason’s original post (to which this one is sort of a followup) somehow took this generic issue and implied it was an especially difficult problem for “facutly mothers and fathers”. Every person in Mason’s essay was identified by their parental status and the profusion of email was blamed for getting in the way of family life and one more thing that needed to be done after the kids went to bed. So for those of us w/o kids who innocently clicked on yesterday’s piece thinking we’d learn something about how other faculty deal with this problem, we got hit with yet another discussion of special problems of academics with kids. If you don’t have children, this aspect of the article really did just hit you in the face. So rather than attack #9 and me, why try and hear what those of us who feel increasingly excluded from any discussion of faculty life or work/life balance issues are trying to say?

Maybe it was the era, or perhaps it was the position I held, but for me, the greatest distraction caused by email came from silly messages sent by faculty – not students.

For me it’s simple, when I go home I go home, I don’t look at work email away from work. This (decision) has nothing to do with enjoying students or not (I do), it has to do with allowing myself to have a separate life from my profession. What part of our job description (teach-research-service) requires me to always be “on”?

I have to laugh at all the childless, offended posters. You seriously don’t get it. Most of us parents (especially of very young children) NEVER have the luxury of “the gym,” “social life,” or relaxing. I waited until I was 32 before I had my first child and holy crap it changed absolutely everything. I looked back in amazement at my pre-child days and realized just how easy I had it. What a self centered person I was to actually think I was ever busy. Sure, I might have a busy day but then if I wanted I could just relax that night and recover. As parents, we NEVER have that luxury. Day in, day out it’s the same thing. We work our ass off all day and then come home and work our ass off all night. Please spare me your self indignant rant. Until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes…

1. I have a clearly stated email policy in the syllabus, including appropriate salutations and closings, appropriate language (including grammar and spelling), and the fact that I can take up to 24 hours to respond. I also state that I will not respond to “what did I miss in class,” and I make everyone exchange phone numbers and email addresses with two other students on the first day. This doesn’t always work, but it helps. I may change my time-frame to 24 hours AND I will only respond during working hours.2. I find giving a syllabus quiz useful to help me enforce my email policy and the rest of the policies in my syllabus. It generally counts toward the overall homework/quiz grade. I always include questions about email policies, attendance policies, and late work. I am thinking about making them retake it if they bomb the quiz.3. To #12, who is so concerned about tests and assignments scheduled on Monday if the professor isn’t going to answer email over the weekend, and anyone else who thinks that the students CAN’T POSSIBLY SURVIVE without our email responses, how on EARTH did we do things 15 years ago? How on EARTH did we do things 10 or 8 years ago? Before email was so ubiquitous, I seem to remember students had to speak with faculty and TAs just before or after class, ask questions in class, or go to office hours. Heaven forbid they have to step outside their dorms, walk across campus, and speak with their instructors in person.4. With #3 in mind, I am considering taking on a more Luddite policy. I’m thinking about either a) restricting emails to arranging disability accommodations (after we’ve already had the beginning of the semester meeting in my office), informing me of absences because I like to know students are thinking about class, and arranging meetings outside office hours OR b) doing away with email entirely. We’ll go back to doing things the way my mother did them. I’ll expand my office hours to make up for the loss of email, but I will only be available just before class, during class, just after class, and during office hours. It’ll be a Little House on the Prairie approach. Or a “I trudged up the hill both ways in the snow barefoot” approach. It will make them see that life can be done without email (and perhaps remind me of the same).If I go with a #4 option, I probably won’t go too extreme. I think, however, that making them come see me for questions will encourage independent thinking and a greater rapport between us. I think they can learn more if they come to see me. I may have to be a little more lenient on grading whether they follow the directions, but I think this could be a very useful and instructive experiment.5. I get that having children makes people very busy. It’s also, I understand, very fulfilling. All those things single people do when they’re not taking care of children are done to find fulfillment outside of work as well, particularly seeking out friendships. Many single people become very dependent on their “urban families,” because we all need human contact, whether we choose to have children or not (or haven’t had the opportunity yet).While I respect people’s choice to have children, academics or not, it is very easy as a single person to feel overlooked by society and institutions. It’s not an issue of one type of person being rewarded and another not. It’s an issue of fairness. For a period of my life I was living just above the poverty line and without health insurance. If I had a child, I would have qualified for multiple government programs to cover my healthcare. Because I was single and childless, I had no support and ended up with a serious illness and no coverage. This is just one example of how childless people are often left out in the cold. Yes, people with children struggle. But people without do as well, and that needs to be acknowledged.

I am rarely surprised or shocked by anything I see online anymore. From incredulous, whiny emails from undergrads to behavior in online forums, I have come to the conclusion that generally, people come off much worse online or in email than they do in person. What is shocking, I think is how quickly the discussion here in the comments not only veered off topic, but also turned ugly. This was an article about inappropriate behavior in email communication. The sense that I got was that the authors really were attempting to get good advice and tips from readers as to how to handle the barrage of emails. Some of the advice that was posted was actually, quite good, I think (a tip of my hat to x1234 and ecantu). Instead, the discussions were hijacked by a discussion of the virtues of parenthood versus childlessness. Perhaps this is fitting, given that so many feel that their classes are being hijacked by the lazy, the whiny, the unprepared and the just plain thoughtless. Shouldn’t we be trying to model the behavior we’d like to see?

I agree with #18! I really can’t get too worked up about any of the relatively few inappropriate student e-mails I have received throughout the years. They pale in comparison to a series of truly vicious e-mail diatribes I received a few years ago from a faculty “colleague.” (And I should mention that this person copied the e-mails to the entire department and to some administrators. Of course, these messages actually made him, not me, look bad, but still, the whole episode was distasteful and difficult to deal with.)

Alan Kors at #6 said it. I teach 300-400 students a semester, encourage them to email first even if they would like to meet face-to-face, and get a lot of mail. It’s not increasing and it’s not a problem. It’s part of the job and a useful part because I can help them become better students by doing it. Many of them are unsophisticated; some of them are rude. These are not difficult things to fix. But none of their emails is silly.It seems to becoming a practice of CHE columnists to take a writing shortcut by using fora posts. Prof. Pennywise did the same thing this week.

I find most e-mails I receive from students to be legitimate or at least sincere, though often ill-timed. I do try to answer e-mails if I can do so briefly, or respond with a request that the student visit me in an office hour if it is a more complex issue.I like the #15 suggestion of teaching students how to communicate by e-mail, and I think I will try that, but I also have stock answers for those inappropriate questions that sometimes arise, sort of like FAQs. For example, in a case like the first example of a silly e-mail, I would write, “Hi, X, thanks for your message. As I pointed out on the first day of class, you are responsible for knowing and adhering to the policies on the syllabus. I’m happy to meet with you in person to discuss this, if you have further questions. My office hours are on the syllabus. See you [next class meeting]!” The student thus receives an answer to his/her message, but, I hope, also learns that 1) s/he is going to be held accountable, and 2) taking exception to a course policy is not a matter for e-mail (and in fact I say that in the syllabus). I actually have the body of this message on a document I can cut and paste into e-mail if I’m feeling especially indolent.If the student e-mails me again on the same issue, I don’t answer the e-mail, but I might call her/him aside after class and ask if s/he would like to come to my office hour, where there is a completely different dynamic.

#24 – I give a syllabus quiz as well, and my students hate me for it; that’s how I know it is effective. I also have a rule that for any emails, they have to be related to content or material. Any other questions can be answered using my (perhaps) over-structured and over-detailed syllabus. I actually like answering emails relating to the content of the course. *takes off nerd glasses*

Even deans at my school expect the same as the above students. As a tenured faculty person at a state institution there was no win. I was made to look as if I was an idiot if I did not make adjustment for students like this. The union and faculty senate did nothing. How do you survive such?

I hear so many people on here complaining about email. Ignoring your emails or refusing to use email altogether isn’t the answer. I don’t give my students rules for emailing me, any more than I would give them rules for asking me questions after class. The only thing I ask is that they give me 24 hours to respond. If they send me a ridiculous email, that’s an opportunity for me to teach them that their expectations are unreasonable. If I have a student who refuses to accept a decision, I simply tell them the matter is closed, and they can email the Associate Dean if they’re unhappy with me. Students don’t all come into college with the same understanding of what’s appropriate. It takes a simple email (or sometimes two) to set them on the right path. Previous posters have repeatedly mentioned that students survived just fine before email, so they should be fine now if you don’t respond to them. I respectfully disagree. Just because that’s the way things used to be doesn’t mean that it was better. Isn’t it a better learning experience for the student if they’re working on their paper on a Saturday afternoon, have a question about the criteria, email me, and receive a quick response so they can keep working? It’s better for me also, because I receive higher quality work; I spend less time correcting errors in papers because students can get their questions answered prior to turning them in. Students have lives outside of class too, and many of them aren’t able to attend the 3 hours when you might be sitting in your office. They also may not realize they have a question until they’re at home trying to work with the content independently. By using email, the students who need help can get it, and dealing with the ridiculous emails is a minor annoyance. If you manage your time well, then you can get all of your emails easily answered with a half hour at the beginning of the day and a half hour at the end, with one brief check-in on weekend days when a paper is due Monday. Is that such a sacrifice to make to improve the experience of your students? Like it or not, a big part of your job is to be a teacher, which means you owe your students a quality educational experience. You have to connect with your students where they are, and that means email.

For those of you with children who think you and you offspring are the center of the Universe, may I recommend:http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Boon-Family-Friendly-America-Childless/dp/0743242645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279848286&sr=8-1I personally am happy to pay property taxes for schools and parks. I’m an (elected) trustee of my local library, and a considerable amount of our time is spent on increasing access and outreach to children (many of which are dropped off or are told to make their way there as a cheap form of after-school “day care”).Can we get back to the thread, please?

I now refuse to accept email because “at risk” students who most needed to come to class or see me in the office tried to substitute email, and flunked out. I tell them, “I don’t accept email because I WANT to see you. I want to talk to you face to face.” I can evaluate someone and motivate someone if I can get them into the office. Watch for patterns like that. It may only be my working class university, with its older students, but I doubt it.

…or just learn to press the “delete” button…it is life-altering.just because it arrives in your in-box doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge every piece of electronic inanity sent to you…

Thank you providencepocket!!! Email from students should never be ignored unless the purpose is to ignore the student. Ignoring someome trivializes them and makes them feel meaningless. My role, even if they are begging or scamming, as I see and feel it is to be there to answer questions. Yes, a few take advantage. But, they can be dealt with without ignoring them. Email is another valuable tool.In teaching online classes at my college, communication is essential. In regular classes, it helps me to know that someone is ill and won’t be in class.I teach psychology and I have taught reading, so perhaps my perspective is different. Anything that involves my students in literacy is important.

My rule in all my classes is that e-mail questions with my responses go back out to the entire class. That avoids most too trivial or too self-indulgent communications. M. Murata (UC Irvine)