Philosophy
We had an all-faculty conversation about advising the other day and then I met with my in-coming first year advisees just after this post came out on Crooked Timber.
The post discusses gender and student expectations concerning student-faculty relationships.
Setting aside the quite legitimate questions about gender here, I am interested in the legitimacy of student expectations. While I may get less of it than, say, Aspazia, I do plenty (read LOTS) of personal councilling -- not psychological councelling, but the need advice about issues that are deeply personal or need someone I trust to talk to Uncle Steve type councilling. Is this part of my job? It is not in my job description, of course, but de facto, is this not part of what a professor does? Should I expect it and be open to it?
These are eighteen to twenty-one year olds, people who are confused about many things, opening their eyes for the first time to the world in many ways, under extreme pressure from a number of sources, on their own for the first time, of course, they are going to need someone they can talk to. The relationship between an advisor and an advisee is in some ways parental when it works correctly, no? My grad advisors have been wonderful in looking out for me when I was newly minted and I look with great pride and affection with advisees who have gone on to do wonderful things (including commenting on this blog).
Yet, should this be expected of the advisor? Is it really part of the job? Anyone who knows academics is surely aware that we are not necessarily the most, how shall I put this, the most socially adept group of humans on the planet.
What is the role of a prof in this way? How involved should you be willing to be in terms of the lives of your students beyond your classroom?
- Yale Sex Ban
Yale University has banned all romantic and sexual contact between faculty and undergraduate students. It had previously been in place that it was unacceptable between any faculty member and any student where there was ?direct pedagogical or supervisory...
- Gender And Grades
Last week I was a teacher. Next week I will be a philosopher. This week I am a professional grader. So, a grade question. Why are women better students? Not a universal claim, but on average my female students are better than my male students. A friend...
- That's Professor Steveg, To You...or Not
I teach critical thinking to a middle school class and the teacher has the students call me Dr. Gimbel. I've had my Ph.D. for almost a decade now, but it still sounds funny to my ear. Part of that is the fact that at work, my students all call me...
- How Do You Change A Culture?
A wonderful piece over at Mad Melancholic Feminista the other day wherein Aspazia argues for the value of female only colleges. Her significant other is a biology prof at an all-female institution and Spaz was marvelling at an assignment his students...
- Let's Get Clinical: Why Lefty Profs Get Scientific When They Talk About, You Know, Inserting Anatomical Tab A Into Potentially Reproductive Slot B
My dear friend Aspazia at Mad Melancholic Feminista, as she so often does, asked a very interesting question, "when lefties talk about sex with students, even the administrators, they tend to design that conversation around sharing statistical or biological...
Philosophy
In Loco Parentis or Just Plain Loco?
We had an all-faculty conversation about advising the other day and then I met with my in-coming first year advisees just after this post came out on Crooked Timber.
The post discusses gender and student expectations concerning student-faculty relationships.
students demand much more emotional work from female professors than they do of male profs. If the women don?t provide it, they are often viewed as cold bitchy profs that don?t care about students. Although I don?t know of any systematic studies of what types of topics students bring up during interactions with professors by gender, I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that female profs get approached much more by students wanting to talk about life issues than male profs.
Setting aside the quite legitimate questions about gender here, I am interested in the legitimacy of student expectations. While I may get less of it than, say, Aspazia, I do plenty (read LOTS) of personal councilling -- not psychological councelling, but the need advice about issues that are deeply personal or need someone I trust to talk to Uncle Steve type councilling. Is this part of my job? It is not in my job description, of course, but de facto, is this not part of what a professor does? Should I expect it and be open to it?
These are eighteen to twenty-one year olds, people who are confused about many things, opening their eyes for the first time to the world in many ways, under extreme pressure from a number of sources, on their own for the first time, of course, they are going to need someone they can talk to. The relationship between an advisor and an advisee is in some ways parental when it works correctly, no? My grad advisors have been wonderful in looking out for me when I was newly minted and I look with great pride and affection with advisees who have gone on to do wonderful things (including commenting on this blog).
Yet, should this be expected of the advisor? Is it really part of the job? Anyone who knows academics is surely aware that we are not necessarily the most, how shall I put this, the most socially adept group of humans on the planet.
What is the role of a prof in this way? How involved should you be willing to be in terms of the lives of your students beyond your classroom?
- Yale Sex Ban
Yale University has banned all romantic and sexual contact between faculty and undergraduate students. It had previously been in place that it was unacceptable between any faculty member and any student where there was ?direct pedagogical or supervisory...
- Gender And Grades
Last week I was a teacher. Next week I will be a philosopher. This week I am a professional grader. So, a grade question. Why are women better students? Not a universal claim, but on average my female students are better than my male students. A friend...
- That's Professor Steveg, To You...or Not
I teach critical thinking to a middle school class and the teacher has the students call me Dr. Gimbel. I've had my Ph.D. for almost a decade now, but it still sounds funny to my ear. Part of that is the fact that at work, my students all call me...
- How Do You Change A Culture?
A wonderful piece over at Mad Melancholic Feminista the other day wherein Aspazia argues for the value of female only colleges. Her significant other is a biology prof at an all-female institution and Spaz was marvelling at an assignment his students...
- Let's Get Clinical: Why Lefty Profs Get Scientific When They Talk About, You Know, Inserting Anatomical Tab A Into Potentially Reproductive Slot B
My dear friend Aspazia at Mad Melancholic Feminista, as she so often does, asked a very interesting question, "when lefties talk about sex with students, even the administrators, they tend to design that conversation around sharing statistical or biological...