Yes, I get the same feelings. What is more annoying to me than the
students' expectations are the administration's explicit concurrence
that we as faculty should act as "customer service representatives".
Here at Utica College, it's palpable!
On Jun 14, 2007, at 9:58 AM, Bourgeois, Dr. Martin wrote:
Well, it's the end of another summer term, which has gotten me
thinking about course evaluations. In looking at my own and those of
others, both the official ones and those on ratemyprofessor.com, I've
come to believe that one of the most important dimensions for
students, maybe THE most important, is one's availability to students.
I believe that I get more comments, positive and negative, related to
this than I do those related to my lecture style, expertise, and
fairness put together. And in thinking back, I believe it's a fairly
recent phenomenon. As an undergrad, I couldn't imagine assuming that
one of my profs would respond in a timely manner to unsolicted, vague
requests such as 'I missed class today, did I miss anything
important?'- in fact, I couldn't imagine ever asking such a thing. Yet
my inbox is constantly full of such requests, and if I don't respond
within 24 hours (which I often don't), I believe that my course evals
suffer for it. And it's making me wonder if I should put responding to
these requests ahead of other endeavors, such as research and service.
I'm feeling less like a professor and more like a customer service
representative these days (and one who's not doing his job
adequately). I'd be curious to hear if others are experiencing similar
feelings.
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========================================================
Steven M. Specht, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Utica College
Utica, NY 13502
(315) 792-3171
"Mice may be called large or small, and so may elephants, and it is
quite understandable when someone says it was a large mouse that ran up
the trunk of a small elephant" (S. S. Stevens, 1958)
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